Add to Cart or Check Out: Discover How Google Shopping Ads Work

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Add to Cart or Check Out?

These are familiar terms all of us across the world understood greatly, especially if it involves purchasing stuff online. 

Online shopping instantly became part of our daily lives. Either by convenience or the situation. But regardless of how often you use it, one can agree that it is the best route digital marketers or entrepreneurs are taking right now to advertise their products and services. 

With so many online stores, like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and now, Google Shopping everything comes in one click. Our article will focus on Google Shopping –  how it works and what makes it different from other online shopping marketplaces. 

What Is Google Shopping?

offline store

Google Shopping enables customers to look up, evaluate, and purchase actual goods from a variety of sellers who have paid to advertise their goods.

Don’t confuse it with the Comparison Shopping Engine (CSE) as they are the same. 

It was initially called Froogle during its 2002 launch. The goal of it was to index product information based on specific search criteria. 

Later in 2012, the platform switched to a paid advertising model and had retailers pay for their businesses to be included in the Google Shopping search results. 

What Are Google Shopping Ads?

Google signage

Google Ads is an advertisement that specifically covers detailed information about the product you are selling or offering your audiences.

Google Shopping Ads are referred also to as product listing ads or PLAs. You know what, they no longer exclusively show up in Google’s default search results. 

The Shopping tab, search partner websites, price comparison Shopping services and iOS and Android applications, as well as YouTube and the Google Display Network, display them.

What will happen if someone clicks my ads on Google?

If a user clicks on your Ad, they will be directed to your website as no products are offered to customers directly through Google Shopping.

To create Shopping ads, you’ll set up your product information in Google Merchant Center and create Shopping campaigns in Google Ads.

How Does Google Shopping Work?

3 teenagers checking google shopping ads

To understand how this works, we must know the platforms it supports – Google Ads and Google Merchant Centre.

Google Ads

To acquire a spot for their ads on Google’s search results, advertisers can use Google Ads, previously known as AdWords, a platform for online advertising.

This Google service tool intends to help you to set a budget, manage bids, analyse campaign data, and optimise your marketing efforts. It can also be used to save shopping campaigns.

Google Merchant Centre

Google Merchant Center is a digital tool that you can use to publish and update your product feed, which is essential details about your products formatted by Google.

Google Shopping does not offer things for sale directly from its website, in contrast to online marketplaces. 

Instead, they advertise products offered by online merchants through pop-up adverts that appear whenever a related or comparable product is searched for.

The good thing is that Google Shopping always has access to the most recent prices, sales, deals, and product availability because of this information’s regular updating. 

Thus, you can ensure that they produce accurate advertisements for your goods.

Another thing we must know is what Google Shopping offers us:

Customer Information

When you use Google Shopping, you browse goods from retailers and marketers that have decided to highlight their goods there.

Offers on Google Shopping are ranked according to relevancy.

When an offer is marked as “Sponsored,” Google may get compensation from the advertiser, which could affect how the items are sorted and organised. When someone clicks on these adverts, Google gets paid.

Google gets a cut of every sale made through Buy on Google offers that show up on Google Shopping.

Product Information

When retailers and marketers list their products on Google Shopping, they are engaging in business.

The Google Shopping guidelines, which outline what can and cannot be listed on Google Shopping, must be followed. If you are unsure on how to do it, you can always consult with digital marketing agency that provide google ads management services.

Items that don’t follow these rules will be removed from Google Shopping and sellers who do so risk suspension.

Reviews

Through its Google Customer Reviews programme to aid in your product research, Google compiles reviews. These reviews are entirely optional, and they don’t pay reviewers anything in exchange for their contributions.

This Google service gathers feedback from vendors, sponsors, and independent reviewers. They must publish all reviews, positive and negative, and they could have paid reviewers to share their thoughts.

As you know that Google ensures valuable information only for their users, which means before these evaluations appear on Google Shopping an automated algorithm filters and remove spammy or offensive language. 

Purchasing

When you discover a product on Google Shopping that piques your attention, the item’s price and any associated taxes are displayed.

Clicking on a product will take you to the seller’s website where you can make a purchase, except for Buy on Google deals.

It is wise to check the final cost on the seller’s website as shipping fees can vary based on the destination, shipping method, and seller. Details about any applicable insurance or warranties are indicated on the seller’s website.

You should know by now that each vendor is in charge of their customer service. 

How Do You Set up Google Shopping Ads?

Before using any Google Shopping programme, check this out:

First, register for a Merchant Center account. The heart of Google Shopping is the Merchant Center. You can add and manage products here, as well as set up tools and programmes and monitor product performance.

Second, provide the basic information about your business to sign up for the Merchant Center.

Next is to validate your website after creating your account. You can accomplish this in one of two ways – by integrating a specific tag into the code of your website or by using an already-installed Google Search Console or Google Analytics on your website. This enables Google to confirm that the store is yours.

You’ll have access to all the features of Merchant Center once you’ve authenticated your website. Hire google ads management from an agency will definitely ease your works on this.

How To Add Products To Google Shopping?

Shopping cart

When adding products to Merchant Centre, you have three choices:

  1. Manually Upload Each Product.

This method is time-consuming if you have a huge catalogue, but it can be useful if you simply have a few things. You need not worry as Google will walk you through manually inputting product details step-by-step.

  1. Establish A Product Feed.

This can be done in Google Sheets or by uploading an existing product feed in spreadsheet format.

The good thing about this option is that the spreadsheet will serve as a database for Merchant Center and contain all the essential information about your products. It will help you track and ensure real-time updating of your inventory.

  1. Sync Your Product Feed From A Third-party App.

The Merchant Center Content API and scheduled fetches are two methods for automatically obtaining your product data from current databases. Either on your website or with a third party.

The product data drives almost everything on Google Shopping – where your listings and adverts appear and what information is presented. 

Ensure and never forget to structure your product data according to best practices. Be thorough and accurate when putting your business information. 

The more prudent you are with how you provide details of your items, the easier it will be for customers to find you.  

What Are Google Shopping Actions?

From being a product research hub, Shopping Actions transforms Google’s comparison shopping engine into a sales platform. 

Sellers who sign up for this service make their products directly available for purchase on Google Shopping. 

The Buy on Google button is where this occurs from the purchaser’s point of view. With just a few clicks, the customer may complete the purchase without ever leaving Google.

What To Expect From Google Shopping Ads?

Illustration of targeting process

Boost Brand Recognition

Since Google is the most popular search engine, using Google Shopping carries a different weight of influence. 

Products that are promoted through Google Shopping Ads will reach a larger audience and draw in more buyers.

Produce Valuable And Direct Reports

Businesses can use any data or metrics to evaluate the performance of their products using Google Shopping.

We understand that data plays a crucial role in the development and progress of our business. If we failed to analyse what it is telling us, it will affect our strategies and the way we position our products.

Using Google Shopping, you will see trends of what’s hot and not on your pool of items. You will know which products need more advertising efforts or what things are getting much attention.

Never underestimate these analytics as they can help you establish a baseline for your data so that you have objectives to strive for.

Google Shopping Ads Best Practices

Google Shopping Campaign Structure

One of the biggest improvements you can make to your Google Shopping ads is to have a good structure.

Ensure to include a campaign, an ad group and a product group.

Using Negative Keywords With Google Shopping

By using negative keywords, you may stop irrelevant and low-quality traffic from seeing your advertisements and harming the effectiveness of your campaigns. 

You may do this to raise your CTRs, conversion rates, and ultimately ROAS.

Improve Your Product Feed

The Google Shopping campaign’s heart and soul is the Google product feed.

This also implies that any enhancements you make by offering more pertinent information will increase the CTR and enhance the effectiveness of your campaign.

Optimise your Product titles, prices, and images. Don’t feel overwhelmed because there are tools online that can help you with this optimisation method.

Using Audiences For Google Shopping Ads

You can use Audiences to target visitors who visited your website but didn’t make a purchase.

You can raise or lower your maximum using a tool called Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA). CPC depends on the more data you have on a certain visitor.

More valuable than a visitor to a product page can be someone who has abandoned their cart. You can modify your bid appropriately through Audiences.

You need a minimum of 1,000 people in an audience to use it in your Google Shopping ads.

How Much Do Google Shopping Ads Cost?

Google shopping ads benchmarks by Wordstream

You pay every time someone clicks on one of your shopping ads, just like with Google Ads.

The overall CPC is $0.66, which is slightly more than the average CPC for eCommerce sites according to Google Ads, which is $1.16. 

Even though clicks are substantially less expensive, Google Shopping’s average conversion rate (1.91%) is lower than the ecommerce industry average for Google Ads (2.81%).

The Cost Per Action (CPA), which is $38.87 for Shopping Ad clicks and $45.27 for clicks on all Google Ads, is lower due to the reduced cost of Shopping Ad clicks.

While these statistics for Google Shopping indicate the averages, this tells us that we are ultimately responsible for our shopping campaign’s performance. 

Final Thoughts

Customers may enter Google Shopping, search for what they want, and view a wide variety of brands and products on one screen, making it nearly like a real mall.

You have already begun the process of launching your product advertisements by learning how Google Shopping Ads operate, how to put them up, and how to optimise them.

With how things can change in one day, it matters that you are one step ahead of your plan and strategies. If you are still contemplating adding your products to Google Shopping, now is the best time to do it. 

You no longer have to worry about a lot of things if you want to start today, Our expert on google ads management service will help you. 

We have a team of digital strategists and marketers to assist you in adding to your cart and checking out the latest in the virtual mall. 

Let us know when you plan to shop for our strategies! 

FAQs

What Are Google Shopping Ads?

Google Shopping ads are photo ads that are equipped with the product description and show up on pertinent searches.

What Is The Difference Between Google Ads and Google Shopping Ads?

While Google Shopping keywords are sourced automatically by Google by extracting the keywords from the product titles and descriptions, Google Search advertisements require the advertiser to input the terms they want to appear for.

Is Google Shopping A Google ad?

Google Ads are text-based advertisement that requires you to pick for bankable keywords to increase your chances of being found in the search results. These ads come with a cost.

Google Shopping Ads are free. They contain images of what you are advertising and lets Google setup the restrictions when it appears to users.

Are Google Shopping Ads Worth It?

If you work in e-commerce or retail, this one is for you!

Many online shoppers use Google Search as part of their customer journey. Using shopping advertisements enables you to appear directly where clients are looking to make purchases.

Looking for a trusted SEO agency in Singapore? Schedule a consultation with us today.

About Roots Digital

Roots Digital is an award-winning digital marketing agency and SEO agency headquartered in Singapore, specialising in eCommerce Marketing and lead generation. We are a Google and Meta Business certified partner working to deliver the best-in-class digital marketing campaigns from large enterprises and SMEs to growing start-ups.

Some of our core digital marketing services include SEO servicesSEM services, Google Ads management servicesGoogle Analytics services and more.

Feel free to reach out if you’re interested in working with us. Connect with us via our service enquiry form. You may schedule a call for more information and to know more about our digital marketing services.

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Ian Ong
Ian Ong
Marketing Director @ Roots Digital, a digital marketing agency in Singapore. Aka the guy responsible for growing the digital marketing agency.
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