The holiday season is coming, and it goes without saying that it is the most competitive period of the year. According to Google, 42% of people started their holiday shopping earlier in 2021 than in the past years. Last year’s Black Friday sales hit $9 million, and Cyber Monday hit $10.8 billion in sales holidays. eCommerce websites across all industries get ready to bring their A-game in their marketing campaigns and maximize their revenue before the year ends.
Google Shopping Ads, more commonly known as Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs), is one of the most popular avenues for brands to advertise their products in Google and grow their overall sales, especially during the holidays. According to Smart Insights, Google Product Listing Ads drive 76.4% of retained search ad spend and generate 85.3% of all clicks on Google Ads.
Last holiday season, U.S. shoppers used Google for shopping more than any other source. And 58% of holiday shoppers bought at least from one brand they hadn’t brought before. And with Google Product Listing Ads, you can boost your visibility to new customers and increase your sales this holiday season.
To get the most revenue from your Google product listing ads this holiday season, here are eight tips from Google-certified PPC analysts:
8 Tips to Increase Your Holiday Sales with Google Product Listings
- Choose the right product categories.
- Write concise and detailed titles to attract search users.
- Use high-quality and compelling images.
- Bid strategically based on the product ROI.
- Create a list of negative keywords.
- Retarget potential customers with Dynamic Remarketing.
- Add Star-Ratings to your product listings.
- Use discounts and offers to get more clicks.
1 – Choose the right product categories.
Choosing categories for your product listing ads can be intimidating, especially for beginners. Most marketers make the mistake of selecting categories related to specific, product-related keywords. But according to Google, you should choose broader keywords and branch out from them to reach as many people as possible.
While choosing general keywords can be more competitive, you can instead use “Layer broad targeting with Smart Bidding.” Smart Bidding uses machine learning technology to prioritize the best-performing keywords regardless of their match type. This way, you can test general keywords and choose the ones that give you the best results. But remember, no matter how general your keywords are, they should all be relevant to your website and ads.
2 – Write concise and detailed titles to attract search users.
The product title and description play a crucial role in attracting search users to click on your product listing ads. The title shows as a blue hyperlink in your product listing ad. It is one of the first things that a user sees in your product listing ads under its image. Aside from that, it is also one of the first fields that Google analyzes in your listings, and therefore, is highly significant.
So when writing product titles, make sure to include vital keywords to the title. You should also include variants such as the product’s color or size. And for your product description, create engaging descriptions that speak to your customer’s wants or needs. Also, don’t forget to include relevant keywords.
3 – Use high-quality and compelling images.
Humans are visual creatures. So it’s no surprise that 97% of shoppers seek out visual content before their purchase. And when it comes to product searches, online shoppers are looking for real visuals. Brands that show off their products in a real-world setting work better than brands that use stock photos.
The images in your product listing ads should reflect the user’s search intent. Take this example from Ad Espresso by HootSuite; the search user is looking for “blue slacks.” The second and third listing ads show full suits, which mismatch the user’s intent and product listing. Out of the five listings, only the last ad shows an image that focuses on blue slacks.
4 – Bid strategically based on the product ROI.
Retailers understand that not all products generate the same profit margins, which is why it is not smart to bid the same amount across all of your products. The best strategy you can do is to bid strategically based on your product’s conversion, gross margin, rate, and price. Get those numbers and multiply them together to create your product’s maximum cost per click (CPC). Doing so will give you a basis on how much you can set your initial bids. But remember that the bid should be lower than your max CPC.
If all of these things seem too complicated, you set your Google Shopping Ad Bid to automatic bid — the Google Smart Shopping campaign. By using this strategy, Google asks you for a maximum ad budget and time frame. Using machine learning, Google can optimize your shopping ads accordingly, so they can get the best conversion without going over your given budget.
5 – Create a list of negative keywords.
Creating a negative keyword list is one of the ways to optimize the budget of your product listing ads. By adding negative keywords to your Shopping Ad campaign, you can prevent your product listing ads from showing in irrelevant searches. For example, if your brand sells coffee beans, you may not want your product listing ads to show when users search for coffee grinders or coffee mugs.
Using and adding negative keywords will help you target the right audience for your product listing ads. If your ads are going after keywords not relevant to its users, your campaign is likely to have a low click-through rate (CTR). It will also affect your ad’s quality score.
6 – Retarget potential customers with Dynamic Remarketing.
Retargeting customers is one of the best ways to increase conversion. It can bring customers back to your site and recapture lost sales. By using Google’s dynamic remarketing campaign, you can show your product listing ads to past visitors. You can also customize those ads based on the section of the site people have visited to gain back their attention.
To use dynamic remarketing for your product listings, you will need to link your Google Ads and Merchant Center Account. Doing so will enable your dynamic remarketing campaign to use your product data feed in your Merchant Center. But do note that you will need to add display ads specific attributes to your product feed.
7 – Add Star-Ratings to your product listings.
You can add Product Ratings to your product listing ads, which show a 1-5-star rating of your product and its total number of reviews. These ratings and reviews can significantly help purchase decisions and drive more qualified customers to your product pages. Online reviews are very powerful as they help build consumer trust in your brand. In fact, according to Qualtrics.com, 91% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from their friends.
To add Product Ratings to your product listing ads, Google requires your website to have at least 50 reviews across all of your listed products. You can use approved third-party reviews aggregators so Google can fetch product reviews directly from them. You can also collect reviews through Google Customer Reviews.
8 – Use discounts and offers to get more clicks.
Every online shopper loves special offers and discounts. Adding them to your product listing ads is definitely a smart move. By adding various types of promos to your product listing ads, you give an added reason for search users to click on your ad. Google allows you to create promotions on your ad manually. You can also create a promotional feed that automatically updates your ads based on your most recent offers.
When you add promotions to the products you sell on Google, search users can see a “Special Offer” link such as free shipping or a percentage discount off. These promotions give shoppers the extra push to learn more about your product and provide them with why to choose your brand over others.
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Suppose you want a cost-effective avenue to win new customers and increase your sales this holiday season. In that case, product listings can make that happen. With Google Product Listing Ads, your products get more visibility, a broader reach for your ads, and you better return on investment (ROI).
Do you need help in starting or setting up your Google Product Listing Ads? Cybertegic can help you grow your online business with our Google PPC Advertising Services. We are a top digital marketing company in Los Angeles and a Google Ads Certified Partner agency. Our group of skilled and experienced Google-certified PPC analysts will help develop a strategic PPC campaign and optimize your ads to get the most conversion.
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