Boost your ecommerce sales with Shopping Ads

Owning an e-commerce business may be challenging. Keeping the site on point, updating the products, shipping them, taking care of customers and one of the most important aspects of ecommerce ads. So let’s talk about Shopping Ads.

What exactly are Shopping Ads?

You probably are familiar with Text Ads. These ads contain only text, obviously. So what are Shopping Ads? In case you don’t know, let me show you first.

Shopping Ads in Google Search SERP

See? Those nice pictures you see in your search engine result page are actually ads. And just like the way I have shown you Shopping Ads, merchants are showing your their products.

Let’s break it down to what are the biggest advantages of using Shopping Ads for your ecommerce shop.

1. More traffic, better ROI and more

Let’s say you sell shoes. You are already using text ads, but in these types of campaigns, potential customers don’t see those amazing running shoes. They read about them. If you use pictures, the chance they will click on your ad and eventually buy those shoes is much much higher.

With Shopping Ads, you get much more than just a few letters. You can list your price, the state of goods and if you have a sale, it is visible as well.

Eventually, this can lead to better ROI. With Shopping campaigns, you tend to get better prices per click and even better results. So next time you think of new campaigns for your e-shop, consider Shopping campaigns. To boost traffic, ROI or Impressions, consider using one of the CSS partners.

2. Get a head start from your competition

It is quite normal that you are not alone on the market. You probably have competition that wants to be successful just like you want to be. Here come Shopping Ads handy. It is possible that other shops selling shoes are not yet using Shopping Ads. Be the first and attract more customers.

Even if your competitors are using Shopping Ads, don’t let it discourage you. Your ads might be better than theirs.

3. Stand out

Having Shopping Ads is still considered something new. Nowadays, most people have “boring” Google Text Ads. But you may have picture ads as well. Having this type of advertisement can only help you if you set it up right.

Google even did a study that shows combining Text Ads and Shopping Ads is beneficial for the merchant.

4. Get more relevant traffic

Selling something that people usually buy in malls or in shops in person, such as clothes may be considered really hard online. But worry not! Shopping Ads show your future customer exactly what they want to buy so they are going to click on your ad and chance is that they are going to do the much wished conversion.

Even better is that the person searching for your product will be brought exactly to the landing page where that exact product is. Which saves them time and effort made to search in a pile of products they are not interested in.

5. Google Shopping Ads are really easy to set up

But not only set up, but also manage. Sure, there are many regulations and rules you have to obey, but hey, tre result is totally worth it. Before starting, you should read what you can do and what not to do.

How to start with Shopping Ads

To start with Shopping Ads on Google, you will have to set up a Google Merchant Center and connect it to your website and your Google Ads account. The ads themselves will not be made in Merchant Center, but rather in the Google Ads. Merchant Center is serving as a “storage unit” for all the products in your online store.

For more information on setting up Merchant Center, check out this video tutorial.

You can advertise for free (somewhere)

Another thing worth mentioning is that you can use Shopping listings for free. This option is available only in The United States for now, but people living in Europe can hope to get this amazing feature as well.

The main point of Free Listings is that you have a Merchant account with all the products you want to advertise and Google will include your products in the Shopping tab for free. You don’t have to pay anything to appear on these listings, which is amazing and many merchants can gain from this.

This may be useful especially for those who suffered the most from the impact of COVID-19 epidemic.

Shopping Ads are not for everyone

Well, sadly, everything needs to have its downside. Google Shopping Ads have their as well. It is only meant for merchants with online stores. And even though setting up your Merchant Center, you might have some problems with gathering all the things you need if you lack some resources.

What are the biggest disadvantages?

• this only works if you sell something you can touch – what does that mean? Well, as you think, you can sell something you can actually send to your customer. So businesses selling vacations and tickets are in bad luck.
• it is not available for everyone – for example, the Turkish government banned Google Shopping ads as it was “monopol” – many comparison shopping services had issues with Google getting in their way. The same thing that happened in Europe a few years ago. But with Turkey, Google didn’t save the situation with a promise of CSS partners. Besides Turkey, it is unavailable in many other countries.
• you may not have all the resources for Google Shopping Ads – even it is simple to set up your Merchant account, if you don’t have someone who can change your product feed or your website or you can’t do it yourself, there is a high chance your Merchant account will not be usable. You have to have special attributes in feed and your ecommerce shop must look like according to the Google policies.
• it may be costy – you might end up with a really high bill in your Google Ads account if you do not manage it properly. People tend to click more on Shopping ads, which means it is more expensive. So bear that in your mind!

How to make Shopping Ads even easier and better for you

Did you know that you can create Shopping campaigns not only in Google Ads, but rather use a third party PPC tool? Such tool can give you better options and you can handle your campaigns more efficiently.

These tools can give you amazing features that can help you save time, money and a lot of stress. For example, BlueWinston is an online tool for automation of product ads. It will also help you with Shopping Ads. It is connected with Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts. This way, it will be much easier to manage everything you do on one platform.

Few last words

In the end, if you own an e-shop and want to push your business to the spotlight of Google, definitely use Shopping Ads. They will give you many opportunities and possibilities. If done right, you can achieve more clicks and even conversions. So if you have the option, go for it!