Since their birth in 2010, Google Shopping ads have become a crucial part of successful Ecommerce marketing.

In fact, in 2018, Shopping ads accounted for 76% of all retailers Google Search ad clicks and 85% of non-brand clicks.

Nevertheless, many online retailers are yet to take advantage of this opportunity.

So if you need convincing, read on.

What is Google Shopping?

Google Shopping campaigns provide retailers with the opportunity to promote their online inventory and boost traffic to their online or offline shops.

Unlike ordinary search ads, Shopping ads show searchers an image of an exact product along with other key details such as a title, price, promotion and more.

By linking your product feed (a list of all your products) to Google Merchant Centre, you can create ads that will be shown across the web where potential customers will see them.

Your product feed will contain qualifying information about your products like their product ID, price, size, description and so on. This is so when your ads are shown, there is as much key information about the product as possible for your user to view before they have to visit your website.

Furthermore, the information in your feed will allow Google to match your ads to the most relevant searches.

Unlike search campaigns, you don’t need to bid on keywords. Instead, Google reads the information about your product and uses it to place your ads in the results for queries that it interprets as most relevant.

You can advertise your products using 2 main types of Shopping ads:

Product Shopping ads

These are created based on the product data that you submit via the Merchant Centre and appear to searchers as an image of your product and key information. These are the ‘bog standard’ shopping ads that promote single products.

Showcase Shopping ads

These ads group together related products and allow users to compare multiple items so they can pick the one that’s right for them. This might work well if you are selling slightly various models of the same product.

So how are you charged for Google Shopping ads?

Like search ads, Shopping ads are part of the auction process. However, the way you are charged depends on the type of ad you are opting for.

Product Shopping ads are charged according to the Cost Per Click (CPC), meaning you are charged when someone clicks on your ad and moves through to your landing page.

Showcase Shopping ads are charged according to the Cost Per Engagement (CPE), meaning you are charged when someone expands the collapsed version of the ad and keeps it open for 10 seconds or more, or clicks.

The cost system for Google Shopping campaigns highlights a key benefit in that it minimises the risk of paying for irrelevant and unqualified traffic.

Where will your Shopping ads appear?

Google Shopping ads can appear in a variety of places including…

The shopping tab on Google Search
Next to the text ads in the SERPs
In Google Images
Google Search Partner websites (if you have configured this in your campaign settings)
Across the Google Display Network which includes YouTube and Gmail.

So, now that we’ve given you a little background on what Google Shopping is and how it all works, let’s get into the reasons why you need to include this as part of your marketing strategy.

Why should you be advertising on Google Shopping?

Better qualified leads

This is arguably the strongest benefit of using Google Shopping ads.

Due to the nature of the ad format, Shopping ads increase the quality of your leads by exhibiting information in your ads that you wouldn’t be able to include in, let’s say, regular text ads.

With text ads, you’re not only expected to appeal to your consumer in a limited character count but you are also expected to attract leads that are of relevance.

Shopping ads present users with a clear and comparatively extensive amount of information about the product they are looking at, meaning if they click on your ad (and you get charged) it’s very likely that they have a significant interest in your product or that they are going to convert.

Which leads us onto the second major benefit.

Higher conversion rates

Due to the amount of information in Shopping ads, the entire user journey is streamlined.

Although you can give your text ads specific landing pages, it’s unlikely that they will lead users to specific products. Rather, they lead users to your website which they then have to navigate to find a product that they may or may not be interested in purchasing.

With Google Shopping, the user is taken straight to the product that they have already seen and expressed an interest in. In fact, conversion rates are 30% higher for Shopping ads than any other ad type.

Remember, people have a short attention span and can be easily put off, so a streamlined process from ad to purchase is invaluable.

Simplified campaign management

Shopping campaigns are beneficial not only for potential customers but also for the retailers themselves.

It’s quite typical for retailers to have varying sales goals across their products and Google Shopping allows you to tailor your campaigns to support those varying goals.

When you’re creating your campaigns, you can group together the items that you want to bid on in individual campaigns. This gives you increased control over what you’re spending in regards to generating traffic for specific products.

You can also prioritise your campaigns, which means that if a search triggers multiple products from your feed, you can show the products that are most profitable.

Clever, right?

Broader presence online

Another huge benefit of Google Shopping ads is the extent to which they can occupy space in the SERPs.

Not only can more than one of your Shopping ads appear at one time for a given search but they can also appear in conjunction with your text ads.

This means that just by expanding your strategy to include Google Shopping your chances of appearing for a single search could double – if that’s not enough to convince you, we don’t know what will be.

Reports & competitive data

Google Shopping campaigns provide reporting that is extremely granular.

You can use the Predefined Reports tool to find out which day of the week your ads perform best on, which locations and even how many clicks a particular product or brand is getting.

By using this data, you are able to optimise your campaigns toward specific goals.

And even more importantly, you can establish benchmarks for results across your competitive landscape so ensure that you are up there with your top competitors.

All in all…

Google Shopping is pretty incredible and one of the fastest-growing aspects of Google Advertising in recent years.

In fact, its spend grew by 41% from the previous year in the first three months of 2019. And, we don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.

It’s a really simple and effective way to offer a streamlined journey to potential customers, ensure that your products are being seen and drive quality leads to your website.