If you’re reading this blog, you’re likely already sold on Google Shopping. If you’re not, you can read up on our take on Google Shopping here. For the purposes on this article, let’s assume you’re ready to spin up your own campaign. Where do you start? Well, understanding these Google Shopping best practices will help set you up for success.
Google Shopping Best Practice 1: Campaign Structure
Within each ad group, you will add product groups such as “iPhone chargers” and “iPhone cases.” When you add a product group, by default it will house all your products in one grouping. If you’re looking to adjust bids more granularly by product (you should!), just click the “+” next to all products. This will give you the option to subdivide your products.
Once you’ve divided the product group into another category, such as “iPhone cases,” it will give you the option (with the “+” sign again) to divide the product category even further. Here, you can narrow this even further, such as “wood cases vs. plastic cases”, again breaking this out for each individual product.
Remember how we said structure is everything? Breaking products out this way will allow you to adjust bids for those direct products and product categories. In our example above, let’s say you want to adjust bids for your wood iPhone cases because they have a higher margin, or perhaps you want to get rid of them faster for a new product coming in. It will be a lot easier to make this turn the knobs you need with your products broken out.
It may sound complicated, but it’s worth it.
Google Shopping Best Practice 2: Negative Keywords
Google Shopping Best Practice 3: Product Titles
Example: Referring back to our earlier example of selling iPhone cases, a solid product title would include all of the important information early one with additional details after.
iPhone 11pro Max iPhone Case Black & Red Polka Dots
When the ad is shown on the first page of the Google SERPs, it will cut off and only show the bolded words (which is the most important information) vs. when the ad or listing is shown in the Google Shopping section. For the latter, the full title will be able to be seen.
Google Shopping Best Practice 4: Product Images
Google Shopping Best Practice 5: Audience Targeting
Once you have made your selection, you will come to a new screen where you will see two choices: “targeting” and “observation”. Since in this scenario, we’re at the beginning stages of collecting data on the people that are clicking on your ads, select “observation.”
After selecting “observation” you get the fun of diving in and building the audiences that you want to observe, learning where your current traffic falls into. There are several main options to choose from, including search, ideas, and browse. The browse tab is normally my go-to. Browse allows you to choose how you want to find your audience. For example:
- Who they are
- What their habits or interests are
- How they interacted with your business
You can drop down each menu and select which audiences correlate with your ideal audience. As a best practice, I like to make sure to add all audiences under the category “who they are.” These are the basics like marital status, parental status, education, etc.
After you have chosen the audiences that you want to monitor, click “save” and refer back to the “Audience” tab to see who sees your ads, who engages with them, and who actually makes a purchase!
google shopping best practices: a SUMMARY
Google Shopping is a great tool created to improve user experience in search. It helps your products dominate real estate in search and showcase your products visually for an audience that has a higher intent to purchase. Even if you don’t get direct purchases, you’ll see a ‘halo effect’, where purchases are made through other channels, but there is attribution to Google Shopping as a touchpoint. Follow these Google Shopping best practices and you’ll be able to get started and see an impact!
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