Your Commerce Health Check

Shopping Ads

Shopping Ads

Showcase your products and gain a strong paid search presence with shopping ads

Shopping ads usually appear at the top of search engine results pages when a user searches for a specific product. Based on the search terms used, they will be shown a shopping ad that includes the product image and price, providing them with all the information needed to click through and purchase.

There is a lot more to just listing your products with shopping ads, which is where our experienced marketing team can help. As part of our shopping ad marketing service, we can work with you to optimise your product data and use all shopping features available to reach your target audience and maximise conversions.

Having optimised product data means your products are more likely to appear at the forefront of shopping ads. By including information such as colour, size and brand you will be providing users with all the information they need while being able to appear for product specific search terms.

Listing your products with shopping is free, so you will only pay when a user clicks on your ad. When getting you started with shopping ads, we will also be able to advise budgets and bids for your campaigns, whether you want to segment and bid at a category of product level for better control over spend.

What are the benefits of Shopping Ads?

We recommend shopping ads for all businesses with an ecommerce site, as they offer a great opportunity to showcase products to users that have a high level of buyer intent and are already looking at the top of search results pages.

Other reasons to use shopping ads are:

  • Increased click through rates. Because shopping ads show so high up the page, there is a good chance that users will click through to your product page if the ad matches their search.
  • Higher visibility than search ads and organic results, again because of the prime position of shopping results.
  • Users can physically see your product instead of being told about it in a search ad.
  • Purchasing intentions will be boosted as you will reach users at different stages of the buying process. Those who are closer to purchasing will be more likely to complete the conversion when shown a shopping ad.

What are smart shopping ads?

With automation on the rise in all areas of digital marketing, Google Ads has introduced smart shopping campaigns. “Smart” indicates that automation is used to target wider, relevant audiences in the right places with minimal campaign management.

Similar to standard shopping ads, you will only be charged when an ad is clicked but an automated bidding strategy will be used. The strategies available in Google Ads include target cost per acquisition, target return on a spend, maximise conversions and maximise conversion value, all using machine learning to optimise your bids and reach your goals within your set budget.

When creating smart shopping ads you will need to provide an image, a short and long headline, a keyword rich description and a final URL pointing to a landing page with all products within the campaign. These ads will show on the Display Network as banner ads at the top or side of content on sites such as YouTube, online news outlets and Gmail.

Despite having a lot less control over bids and placements for smart shopping, you will be able to gain a lot more exposure and reach previously unreachable audiences who were not actively looking for your products.

What is required for shopping ads?

  • A product feed that includes a full catalogue of the products you want to showcase and sell on shopping ads. This can be in an XML format, spreadsheet or generated using an app, tool or extension.
  • A Google Merchant Center account where you will be able to upload your product feed. You will also be able to set shipping rates here, whether it’s a flat cost or based on order size or carrier pricing like Royal Mail or DPD.
  • A PPC ad network to create and control your ads. This could be Google Ads, Microsoft Ads or Facebook.
  • Accurate product data that will be used by the search engine to create your shopping ads and match search queries.

Ensuring your feed is set up with the correct data will avoid any future errors or mismatches that could lead to disapproved products or even a suspended feed. By identifying and fixing these errors in your product data quickly, you will be able to advertise again and have your full catalogue of products approved to show on shopping ads.