Google Shopping is a service which enables online consumers to find products and compare by price using Google’s search functionality. It used to be known as Google Product Search and it’s a great opportunity for smaller businesses with sufficient budgets to go up against the bigger name brands and compete in terms of price and customer service.

As a merchant you can upload a feed of your products into a Google Merchant centre account, which enables pictures and ad copy of your products to appear in search engine result pages as product listing ads, alongside paid text ads and organic results.

With richer product listing ads i.e. compelling imagery and ad copy, you’ll be able to offer potential customers a more engaging reason to click through to your website, resulting in a possible conversion. Do bear in mind that Google charges you every time a searcher clicks through to your store from a product listing ad.

However, there’s no doubt that product listing ads can heavily influence increased click-through rates to your website – providing you get them right!

All you need to get started with a Google Shopping campaign are two things:

• A Google AdWords account
• A Google Merchant Centre account

Within the latter you will be required to upload your store and product data to make it visible to Google Shopping. A data feed will then need to be uploaded into the Merchant Centre combining every single product you want to sell through your Shopping account. This can either be submitted in text or XML format and enables you to include product attributes such as size, colour, price and availability.

Once your website has been verified within the Merchant Centre you can then link this account to your active AdWords account.

In some ways, yes. Similar to a search text ad campaign, with a Google Shopping campaign you are in complete control over your cost-per-click (CPC) i.e. what you want to pay for a consumer to click-through to your store. It’s also possible to set daily budgets and even schedule their visibility for certain times of the day or night.

Here’s a working example:

You run a shoe shop and you’re looking to sell online for the first time in order to widen your customer net. You’ve managed to acquire a batch of pink sandals just in time for the summer – great job – the ladies will love them, but how do you ensure those ladies will even be aware of your new stock?

With product listing ads not only can you make shoppers aware with engaging ad copy, you can include attractive imagery too. It’s a great way of catching the interest of consumers without them even having to visit your website. And the chances are, if they then click through to your website they’re much more interested in making a transaction. In addition, by bidding on a mix of generic ‘sandals’ terms and colour-specific ‘pink sandals’ terms – it’s easier than ever to cast the net wider to consumers online.

It really is possible to generate a sizeable ROI. The nature of product listing ads – with imagery and engaging descriptions and straplines – we find many businesses experience higher click-through rates (CTR) than a more traditional PPC campaign.

Not only are you driving more traffic to your website, it is high-quality traffic too.

Unlike when a user clicks a paid text ad, with Google Shopping a consumer can see a great deal about your product before they even reach your site. So you can be confident that Google Shopping ads will lead to more conversions.

In terms of your budget, Google Shopping is surprisingly cost-effective too. The overall CPC tends to be lower than even a typical text ad for a competitive term.

If your business is keen to trial a Google Shopping campaign, at Biddable Solutions we can do all the leg work for you. Our experienced online advertising team can work with you to maintain an up-to-date product feed that gets your products in front of your target market when you need it most.

For more information, please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 01473 561002 or drop us a line using our simple online enquiry form.