What Are Google Shopping Ads?

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All Stars Digital
  • Date Published
  • Categories Blog
  • Reading Time 8-Minute Read

Let’s have a look at how Google Shopping Ads can maximize a brand’s potential online if local stores and brands can drive sales with Ads displayed.

One of the most effective ways for any brand to drive sales and create a revenue catalog online is to design Google Ads, also known as Product List Ads.

With a marketplace built right into the Google Search page, the Google Shopping Ad is a swift way for retailers to promote their online and local inventory, drive traffic to the website or local store and get better leads.

Despite being one of the best advertisement channels to drive the audience to a website, a Google Shopping Ad is one of the most overlooked platforms by marketers. And this comes as an opportunity for retailers, small brands, etc.



Let’s look at how Google Shopping Ads can maximize a brand’s potential online, if local stores and brands can drive sales with Ads displayed on Google Search Engine, and if Google Ads work better than Social Media Ads.

Let’s begin!

What Are Google Shopping Ads?

You must have seen a lot of Google Ads already.

Type any product name into Google and you are likely to see tabs of products listed with their respective image, price, website, etc. at the top of the results page.

Placed above all other forms of advertisements – shopping ads catch the eye! Google Ads have been especially effective because they feature a high-quality image, price, and website at a glance.

As the ads appear on the top of the most visited search engine in the world, you are putting ads on the busiest street of the internet.

So be it your online website or your local store – Google Ads is the ultimate place to drive both local and global audiences to your business.

Why Should You Choose Google Ads?

The last time we checked, Google was still dominating the search engine arena.

If you type any product name, like the ‘running shoes’ in the previous example, it pulls up a lot of websites, along with Google Sponsored Ads. Bingo!

By clicking on the shopping tab, you can access a variety of running shoes from different retailers. Google allows you to filter through the results by price points, size, brand, and more.

Here are a few reasons why you should choose Google Ads:

  • The user-friendly platform makes the customer experience easy and therefore holds more potential to drive customers to the website.
  • Google Shopping adds a visual touch to the product listings, creating a better impact.
  • Your listed products are likely to appear multiple times i.e. text-only PPC result, shopping result, website result, etc.
  • Shopping Ads have a higher conversion rate across platforms i.e. 30% more than the text ads.
  • Google’s algorithm working in its own favour – now that’s a catch!

How Product List Ads Work!

Google Shopping or Product List Ads work on a bidding system i.e. whoever pays the highest amount gets the most exposure.

While setting up a Shopping Campaign, one has to set the bid amount they are ready to pay for tapping into a potential customer and converting it to sales.

The highest bidder gets the best result out of Google Algorithm and generates better sales.

But it doesn’t lose its value for businesses that are running on low budgets either.

Google Product Listing Ads generate almost 3X returns than the amount invested. It is a win-win!

Click-through rate and conversion results are the two things that you must always keep your eye on. On average, a business spends %0.66 on converting an audience to traffic on a website.

If your ads are not generating clicks, you can raise the bid and attain a rate that suits your budget.

Your bidding depends on how much you are willing to spend on a customer based on your evaluation of the lifetime value of a customer.

Sometimes, changing images, product descriptions, etc changes the way these ads perform on the platform.

It is necessary to go through the trial and error process in order to design the best shopping ads that give a perfect conversion rate within your budget.

Let’s Look at the Stats!

With over 1.3 billion people and about 500 million internet users, the Indian digital advertising section is one of the fastest-growing advertising markets in the world and is expanding at a faster rate than any other medium.

According to eMarketer, Google is amongst the top-ranking search ad revenue players in the industry.

Bloomberg reports outline, Google India Pvt. Ltd. showed Rs 1,097 crore as ‘net sales’ from advertisements in the country, as per its RoC filing.

About 76.4% of ad spend and 85.3% of clicks are attributed to Google Shopping Ads.

While retailers from all product segments resort to Google Shopping Ads for their product promotion, Home & Garden, Beauty & Personal Care, Sports & Fitness, and Gifts sections create the most impact through Google Shopping Ads.

The results are a reflection of the most commonly googled things on the web.

How to Set up Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads on Google

Set up a Google Merchant Center Account

Google Merchant Center is Google’s official portal to manage your future with Google Shopping and Ad Campaigns. Setting up an account is important and super-easy. The portal allows you to navigate through analytics, costs, display, creation of campaigns, etc in one dashboard.

Optimize Your Product Image

Google Shopping Ads, although created in the Merchant Center, pull the product images from the retail website for the display of featured images on the portal. And as pictures form a crucial part of Product List Ads, it’s best to optimize the images on the website for maximum impact.

Feed in Product Specifications and Other Details

It is about telling Google everything about your product! The data has to be crisp, defined, and must include every specification for Google to categorize, display, and optimize the keywords on the platform. Assemble your product attributes, specifications, etc to make the most of the information available to Google and its audience.

Link Your Google AdWords Account

While Google Merchant Center defines your product information, Google Adwords is where you can make the Shopping Ads active and ready to display to the audience. The tool allows you to manage cost and revenue, track the performance of your ads, etc. Create and Link your Google Adwords Account to the Google Merchant Center.

Create a Google Shopping Campaign

Once the accounts are linked, you will be able to create a Google Shopping Campaign and advertise the products to the Google audience. On the Google Merchant Center, you will get access to Create Shopping Campaigns where you can add campaign name, budget, country of sale, dates, etc, and create the campaigns.

Place Bids on Your Shopping Campaign

Under Google Shopping Settings, you will be asked to bid on the campaign and set up the budget for conversions. The more you pay, the more exposure you get. It is about finding the right fit in terms of budget and conversion that can help you drive the most audience to your website.

Target, Schedule and Optimize Your Shopping Campaign

By defining the metrics like the networks and devices where the ads should show, location, target audience, etc. you can optimize the performance of the Shopping Campaign.

Build Ad Groups

After setting the target and schedule, you will be prompted to build ad groups for your campaign. These determine the type of ads you want to run and how you can organize bidding for these ads. Ad groups include – Product Shopping Ads and Showcase Shopping Ads. With Product Shopping Ads, you can display the ads individually for each product, while with the Showcase Shopping Ads (New Feature) you can display a range of products Ads or lifestyle Ads that represent your brand.

After the steps are completed, all you need to do is hit the ‘SAVE’ button for the Campaign to be submitted, reviewed, and activated.

What We Think!

Google Shopping Ads is a breath of fresh air in a marketplace that is highly dominated by text-based Ads from retailers and brands. The Google Search Engine becomes much like the largest shopping mall with your store displaying products as and when the customers come looking for them. With Google Location, algorithm, and display – it’s a viable option for even small brands to make a big impact on their target audience.

All Stars Digital is an eminent Digital Marketing and Brand Scaling Agency dedicated to the idea of promoting businesses/brands in the Digital Arena with perfection. Dedicated to designing Advertisements, Search Engine Optimization, Brand promotion, Brand Image, and Awareness across Indian and global audience, All Stars Digital helps you create a business in the world of Clicks and Shares.

Have a product to market? How about creating a Digital Ad with us?