2021 Guide To Capturing Potential Leads With Google Shopping Ads
If you’ve been considering the shift towards Google Shopping Ads, you’re not alone.
A large portion of the e-commerce market is shifting their budget there instead of Adwords and the other ad services. While it is a comforting thought to see that other businesses are indirectly validating your investment, we understand that it adds pressure on you to stand out for the sake of capturing the most leads.
How do you master the use of Google Shopping Ads? Here’s what you need.
Set Up a Product Feed
Before you start raking in the leads, you’ve got to create two things. A Google Ads account and a merchant center account. Your Google merchant center account is where you will get to manage the information Google has on your online store and your products. It’s there where you should fill in details about your products in order to set up a complete product feed. This feed is what Google draws from when looking for products that match a certain search query.
Google Ads, on the other hand, is where you’ll get to manage your Shopping Ads campaign, or you can link the two accounts which will make things easier for you. As you create your feed, make sure you write short, descriptive product titles instead of using multiple keywords and make sure you set an accurate product category. Then, after you fill out your product feed, make sure you fix any errors.
Invest in HD Images
One of Google Shopping Ads’ top perks is that it provides pictures along with the written ads. Because pictures go a long way when it comes to attracting leads, you need to take exceptional care when selecting your product’s pictures. A high-quality, well-shot picture can tell a lot about a business, its standards, and the product they’re selling. So, if you’re into photography, do it yourself, but if you aren’t, we recommend getting a professional to take pictures of your inventory. Better yet, why not hire an undergraduate? They will charge you a lot less than a professional, there is little skill needed to take still pictures of a product, and they need the publicity.
Negative Keywords
Shopping Ads don’t function the same way regular Google Ads do. With regular ads, you can set up positive keywords and tell Google when and where to pitch your advertisement. However, as this article at StoreGrowers.com explains, Shopping Ads don’t offer as much control because it’s up to the search engine to determine when and which of your advertisements to show.
There are, however, certain things you can do to help guide it, and one of those is assigning a set of negative keywords to your ad group. That way, you can determine where you don’t want your ads to show. A good strategy is to list down all the excessively broad keywords, and the brand-related keywords if you’re not a brand. This will help you save a lot of money on ads and will increase your ROI by keeping your ads for the best performing keywords out there.
Prioritize Products
Reviewing and analyzing are two processes that any good marketer knows should be done regularly. When assigning your ad budget, you have two options. One, let Google take its pick automatically and divide your budget on its own. Two, review your trends and analyze the performance of your products, then prioritize those products so that most of your budget would go towards specific items, yielding the maximum results in the process. Needless to say, the second strategy guarantees that you’ll make the most out of your money and your ads in terms of leads captured.
Land them with a Good Description
Let’s say you’ve attracted a lead, they’ve opened a few tabs, one for your product and a couple of others for competitors. How do you make sure that your ad is the one they follow through with? An excellent product description is a way to land those potential leads. When writing yours, keep away from anything that sounds too much like a pushy sales rep. Instead, you’ll want to use your brand voice to communicate the simplest, most basic information. Make sure you mention what’s unique about your product, how it will help, and some of its main benefits. If you want to take advantage of your buyer’s imagination, go ahead, but don’t get obsessed with listing good-sounding words like, “excellent, great, and high-quality.” Those words mean little unless you can be shown or proven through statistics, pictures, or videos.
As you can see, what’s at the heart of any winning Google Shopping Ads technique is simplicity and specificity. As long as you’ve got a specific product title, a specific set of negative keywords, a simple, yet high-quality picture, and an attractive product description, you’re good to go. That being said, after implementing a shopping ads campaign, don’t forget to take a look at the analytics and assess your ads’ performance.
It’s through this feedback loop that you’ll be able to decide whether to invest more in Shopping Ads or to re-allocate your funds towards any of the other ad services.
