Using Google Shopping Ads to Improve Your Pay-Per-Click Strategy

20 April, 2022
Categories: Blog, PPC Author: Chris Bland

Google Shopping Ads can be one of the most effective ways to drive traffic and sales within your pay-per-click strategy. Although they are easy to set up, you should make yourself aware of the best practices to ensure you have maximised their potential.

What are Google Shopping Ads?

Google Shopping Ads are product-based advertisements that appear when a person searches for a product across Google and Google Shopping. They are similar to search ads but offer the audience a specific product-based ad on the SERP instead of the usual text-based ad.

Google Shopping Ads on Search Engine Results Page

The shopping ad includes the product image, title, price and company or brand name. You can also add additional information such as reviews, shipping information and promotions. They are shown at the top or bottom of a Google page when a search matches key terms within the product title.

This type of ad is particularly useful for e-commerce businesses, providing a more affordable way to promote specific products than through search ads.

How do Shopping Ads work?

Unlike search ads that use keywords, shopping ads use product data to decide how and where to show the ads. You can submit this product data through Google Merchant Centre, and the information will be matched to a user’s search so that the most relevant products are shown.

There are two types of shopping ads that can be managed in the shopping campaigns section of Google Ads:

  1. Product shopping ads: These are created based on the product data submitted in the Merchant Centre.
  2. Local inventory ads: These are formed by combining product data and inventory data submitted in the Merchant Centre.

Example of Google Shopping Ads

Why you should be using Shopping Ads

Shopping Ads can be incredibly effective as people can make informed decisions before clicking on an advertisement – from the high-quality product images and pricing information. This will reduce costs as ads are charged on a cost-per-click basis and the quality of leads will be improved.

With more information offered by the image and price, the likelihood of the user clicking on the ad getting further down the purchasing funnel increases. They have a better understanding of how the product looks and how much it costs before even reaching the website page.

You can see how your products are performing at any level of detail, due to the powerful reporting and competitive data available through Google. For example, you can see how many clicks a particular brand of trainers got by filtering the product view.

The cost of Shopping Ads

Similar to other ad formats, shopping ads participate in an ad auction. The price is calculated on a cost-per-click basis, which means you are charged only when someone clicks on an ad that leads to the website landing page.

When creating the shopping campaign, you will decide how much you are willing to pay for each of these clicks. You pay the minimum amount necessary to rank higher than the other advertisers, and will often pay less than the maximum bid. However, some products and search terms are more competitive than others, and you will require a larger budget for these types of campaigns.

Digital marketing agency topclick has an excellent team with proven experience setting up, optimising, and maintaining PPC ads across Google and Bing. We understand that no client is the same, so our campaigns are tailored to each individual goal. Our team has experience across multiple industries generating leads, calls, sales, traffic, and app installs. Drawing on our wealth of knowledge we can help you decide what type of campaign best suits your needs. Contact us today for more information.