How to Get the Most Out of Google Shopping in 2024
If your business has physical products to sell but is not advertising on Google Shopping yet, your business is missing out on a lot.
Google searches account for 36% of people’s product discovery, and being listed on Google Shopping can allow your products to appear high at the top of people’s search results.
As of 2022, Google Shopping ads generate 85.3% of all clicks on Google Ads and Google Shopping campaigns put together. Google Shopping accounts for 76% of search ad spend for the eCommerce industry. This means that they are getting many clicks, and brands and businesses are investing huge portions of their ad budgets into this platform.
Here are some more Google Shopping ads performance metrics your business needs to consider when considering whether it is a good fit for your product-based business.
The average click-through-rate (CTR) is 0.86%
The average cost per click (CPC) is $0.66
The average conversion rate is 1.91%
The average ad costs $38.87
The average ad budget is $770.41
Conversion rates are 30% higher than text ads
Consumers love Google Shopping ads since it allows them to see if you have the product you’re looking for. So when they do click, there is a good chance you’ll make the sale.
So if you want to join the fun, here are 2 ways to get your products showing as a Shopping Ad. Those are Standard Shopping or Performance Max campaigns.
In this guide to optimizing Google Shopping in 2024, we will show you what to pay attention to when you’re starting and how to optimize your campaign for better results. Central to this will be to look at trends and developments expected to occur in 2024 and how they will impact the use of Google Shopping on a day-to-day basis as part of your overall efforts to generate growth.
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping is a Google-oriented Comparison-Shopping Engine (CSE) that lets consumers search for, compare, and shop for physical products across different retailers.
Merchants accepted into Google Shopping are generally seen as higher quality and more trustworthy than brands that are not.
From a sales perspective, Google Shopping helps them easily discover and purchase products from local businesses and other online retailers instead of shopping between a lot of e-commerce websites. It’s like a digital mall where shoppers can enter, search for what they want, and then see many different brands and products, all within one platform.
From a business perspective, Google Shopping benefits retailers because when a shopper clicks on a product link, they are sent to the retailer’s site to make the purchase. This helps drive website traffic, leads, and sales.
If you’re a business owner or marketer, you can apply for a Google Shopping account for free. You can then run targeted local inventory ads or run a promotion for your best-sellers. You’re only charged when a potential customer clicks on your products, similar to Google Ads.
You can set your campaign budget, manage your bids, gain insights, and make optimizations based on campaign performance.
The setup and management are a little different from traditional text ads, where you create campaigns, ad groups, and ads that are focused on your selected keywords.
With Google Shopping, it’s Google that determines when your product listing ads show up, considering your feed, your site, and your bids to determine which search queries trigger your ads. Setting up Google Shopping ads is more similar to search engine optimization (SEO). Google constantly modifies its algorithm to make sure that only the most relevant and quality products show up in a search for its users.
So, your success with Google Shopping ultimately depends on how you create and optimize your feed, how you bid, and how you monitor your performance. A good thing with Google Shopping is you will be able to see granular performance data, allowing you to make rapid, granular optimizations as well.
5 Main Reasons that Google Shopping Might Be Part of a Growth Marketing Framework for Your Business
Not all merchants who apply get accepted, so not every brand or product will be listed in Google Shopping. When you get accepted as a qualified Google Shopping merchant, you get to enjoy these five (5) main benefits:
1. Trust By Association
Your brand, products, and services will be seen alongside other big-name brands on the Google Shopping feed, which gives your brand authority. This provides strong social proof that you’re a quality retailer.
2. Better Qualified Leads
When a user goes to shopping.google.com, you know they probably intend to make a purchase, either at that point or very shortly.
Being on Google Shopping often leads to increased sales, simply because the searchers there are already looking to buy. This is in marked contrast to a searcher browsing Google Search, where they might just be looking for more information for a myriad of reasons.
3. Show Up Multiple Times in Google SERPs
Google Shopping allows you to show up multiple times on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). This can occur as a website result, as a text-only pay-per-click (PPC) result, and as a Google Shopping result. This increases your chances of being found by more people searching on Google.
4. Shopper-Oriented Design
Google Shopping’s shopping tab interface was designed particularly to highlight quality product photos and product descriptions, making it easier for consumers to compare and contrast products. Although it feels similar to the traditional Google Search interface, Google Shopping is optimized for images and quickly highlighting product features, especially on your mobile.
5. Exceptionally Granular Promotional Metrics
As mentioned previously, your success with Google Shopping ultimately depends on how you create and optimize your feed, how you bid, and how you monitor your performance. A good thing with Google Shopping is you will be able to see granular performance data, allowing you to make rapid, granular optimizations as well
Google has invested in making reporting and metrics easy to track when you run Google Shopping Ads because they ultimately want the businesses accepted into their platform to succeed as users are being exposed to quality businesses and products.
Why Google Shopping Could Be an Important Part of Your Growth Marketing Process
This is especially true for product-based businesses that rely on e-commerce as part of their sales infrastructure. These ads use visuals to draw customers in and make them more likely to click.
Here are six key benefits that your business can enjoy with Google Shopping ads:
Your products will have increased visibility.
You have improved brand recognition.
You’ll see an increased click-through rate.
Google Shopping ads can improve your marketing’s return on investment (ROI). due to the lower CPC.
Consequently, there’s a lower cost per acquisition (CPA).
You’ll have a competitive advantage against other businesses.
Your business can enjoy these benefits if it sets up its campaigns correctly. Although Google Shopping ads can be tricky, with the right strategies in place, you can make sure that your campaigns are effective. Before we delve into that, let us establish some ground-level fundamental points about Google Shopping itself as a channel.
How to Get Properly Set Up for Google Shopping Campaigns
There are 8 steps to adding products to Google Shopping. These steps are:
1. Set up a Google Merchant Center account by signing up for one here. Provide the required information about your business, including which country your business is based, your business name, and your website.
2. Optimize your product imagery and listings on your website first as Google Shopping pulls the featured images from your website.
Google Shopping provides a highly visual experience and will deny your campaigns if the images are low-quality. Make sure to abide by Google’s image guidelines right from the start.
High image quality is strongly correlated with high user engagement and clicks.
3. Collect and input your product data feed. Your product feed tells Google all about your products and helps it find and display your products when people search for specific product terms and attributes.
Enter your country and language. This will determine which demographics get to see your products.
Name your product feed and select how you’ll input your product information. Use this Google product data specification guide to format your product information to get your Google Shopping feed approved.
4. Link your Google Ads account by logging into your Google Merchant Center account. In the top right-hand corner, click on the three vertical dots to expand the menu. Then, click on Account Linking. Click Link account to enter your Google Ads customer ID. Once this is done, Merchants Center and Google Ads are linked.
Why do you have to involve your Google Ads account? It’s how consumers see your products when you create shopping campaigns next. Google Merchant Center only lets Google get your product information.
5. Create a Google Shopping campaign. From your Google Merchant Center account, click Create Shopping Campaign. Then, insert the campaign name, country of sale, and daily budget. After you click Create, you will be prompted to continue managing your campaign through Google Ads.
Log into your Google Ads account, then open the Campaigns tab on the left-hand side menu, click the blue (+) icon, and choose New Campaign.
Then, choose a campaign goal: Sales, Leads, Website Traffic, Product and Brand Consideration, Brand Awareness, and Reach, App Promotion, or create a campaign without a goal’s guidance. As you hover over each goal box, a further description of what the goal is about appears.
Then, designate the campaign type as Shopping. Ensure that your Google Merchant Account is displayed so that Google Ads knows where to pull your product data from.
6. Place bids on your Google Shopping campaign.
Under your Google Shopping settings, select your bidding strategy and set your campaign budget. Bidding is how you pay for people to see, click on, and engage with your ads. You can use Google’s Bid Simulator Tool to see how bid changes might affect your ad performance.
7. Schedule your Google Shopping campaign.
Make sure you only select locations where you’re located and/or can ship to. Then, set the Start and End dates of your Google Shopping campaign. Your ad will continue to run if you don’t set an end date.
8. Build ad groups.
Ad groups determine what type of ads you’ll run and how you’ll organize bidding for those ads.
There are two (2) types of ad groups you can run: Showcase Shopping ads or Product Shopping ads.
Showcase Shopping ads allow you to advertise multiple products as part of a product or lifestyle ad that reflects your brand. You have to choose what set of products to advertise.
Product Shopping ads promote a single product, and you choose only that product you intended to advertise.
Once you’ve selected your ad group, enter your ad group name and set your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-engagement (CPE) bid. Engagement occurs when a user expands your Showcase Shopping ad and clicks on or spends at least 10 seconds within the ad.CPC bids are intended for Product Shopping ads, while CPE bids are for Showcase Shopping ads.
This now creates a single big ad group for all your products. If you want to further filter your products, you can create separate ad groups for them in different categories.
9 Google Shopping-Focused Growth Marketing Strategies
Now that you know what Google Shopping ads are, it’s time to learn the strategies that will help you drive more sales and increase your ROI. Here are nine Google Shopping ad strategies you should consider.
1. Use automated bidding
This allows you to set a target cost-per-click (CPC) and have Google adjust your bids to reach that goal. The strategy can help you optimize your campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
You can also set bid limits to ensure you stay within your budget. Automated bidding helps you save time and money while achieving your goals.
There are several automated bidding strategies that you should consider using to optimize your Google Shopping campaigns fully.
a. Maximize clicks
With this strategy, you’re giving Google full control to set CPCs to get the maximum possible number of clicks.
Google knows exactly which products/clicks are the cheapest, so that’s where they will shift your budget.
Since the ultimate goal is to sell more, you want the clicks to go to the products that have the highest likelihood of converting, not to search queries which happened to be a couple of cents cheaper.
You can use this strategy to get some initial data. But seeing as you can spend a lot of money without directing clicks towards those that are most likely to convert, it's not recommended to sustain this approach long term.
b. Enhanced Cost per click
The Enhanced cost per click or ECPC bidding strategy is very similar to Manual CPC, but Google has the freedom to raise the max CPC that you as an advertiser specify if Google believes a specific click will result in a sale.
The technical details that Google provides are pretty vague, but they claim to use extra information about the likelihood that a user will convert to adjust your bid.
When optimizing for conversions, ECPC tries to keep your average cost-per-click (CPC) below the maximum CPC you set, including bid adjustments.
In Shopping campaigns, ECPC aims to increase conversions while keeping the overall spending the same.
c) Target ROAS
With the Target Return on ad spend or ROAS bid strategy, you’ll set a conversion value that you would like to achieve for every dollar you put into your campaigns
For example, a Target ROAS of 450% would mean that every $1 put into this campaign, you would want to make $4.5 back.
The key point of emphasis here is that having a targeted ROAS does not necessarily mean you will achieve that result.
Since you will not know beforehand, it is important to be on Manual or Enhanced CPC for a while. Google Ads recommends at least 50 conversions in the last 30 days before you activate this strategy.
That also allows you to establish a baseline to compare the automation results.
Keep in mind always that this is an automated bidding strategy, Google Ads will need time to ramp up its efforts and process any changes you make to the campaigns.
2. Evaluating Keywords
In Google Shopping you don’t need to add any keywords. But you have the option to add negative keywords to make sure you don’t show up for certain search queries.
As a first step, it is essential to take a look at which search queries your ads appear for. You can find these in the Search Terms report:
In looking at the search report, there are several different types of negative keywords that you as a business ought to focus on. Below, are 3 of them.
a) Irrelevant search queries
The lowest hanging of all the fruit are the irrelevant search queries. These are searches that don’t have any value at all for your business.
For example, these can be products you do not currently offer: children instead of adult-sized clothes for examples. Or colors or variations of a product that you don’t stock.
These clicks are the equivalent of throwing money in the trash. So add them to your negative keywords to make sure you don’t pay for these searches anymore.
Besides these irrelevant searches, you’ll find other search queries in this report that are not completely useless, but where it is more difficult to say if you should be paying for these clicks. It is up to you to evaluate over time whether these keywords are added to the negative keyword list or not.
B) Competitor search queries
Competitor search queries are searches that include a competitor name together with an interesting keyword:
Again, it ultimately decides on the particularities of your own business to decide if it makes sense to advertise on these competitor search queries. But if you’re hurting for profitability, you probably want to add these competitors as negative keywords.
C) Very generic search queries
Another group of queries you’ll see in the search terms report of your shopping campaigns are very generic search queries. It’s a keyword that’s not irrelevant, but it’s just one of the most generic descriptions of the category of one of the products that we’re selling.
For example, if you were selling a unique set of headphones geared toward music production, coming up with generic headphones would not serve you well. The chances that your product is exactly what the person is looking for are pretty slim. Even if they click through, they probably won’t buy.
Compare that to sites like Amazon, Walmart, or Sweetwater. They just want to get their foot in the door, because they know that once people click over to their sites, they get a huge catalog of related products they can sell you.
You must remember that very low clickthrough rates will also reflect negatively on the quality score of your product ads, which is why you generally want to avoid generic keywords that are somewhat in line with the products you sell.
This is especially true if you are in a competitive or ultra-specific niche, as you probably want to stay away from those short-tail keywords with huge search volumes. You can add them as negative exact matches to your search campaign.
3) Google Shopping Campaign Structure
Campaign structure deals with how you organize your different campaigns. How many do you have? Which products are included and where? How many ad groups do you have? Etc.
Campaign structure gets to the heart of effective Shopping campaigns. A well-organized campaign structure enables you to bid on the products AND search queries that are most valuable to you.
Structure 1 – One Undivided Campaign
The first one is that there is a single campaign, with one ad group and one product group that contains all of your products.
This effectively means that every product and every search query is equally valuable to your business, as there is no one to distinguish between them.
This is far from ideal for your optimization efforts, all you can do is raise the max CPC for all products.
Structure 2 – One Campaign with Multiple Product Groups
The next logical step is to start breaking out different product groups based on some of your products’ attributes:
Google Shopping allows you to subdivide your product groups based on Category, Brand, Item ID, condition, product type, channel, channel exclusivity, or one of five custom labels.
You can also create multiple levels. For example, you first subdivide all your products based on product type, then you divide them by brand, and on the third level by Item ID.
This campaign structure allows you to set bids based on the category, brand, or individual product level Item ID).
That allows your business to bid more aggressively for higher-priced, higher-margin products while keeping bids lower for the less profitable ones.
Ad groups are a great way to organize your Google Shopping ads campaigns. You can divide your ad groups by product type or price range, depending on your goals.
By creating specific ad groups, you can target more relevant customers and ensure they see the products most likely to appeal to them.
Plus, depending on their importance, you can set specific bids for each ad group. It can help you optimize your campaigns and ensure they are as cost-effective as possible.
Structure 3 – Multiple Campaigns with Different Products
Just like you split the product groups, you can also create a campaign based on the attributes we’ve discussed above.
This means you can have separate shopping campaigns based on a brand, product type, or category.
The biggest advantage of multiple campaigns is that you can set a specific budget for each campaign. That means that you can allocate 80% of your budget to your bestsellers, and 20% to your lesser products. If they’re all mixed into a single campaign it is harder to control this budget.
If you want to expand your campaigns to another country, you’ll also need to use a separate campaign.
Structure 4 – Multiple Campaigns with the Same Products
Having multiple campaigns with the same products allows you to target a specific set of search queries with each one.
Yes, you CAN target search queries with Google Shopping campaigns. It’s also called search-level query bidding.
The biggest advantage of this setup is that you can set different max CPCs based on how valuable a search query is to you.
The most common use case for this is to split branded search queries from generic search queries. You can bid aggressively on the branded search queries, while sharply reducing the max CPCs in your generic shopping campaign.
This is a great alternative approach to excluding them from your campaigns.
3) Leverage Competitive Metrics:
Below are some competitive performance metrics that businesses that use Google Shopping need to focus on.
a) Search impression share metrics
The Search impression share is the percentage of search results that your product listing ads appeared in compared to all the potential search results they could have appeared in.
With a search impression share of 100%, your ads show up for every related search, but maybe that’s not profitable.
The great thing about splitting your campaigns based on the type of search query is that you can control the impression shares of these different campaigns.
You could, for example, maximize the impression share of the branded queries while keeping the IS of the generic campaign at 25% because it’s not profitable.
b). Search Absolute Top Impression Share
Absolute top impression share highlights the percentage of searches that took the top slot of all the product listing ads.
It doesn’t make sense to try and be there for every product, but in some cases it is interesting.
c) Search Lost IS (rank)
The Search lost IS shows the number of impressions you miss out on because of low ad rank. That can be because your CPC is too low, or because your quality score is too low.
If your Lost impression share (rank) is high, you have a couple of options when this happens:
Improve your ad rank by raising your bid
Refine search queries that your product listing ads appear for, this will improve your CTR which could raise your quality score
d) Click share
The last of the search impression share metrics you can find in Google Ads or Google Shopping is Click share. This is the percentage of clicks that your ad got when it was shown.
You can use click share to spot searches where a high impression share isn’t translating into more traffic. This might indicate that your ad is less relevant for that search query or might indicate an issue in terms of how consumers see your products relative to what they are looking for.
4. A/B test your campaigns
A/B testing is a great way to test different strategies and determine the most effective ones. You can try different ad copy, images, keywords, and landing page elements to see which ones have the best results.
You can also test different bidding strategies and determine which one is most cost-effective and drives the most sales.
A/B testing can help you optimize your campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
5. Optimize your product page (make a point about conversion optimization)
As an extension of the previous point, product pages are one of the most critical aspects of your Google Shopping ads campaigns. It needs to be optimized to be successful. People often focus on the shopping images or feed that is part of the copy, but optimizing the landing page is just as important to maximize the conversion rate of your campaigns.
Ensure your product page contains all the relevant information, including images and product descriptions. You should also include customer reviews to help build trust and encourage people to purchase.
Other effective strategies include using keywords on your product page related to the products you’re selling. It will help Google better understand your products, resulting in more effective ad campaigns.
6. Use retargeting methods
Remargeting is a great way to stay top of mind with customers, even after they’ve left your website. It can help keep them engaged and more likely to buy.
You can set up retargeting campaigns that display ads to customers who have already visited your website or have been exposed to your products after seeing them as a result of the Google Shopping campaigns you have set up.
You can also use retargeting to display ads for products customers viewed but didn’t purchase in the past.
7. Build a similar audience list
Similar audiences are a great way to reach customers similar to those you have already successfully converted.
You can create a list by taking data from your existing customers and using it to find other potential customers with similar characteristics.
For example, you can create a list of people similar to customers who have purchased from you. Google Shopping will then use this list to display your ads to similar audiences.
8. Include a special offer or deal
You can use special offers or discounts in your Google Shopping ads campaigns to attract more customers. This can help increase sales and capture more customers by including a special offer or deal in your campaigns.
It’s essential to ensure the offer relates to your product and provides good value to your customers. You can also use special offers or discounts to encourage customers to purchase from you.
9. Consider your pricing strategy.
Your pricing strategy is an essential part of your Google Shopping ads campaigns. Ensure that your prices are competitive and that you get the most value.
You can also use dynamic pricing to adjust your prices based on market conditions and customer demand. It can help you stay competitive and ensure your prices are as attractive to customers.
Google Shopping Trends in 2024
Now that we have established several tactics to help you optimize your Google Shopping campaign efforts, let us look at 7 Google shopping trends that we can expect in 2024 and how your business can look to profit from them.
1. Enhanced user experience due to AI
In 2024, the Google Shopping user interface is set to undergo a facelift, making window shopping online feel like a stroll through your favorite mall. Picture this – a sleek, intuitive interface that anticipates your needs, remembers your preferences, and offers a shopping experience tailored just for you. No more endless scrolling.
Imagine logging in and being greeted by a curated product feed based on your previous products and searches. If you are into fitness and working out, Google Shopping might tempt you with the latest athleisure wear or high-performance workout gear. All of this is thanks to advanced algorithms and machine learning, which is designed to ensure that each click takes us one step further along our retail journey.
2. New technologies allow for enhanced possibilities
Cryptocurrency is one such example of a technology making its mark in the e-commerce landscape. Google Shopping is set to leverage blockchain for secure transactions, providing users with a level of trust and transparency previously unseen in online shopping.
Voice search integration is another game-changer. With the rise of smart speakers and voice-activated assistants, Google Shopping is adapting to how users communicate. Imagine saying, “Hey Google, find me the best laptops under $800,”, and instantly, your virtual shopping assistant presents you with a curated list.
3. Try it on with augmented reality (AR)
Get ready to bring the dressing room to your living room! Google Shopping is gearing up for an AR revolution, allowing users to virtually experience how clothes, accessories, and even furniture look before purchasing. Visual search capabilities will enable you to snap a photo of an item randomly when you see it and find it or other similar options, Google Shopping.
Imagine trying on that sleek leather jacket or testing how that plush sofa fits into your living space, all from the comfort of your home. This truly is a personalized, interactive experience.
4. Green is the new black
In the last half-decade, global online searches for sustainable products have surged by 71%. Consumers are now actively interested in interacting with environmentally conscious businesses, embracing sustainable practices that were once overlooked.
Google Shopping is seizing the trend of sustainability. As consumers become increasingly mindful of their environmental footprint, the platform will highlight eco-friendly products and brands aligning with sustainable practices.
Imagine browsing through a dedicated section of Google Shopping feed, where every product comes with a sustainability score. From recycled materials to carbon-neutral shipping, users can make thoughtful choices that align with their values. This really can show you that shopping with a purpose is achievable.
5. Integration of AI and machine learning
Predictive analytics will play a key role, learning from our browsing history and purchase patterns to foresee our future desires. Forget the days of aimless wandering through endless product pages. With AI and machine learning, Google Shopping has become a guide, helping us discover products we never knew we needed.
The introduction of smart shopping assistants not only allows Google Shopping to be smarter but is set to revolutionize how we browse and buy. These virtual shopping companions will accompany us on our e-commerce journey, offering real-time suggestions, comparing prices, and even negotiating deals on our behalf.
6. Collaboration and partnerships
In 2024, Google Shopping is forging impactful partnerships with retailers, brands, and tech companies, redefining the digital shopping experience. These alliances promise users exclusive deals, early product access, and unique shopping adventures.
Imagine Google Shopping collaborating with a renowned fashion brand to launch a limited-edition collection available exclusively on the platform. Collaborations with technology companies are also on the horizon. These types of alliances and partnerships offer an encouraging start but are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what will eventually be possible.
7. The Rise of Social Commerce
2024 is not just about solitary online shopping, it’s a social affair. Social commerce is on the rise, and Google Shopping is taking note. In 2022, global sales through social media hit a whopping $1.298 billion. By 2025, social commerce in the US could grow into a $79 billion industry.
Integration with social media platforms will enable users to share their favorite finds, seek recommendations from friends, and even make purchases directly from social feeds. Think of it as a virtual shopping spree with your besties, where you can comment, like, and share your latest fashion haul or tech gadgets. The lines between socializing and shopping will blur, creating a more immersive and social shopping experience.
Google Shopping: A Constant Yet Dynamically Evolving Part of an E-Commerce Growth Marketing Framework in 2024 and beyond
As you can see, Google Shopping is constantly evolving. However, it is a platform that has consistently been at the forefront of e-commerce growth over the years. As such, a systematic approach to Google Shopping campaign management has value.
If you are an e-commerce store owner and operator whose physical products aren’t being advertised in Google Shopping, you absolutely ought to your overall marketing strategy. It can boost your website traffic and increase your leads and sales from prospects who might not have found your business otherwise.
Following the advice and trends within this article will help you get ahead of the game and boost your ROI with Google Shopping.
If you believe Google Shopping can serve as a major driver for growth in your business, why not reach out to us for an initial meeting? Our expert Google Shopping consultants look forward to meeting with you, learning more about your businesses, examining your existing strategy, and determining how Google Shopping can best be implemented for your business.
However, to truly win with Google Shopping in 2024, you need a well-thought-out strategy, one that leverages proper planning and awareness of how to best leverage Google Shopping for your business in conjunction with other marketing channels as part of a holistic approach.
That's where we as expert growth marketing consultants come in.
Growth marketing consulting that is available on demand to serve as an outside source that can evaluate your overall strategy, as well as specific campaigns and tactics, and give you specific recommendations (as well as work to implement them) to help achieve growth is an asset that few businesses take advantage of.
So why not put yourself ahead of the curve? Book a free, no-obligation initial consultation with us today.