Google Shopping Ads

Google's shopping ads are now active in New Zealand and they could really change the way we search for products.

Google puts your products even closer to the person searching for something to buy. Traditional search advertising places the words in the right place but this new approach places your products' image, price, ratings and promotions within the google search results page.

So what does this mean for sellers?

 Example of Google Shopping Ads

 

We are seeing a transition of buyers gravitating towards the quickest and easiest purchase decision. In some core demographics a purchaser will bypass the cheapest to go with the seller that offers the most peace of mind. This can involve more information earlier in the purchase process.

Whereas this doesn't replace a great shopping experience on your website what it can do is give you the leg-up on competitors that are slow to adopt this new style of advertising.

You, as the vendor, supply the information about your products, then Google matches the right product with the right search query and creates the product listing ad.

You first need to set up a Google Merchant Centre account, to use Google Shopping Ads. This can be the time-consuming bit i.e. you will need to think about the forward planning of what you want to achieve and how you want to publicise the products.

Google Shopping paves the way to further automation in advertising.  It also allows you to be at the top of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) in a more visual format than other adverts.

With an image of the product and its price, shoppers can easily identify which products they want to take a close look at.

The budget you'll require to see the best returns is difficult to pin point, like Google Ads it's trial and error. But in saying that the Cost per Click (CPC) for Shopping seems to be lower than traditional search.

To get the best results from this new initiative from Google be prepared to enlist some expert help. If you're frustrated by not knowing whether your traditional search activities are yielding results then diving into Google Shopping may only frustrate you further.

Some of the big players are using this form of advertising including Hallensteins, Ezibuy and Mighty Ape, but watch out as more and more businesses adopt this approach.

To discuss whether your business would benefit from Google Shopping feel free to contact us for a quick chat.

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