If you are already advertising through AdWords, Google Shopping ads should be an easy addition to your e-commerce marketing arsenal. These ads are highly effective on two fronts. Firstly, they have a higher conversion rate than simple text ads. Secondly, they provide increased product visibility across a broad network. These ads work because they include rich media – product information, product image, price, merchant name, etc. – and are cleverly placed in front of shoppers with a high potential to convert. But, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a step back to understand precisely what shopping ads are, how to set them up why using them makes good business sense.
What Are Shopping Ads?
Google Shopping ads are displayed (typically above or to the right of text ads, depending on the device used) specifically when a user searches for a particular product, for example, “sneakers”. These ads show up with a clear image and three important pieces of information: product name, price and merchant info. Some also feature unique selling propositions or special offers, such as the product’s average star rating by customers or a strong call-to-action (CTA) like “free shipping”.
How to Create Shopping Ads
Firstly, you need to go into your Google Merchant Center account and upload your product feed. From here on in, everything is run via Google AdWords. You can advertise in two different ways: Product Shopping ads and Showcase Shopping ads. Let’s look at the differences between them.
Product Shopping Ads –
Like a standard text ad, these are charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis; meaning you only pay when someone clicks on them. As mentioned above, these ads feature a display image, title, price, name of your business and some additional enhancements, such as special offers.
Showcase Shopping Ads –
If you wanted to group related products, you could do this, but such ads are charged on a “cost per engagement” (CPE) basis. More specifically, you’ll be charged each time someone expands your ad and clicks on a product within the showcase.
The crucial thing you need to keep in mind is that unlike text ads, the placement of Google Shopping ads is not determined by keywords. Instead, Google chooses which ads to show by matching relevant search queries with the product data you supplied in the Merchant Center.
Why You Need Shopping Ads
And lastly, let’s discuss three ways in which Google Shopping ads can work for your business.
1] Eye-Catching –
Let’s be honest, in today’s hectic world we don’t always have time to read. That’s why visually appealing images are so effective. These eye-catching ads are great at grabbing the attention of busy scrollers. With a quick scan, readers can see all the pertinent info: product, price, brand.
2] Brand Boosting –
Plan smart and get twice the coverage. You can use Google to show ads for relevant keywords in Google Shopping and text ads at the same time. That’s right; you can appear two times in search results for the same query. You are effectively doubling your chances of being clicked on and enhancing your brand awareness.
3] Highly Converting –
As shoppers already know the basics (item, price, brand) of a product before clicking on an advert, those that do click have higher conversion rates as they are not merely browsing. Recent data shows that Google Shopping ads have 21% and 30% higher conversion rates than non-brand text ads on mobile and desktop, respectively.
