Last Updated on 2020-10-12 by ppcguybklyn
Currently most of the articles in my blog are about search ads. But actually a lot of e-commerce businesses rely on shopping ads to be their main source of revenue. Although the core of shopping ads is still keyword matching and bidding, this type of ads is very different from search ads when it comes to creation and set up. It might get confusing if it’s your first time setting up shopping ads. This article I will introduce how Google Shopping Ads work, how to set up the ads and how to optimize them.
How Do Google Shopping Ads Work?
Google Shopping Ads will promote content based on the product feed the advertisers upload on Google Merchant Center. Google’s algorithm will match the content of the product feed with the search terms of the customers, then show the most relevant shopping ads on the search result pages and shopping pages. The shopping ads, just like search ads, use keywords and bidding prices to rank ads from different advertisers. The main component that shopping ads use to match with search terms are product titles and product descriptions. Google Shopping is not an ecommerce platform. After clicking on the shopping ads they are interested in, customers will be led to the set product landing pages. The conversions that happen after clicking on the ads will still be on the advertisers’ websites. It is the advertisers’ responsibilities to make sure the product info they upload to Google Merchant are inlined with Google’s policies, and make sure the product information on the landing pages are as abundant as possible. The preparation before running Google Shopping ads and how to optimize them once enable are the following:
Create a Google Merchant Center Account
Different from search ads, to run Shopping Ads we will have to create a Google Merchant account in addition to a Google Ads account. When creating the account Google Merchant will request to fill in basic information like company profile, targeting region and URL. After this we have to verify our website with Google Merchant and claim the URL. This step is not completed until Google verifies our URL claim.This articlehas detailed instructions on how this works.
One notable thing during this phase is that Google Merchant has some basic requirements for the website and if the requirements are not met the account could get suspended. These requirements include : the website must have clear checkout and payment methods and instructions and the website must have pages containing terms and conditions, return policies and privacy policies, etc. The details can be found inthis article. Before creating an account we must make sure our websites have this information. This could be done relatively quickly if we are using ecommerce platforms.
After creating the account and making sure the website meets the requirements, if the region we are selling products and serving ads in needs to list tax and shipping info, remember to add them into the account so that the shopping ads can be enabled. Also don’t forget to link the Google Ads account and the Google Merchant account as the final step of account set up.
Create product feed
Once the account creation and set up are completed, we can start working on building the product feed that will be used to serve our ads. Product feeds are the info about our products we provide to Google Merchant. Every attribute in the product feed must be named in specific ways so that Google can read the feed. Some attributes only support specific values and unsupported values will make the data unreadable. There’re a few ways we could use to create and upload our product feed:
- Uploading files:Create the product feed as files, then upload the file to Google Merchant through SFTP, FTP, Google Cloud Storage or manually upload.
- Use the Google Sheet function in Google Merchant:Use this function to directly create a product feed in Google Merchant. All of the edits can be done on the Google Sheet.
- Use API or Feed Management Tools:If the number of products is really large and the data is complicated, we could consider using a third-party API or management tool to update product feed to Google Merchant.
For more info regarding the required and optional attributes for Google Shopping, check outthis article.
How do Feed Management Tools Work
We mentioned above that we could use third-party management tools to help use upload and manage our product feeds. These tools usually ask as the bridge between the original product feed files and Google Merchant Center. The tools will match the attributes on the original files and convert them into the ones that meet Google’s requirement before uploading the feeds to Merchant Center. This kind of tool usually partners with ecommerce platforms so if we are building our websites on one of these platforms, we could directly integrate the product information in our stores to the management tools by following their instructions. Another thing that feed management tools can do is convert the product info into feeds that could be used in other advertising platforms, such as Facebook Ads. The only downside to these tools is that they are usually not cheap so we must consider thoroughly whether the cost is justifiable.
The following are some feed management tools that I most frequently use:
How to optimize shopping ads?
When the product feed is completed, uploaded to Google Merchant and approved, we can start running shopping ads. Here’re 3 good ways to optimize our shopping ads:
- Adjust bidding prices
Same as search ads, shopping ads also compare bidding prices with competitors. Therefore, how to find the balance point between exposure and cost is extremely important. A general rule is to raise bidding prices on better performing products and decrease bidding prices on worse performing products. Of course the actual situation will depend on product types and ad performances, but adjusting bidding prices periodically is definitely a must.
- Edit product titles and descriptions
Shopping ads will match the content of product titles and product descriptions with the search terms of the target audience. So if the ads underperform, like having low CTR, we should try editing the product titles and descriptions to make them to be more close to the search terms from our potential buyers. Note that don’t make the titles and descriptions too broad so that we could avoid irrelevant traffic.
- Categorize the products with custom labels
One of the attributes in product feed that is provided is custom labels, which allow us to customize the product categories. If we have a large amount of products, we could consider using this function to divide the products into different categories. This way we could not only know the performances of different product categories, but also make our shopping ads more organized by setting different bidding prices for different categories.
Smart Shopping Ads
To save the time and energy of the advertisers, Google Ads released smart shopping ads. The biggest feature of this type of ads is that everything in the shopping ads, such as keyword matching and bidding, can be done completely by Google Ads’s algorithm once the product feeds are uploaded and approved. If we have a small product pool and we want to save the time of micromanaging the details in the shopping ads and concentrate on other tasks that can boost conversion rate, such as optimizing landing pages and updating product info, we could consider using smart shopping ads. Smart shopping also allows categorizing products with custom labels so that Google’s algorithm can be more efficient. Of course smart shopping is not the solution to everything, we still need to focus on important things like traffic quality, search terms and conversion funnels to ensure the progress and growth of our ads.
Conclusion
Without experience of running ads for ecommerce platforms, shopping ads can definitely be the most unfamiliar part of Google Ads for a lot of advertisers. We cannot give up on the opportunities of this kind of ads just because we are not familiar with it. Understanding how shopping ads work and how to optimize them and be willing to try all kinds of methods that can boost conversion rate after thorough preparation and research, is the most direct and most effective mindset when facing shopping ads.
