Product Listing Ads are now found within Google Shopping campaigns. Unlike text ads, these ads show photos of products, along with prices and product names right on the search results page when people search for items on Google.
Product Listings are a crucial piece of online sales for Ecommerce accounts during this time, so make sure your accounts are ready. Google has changed the way you build ads with Google Shopping so it’s important to make sure your campaigns are up-to-date and optimized.
Here are four tips to help prepare your Shopping campaigns for the holiday push.
Tip #1 – Create a New Campaign
With all the changes that are made to a Shopping campaign during the holidays, it’s a good idea to create a new Holiday Shopping campaign. This way your non-holiday campaign is left intact and ready to go in the new year. This also allows you to utilize Shopping’s enhanced features such as using filters and unique product groupings to highlight your top sellers and bid more competitively during key periods.
Tip #2 – Update the Feed
Review your feed and make sure you are including all the key information that would help the user find exactly what they are looking for. The more data the better (every PPC account managers favorite saying)! To optimize even further, take advantage of custom labels in the feed, making it even easier to optimize based on data that isn’t available in AdWords.
If you are able to show the user you have exactly what they are looking for, it will help build trust and confidence in your product, which can help sway users that have never purchased your product before to buy.
Holiday shoppers shop differently than they do the rest of the year because they are giving gifts. People make their lists and the giver wants to get exactly what is on the list. This one reason why it’s crucial to make sure you have all the information about the product included in the feed.
Read more in the full white paper: How to Keep Your Agency on Top of Holiday Ecommerce Planning
Tip #3 – Shipping: Adjust for Free Shipping options
The number one phrase that will sway an online holiday shopper during the holiday season is – FREE SHIPPING. When free shipping is involved, brand loyalty goes out the window. If you are offering free shipping make sure you update your shipping settings in the merchant center to reflect this.
Also, any items that offer free shipping should be properly updated in your data feed. For a text based feed, the setting for Free Shipping should look something like this – US:::0.00.
Tip #4 – Upload New Promotional Ads ASAP
I’m sure most online marketers using Shopping are already on top of this, but just another friendly reminder to make sure your ads are updated and promoting the latest and greatest promotions. It’s best to get these updated at least a week before you are ready to launch them, so they can go through editorial review.
