Google Shopping: Five Reasons You Need to "Up" Your Search Game!
Yes, Google Ads work. Whether it’s text ads (what people typically think of when they think “SEM” or “Search Engine Marketing”), display banners (catching people on local & national websites a little more passively), or YouTube video ads (shown to people before or during their desired content)…these ads really do work. And they work in several ways.
First of all, if you’re running in Google’s Search Network, you can choose to only pay when someone clicks – saving your business money from broad brand awareness expenditures. Also, your ads are being shown to people when they’re looking for you – so the customers are much further along in the buying process. (Even display and YouTube ads are being shown to people who have an interest in your type of product, whether or not they’ve started searching yet.)
So what do Google Shopping Ads have that others don’t? And why haven’t you started them yet for your business?! Below are 5 reasons why you should get these going immediately, particularly if you have an e-commerce shop.
1. Images!
Yes, with Google Shopping Ads, you get images of your products instead of just text! Although Google is slowly rolling this out in certain other areas too, Shopping Ads ensure that the image of your product from your website listing is shown in the ad. Since Google pulls directly from your products for sale, your beautiful website image will be shown directly in your listing.
(Pro tip: Don’t have beautiful website images? Contact me!)
2 . Be On Top!
Google Shopping Ads are typically shown on the very TOP of Google Search results, on both desktop and mobile. Yes, that means higher than text ads, higher than organic listings, and higher than YouTube videos.
By bidding correctly, spending a decent budget for what you’re trying to accomplish, and having good product listings, you can be #1 like one of my clients, shown below.
3. Advanced Promotions!
Yes, Google is pretty good about giving away free advertising space from time to time. With additional sitelink, click to call, and location extension options in SEM text ads, they’ve given advertisers an option to expand their regular ad space into something even bigger and better.
Want to do that with Shopping Ads, too? Sure thing! As long as you know what you’re doing, you can also add additional Promotions into your Shopping Ads such as free shipping, percentage discounts, etc. In the image shown to the left, we were able to provide a special discount code to customers, only available for a limited time. (And yeah, we’ll take that higher-than-Amazon ranking while we’re at it!)
Yes, Google is pretty good about giving away free advertising space from time to time. With additional sitelink, click to call, and location extension options in SEM text ads, they’ve given advertisers an option to expand their regular ad space into something even bigger and better.
Want to do that with Shopping Ads, too? Sure thing! As long as you know what you’re doing, you can also add additional Promotions into your Shopping Ads such as free shipping, percentage discounts, etc. In the image shown below, we were able to provide a special discount code to customers, only available for a limited time. (And yeah, we’ll take that higher-than-Amazon ranking while we’re at it!)
4. No Copy? No Problem!
One of the benefits of Shopping Ads is that you don’t need to create headlines and ad copy like you do with typical Search Engine Marketing text ads. Like I mentioned before, since Google pulls your content from your online shop (ie – Shopify), or from a defined list of products that you create, you don’t have to explain what to say to active searchers – the products speak for themselves! (The same theory applies when thinking about keywords; with Shopping Ads, you don’t have to define what keywords you want to bid on – the products are all you need.)
5. Competitive Information
With Shopping Ads, Google is great about giving you information on competitors’ products so you know if you’re even playing in the same ballpark. For example, you get to see benchmark average costs per click and click through rates for similar industry products – a great way to check on how you’re stacking up.
Now your favorite part:
giving it a try for YOUR business!
As usual, if it sounds overwhelming, or if you just don’t have time to jump in, feel free to call me or send me an e-mail. Or, if you’re in the Upstate of South Carolina, let’s meet up! I know a few fun places!
