Google is a blessing and a curse for small businesses. On one hand, you have an extremely effective way of advertising and improving visibility. On the other, you have to compete with big box retailers for the same spots. When it comes to organic SEO, competing on certain factors such as legitimacy and reputation aren’t enough. By using a Google Shopping Campaign, small retailers can compete directly with big-box retailers directly in Google search results.
The benefits of Google Shopping Campaigns are already revealing themselves. According to CPC Strategy, Campaigns:
- improved advertiser revenue by nearly 34%
- decreased overall ad spend by 30%
- increased return on ad spend by 25%
When placing bids on Google Shopping Campaigns, retailers of all sizes should keep these three factors in mind.
Cost
The best way to understand your cost is to benchmark against your competitors’ spending and other key metrics to determine your own expenditure. You’ll want to be keeping up with bids and staying competitive, but you won’t want to completely overbid and lose money to improve your products’ visibility. Sacrificing your margins for visibility may seem like a good idea at the time, but will ultimately result in a loss.
Bid Intelligently
As with determining any budget, there are numerous factors to keep in mind while placing bids on Shopping Campaigns. One of the big ones is seasonality. Sure, bids might be pretty inexpensive for wool jackets in the middle of July, but is it worth the cost? Remember your products’ seasonality to keep yourself from burning money. Also, don’t forget to use negative keywords. They will help keep your campaign costs down, and ads relevant.
Use custom labels and product titles to help consumers find your products.
You are given 5 custom labels to help you identify and categorize your own products. Labels like price range or clearance save consumers time when looking for products, so don’t ignore these as a retailer. You are also given 150 characters (double the previous character limit) to form an awesome, keyword-filled product title, and 5,000 characters to write a concise description. Get the most out of these characters by providing all possible keywords that could direct customers to your product (material, brand, color, etc.)
Google’s ability to connect retailers with prospective shoppers has changed the way consumers find products, and in an industry as competitive as e-commerce, retailers should take any opportunity to stand out to shoppers. Since 84% of shoppers attribute price as the biggest purchasing influence, it seems that your product’s price tag might be just the place to do so.
With Amazon updating prices roughly 2.5 millions times per day and Google updating feeds hourly, pricing strategies must be fluid and constantly reevaluated. A well-oiled Google Shopping campaign combined with an intelligent pricing strategy will reap large benefits for retailers trying to grow revenue. Google has sped up the ecommerce revolution with its Google Shopping platform, and savvy retailers are already seeing ROI.
