One of the
best-kept “secrets” for creating incremental traffic to online retail
sites is actually Google Shopping. Not only is this traffic “free,” but
the conversion rates are often higher than the more widely used
channels.
Historically, it has been quite difficult to get Google Shopping set
up, and it was almost certain that you’d need to hire a company that
specializes in running shopping feed programs. While I still highly
recommend seeking out experts with specialized experience here, it is
actually quite possible to begin this process on your own. Here’s how:
First, you will need to open a Google Merchant account within Google.
If you already have a company Google Adwords account you use, I would
use the same login credentials to open the Google Merchant Account to
keep your accounts and management process streamlined.
Once you set up your account, you will need to verify and claim your
url, create your product data automated feed and launch the store.
Here is some in-depth information on how you can
set up your Google Merchant Store.
Once you are running a Google Shopping program on your own or through
a provider, there are some great opportunities available for
advertisers that are on Google Adwords and are also running Google
Shopping.
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping allows you to submit your products for inclusion in their search results under the "shopping" search results. People searcching in google for a product can use google shopping results to search for specific products and order by price and other criteria.
Additional paid options for Google Shopping....
Google Product Extensions
Product Extensions are an excellent way to enhance your existing
AdWords ads. It’s a great tool to increase click through rates and drive
more sales.
Product Extensions are based on your product feed. They will show in a
plus box under your regular text ad on the search results when the
search query typed in by the user is related to one or more products on
your Google Merchant Center account.
This is a core reason to keep your product feed updated with as much
information as possible about your products. The more complete and
updated your feed is, the higher the chances your Product Extensions
will display with your text ad.
Just like a normal text ad, your Product Extensions ads are also
charged on a CPC basis, which means you will pay the same price per
click regardless if the user clicks on your text ad or on one of your
Product Extensions.
You can track Product Extension metrics on a campaign level through
your AdWords interface. Here, you can view impressions, clicks, CTR,
cost, AVG position, conversions etc. You can also track Product
Extensions revenue using Google Analytics, but you will need to add a
unique tracking code to your destination URL on the product feed. This
way, you can identify revenue that came from clicks to your Product
Extensions versus your text ads.
Setting up Product Extensions on your AdWords account is quite
simple. Once you have your product feed uploaded to your Google Merchant
Account center, just click on a campaign and click on the “Ad
Extensions” tab. Once there, just select the “New Extension” button and
choose your product feed.
Keep in mind that if you are running Site-Link Extensions
simultaneously for the same campaign, your Site-Link Extensions are more
likely to show than your Product Extensions as they have a higher
priority in terms of extensions rankings. Sometimes both extensions will
display at the same time but it doesn’t occur very often.
So, if you really plan on gathering accurate data from testing
Product Extensions, make sure you disable all other extensions for that
campaign.
PLA’s – Product Listing Ads
Product Listing Ads campaigns are fairly easy to set up, and you can
manage them through your Adwords interface or Adwords Editor just like
any other campaign. PLA campaigns, unlike your normal text ad campaigns,
are not keyword-based. Google will choose to show your ads based on the
quality and relevance of your product feed.
This means you want to make sure your product feed includes as many
details as possible about your products, such as product name,
description, color, size, images, price, etc. Make sure that your
destination URLs are updated constantly and are taking your customers to
the correct product page.
Even though your PLA campaigns are not keyword-based, it’s important
to understand how different products and categories are performing. The
best way to do this is to split your campaign into Ad Groups. One best
practice to employ when creating Ad Groups to your PLA campaign is to
separate them according to the product labels column on your product
feed. This will allow you to easily manage your bids and ads.
To set up the Ad Groups with the product labels, just click on one of
the Ad Groups and go to your “Auto targets” tab on AdWords. Once you’re
there, you will want to click on the “Add product target” button and
select “Add a group of products.”
From the combo box below, you will choose “adwords label” and on the
input box just type the name of the label. Click on validate, and a
green check sign should appear. That means your label is set correctly.
Now, just repeat the process for all of your Ad Groups. If you get an
error message saying that your label is not validating, it could be
that you have your product label name typed incorrectly or that you have
too recently uploaded your product feed. It often takes up to 48 hours
for a new feed to be available to validate your labels.
Now that you have your campaign set up and ad groups in place and
validated, you must also create Ads for your PLA campaigns. PLA ads are a
bit different from your regular text ad copy.
A PLA ad consists of a single line and only allows up to 45
characters. So you want to make sure you create a very concise and
direct message. If you offer free shipping or some type of discount,
make sure you state that on your ad. You can also run multiple ads per
ad group.
Here is an example of PLA ads for “joules sherpa hat”
As you employ these tactics, continually test messaging and visuals
to determine what works best for your brand and products within the
Google Shopping arena. I hope to have demystified this rather
easy-to-deploy channel, as it is a prime opportunity for incremental
traffic and competitive leadership in the search space.
Do you have any Google Shopping “secrets” of your own? Please do
reach out and let me know what is working for you, or where you’d like
to see guidance in future columns.
How can Easitill Help?
Easitill have created a Google Shopping feed data file which can be exported from Easitill and picked up by your Google Merchant account and submitted by you to be part of the Google Shopping results.
We charge £125 one off setup fee for this assistance. Please contact us on 01604 881881 to arrange.
UPDATE - March 2013
Please note that due to changes in Google, Google Shopping data feed submission and listing is now no longer free as it once was. It is still a powerful source of driving traffic so worth while.