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Google is pushing more and more of its services to be free for merchants. Google Shopping, which previously cost a fee to list products, is now available for free. It’s another way that the company is trying to make it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for.
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping is an online product search engine from Google. It’s a part of the AdWords program, which means you have to use Adwords in order to advertise your products on it.
You may ask yourself what this has to do with Magento – well, if you want to advertise your Magento store on Google Shopping, you have to use Google’s Adwords.
Here is a breakdown of what that entails:
Before the change, here is how it used to work:
You’d have a basic free account with Google Shopping and you could list 250 products for free. On top of being limited to only listing 250 products, if your ads received less than 25 clicks within 30 days, Google would stop showing them and you’d have to delete products in order for your ads to start working again.
How does it work for merchants now?
If you have a Google Merchant account, your products are automatically listed on Google Shopping.
There is no limit to the number of products that can be listed there, which means you’ll get more visibility for your products. If your product gets clicked on or if someone searches using Google using specific criteria (e.g. “blue shirts”, “red jeans”, etc.) then you’ll receive a notification that your product has been clicked or searched for.
If someone clicks on your ad, they are redirected to your website where they can complete the purchase.
The pros of Google Shopping
Free – there is no charge to have products listed on Google Shopping The more products you have listed on Google Shopping, the more opportunities for your products to be seen by potential customers The easier it is for customers to find your products, the greater chance you have of them making a purchase
The cons of Google Shopping
Because there’s no limit on how many products can be listed (outside of Adwords budget), if your products aren’t converting then you’re just throwing money away You don’t have total control over your ads – Google decides which products appear, and in what order they show up. If your ad doesn’t show up due to budget constraints, it’s incredibly hard to determine why (that’s where we come in!)
Benefits of Google Shopping for Merchants
Currently, we offer 4 different packages to help merchants who would like to advertise their products on Google Shopping. Here is a brief description of what each package offers:
This package includes reports that give you insight into how your campaigns are performing as well as an analysis of the competitiveness of your keywords and ads. This package also includes negative keyword suggestions and “best by” date notifications.
How to list products on Google Shopping
If you’re already advertising on Google Adwords and would like to add products on Google Shopping, follow these steps:
1. Go to your Google Merchant account and click on the “Add a product” button in blue at the top of the screen. You’ll be prompted with a pop-up menu that looks like this:
2. From here, you have two options:
A) If you already have a feed that you’d like to upload, click on “upload your product data” and select the file from your computer
B) If this is your first time uploading a feed, click on “create new feed”, which will prompt another pop-up menu
3. From that menu, you’ll be prompted to enter the category for your product, the price, and currency of your product, how many units are in a package for that product (if applicable), what color it is (if applicable), and finally the landing page URL.
4. If this is all correct, your campaign will begin immediately.
Tips to optimize your listing on Google Shopping
List products you know will be most advantageous for your business – if you sell the same product on different sites, we recommend not listing it here. Categories and keywords can affect where your product shows up in Google Shopping.
which is why it’s important to choose them wisely List your best selling products first – this way when prospective customers search they are much more likely to see your products Listing a lot of products in the same category will help you avoid “feature” listings where Google promotes their own product ahead of yours Include negative keywords in your feed so that irrelevant queries won’t result in your ad showing up When entering the price, use the currency symbol appropriate for each country List multiple color variations if you have them Include a long and descriptive product description as well as high-quality images for each product
FAQs about the service from a merchant
A. Merchants create Google Merchant accounts and provide us with a list of products they want to advertise on Google Shopping. We upload that information into their account, along with any relevant information about the ads themselves (like how much they’re willing to pay or what types of keywords trigger the ad), then start the campaign.
Merchants will be capable to promote the merchandise on
Google Shopping at no cost, due to modifications that can take impact quickly.
Previously, they needed to PPC, however, the fee was not mounted. There was no minimal, however, they needed to set a most for advert spend and Google would cease displaying their advertisements as soon as the utmost was reached.
Starting the subsequent week, search outcomes on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free product listings, mentioned Bill Ready, Google’s president of commerce.
Existing Google Merchant Center and Shopping Ads customers will likely be enrolled within the new program routinely; Google will streamline the onboarding course for new Merchant Center customers over the subsequent few months.
The modifications will take impact within the United States earlier than the tip of the month. Google plans to increase them globally earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
Google is also launching a brand new partnership with PayPal to let retailers hyperlink their accounts, to be able to velocity up onboarding and enhance search high quality, Ready mentioned.
Further, Google is working intently with many current buying platform companions, together with Shopify, WooCommerce, and HugeCommerce.
Shot within the Arm for SMBs
Now SMBs and smaller retailers “can potentially list more products without fear of running up the cost,” noticed Liz Miller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
Opening up Google Shopping additionally “helps expand the size and scope of Google’s marketplace, adding more opportunity for discovery and delight, which is certainly a perk of browsing broad search terms on something like Amazon,” Miller advised the E-Commerce Times. “Who knew you needed a tea strainer that looks like a manatee had you not searched for ‘tea’?”
That will let Google “expand the base to upsell into showcase shopping ads or more engagement-based premium ads,” she famous.
It’s additionally a means so as to add alternative in a class the place income has begun to lag, Miller remarked.
“As Google was seeing more opportunity in their cost per engagement models across things like Showcase, you had a situation where more house ads were taking up residence in the Listings,” she mentioned. “Why not open up, increase the perceived size of your virtual mall, and expand the sales opportunity by approaching these new listings in the marketplace with ways to make their placement deliver even better results?”
Opening up Google Shopping provides SMBs one other gross sales channel for their merchandise, Netalico’s Lewis advised the E-Commerce Times. “Particularly as it becomes harder and harder to rank on Google organically, anything you can do to highlight your products on Google is a good thing.”
However, eradicating boundaries to entry — reminiscent of price — is a combined blessing, as a result of it might “increase the competition on Google Shopping and decrease the overall quality of the listings,” he cautioned.
That mentioned, if Google can keep the standard of the listings, that can “provide a valuable opportunity for Google to act as an e-commerce search engine — something which Amazon has been dominating lately,” famous Lewis.
Fending Off Amazon
Opening up Google Shopping is probably going “a response to losing so much e-commerce market share to Amazon,” Lewis instructed.
Almost half of almost 1,000 Internet customers aged 13 and above mentioned they sometimes would go to Amazon first when buying a product, based on a survey carried out final 12 months. For those that usually shopped online, that determination was 58 %.
Amazon “is now the go-to e-commerce search engine because it has such a wide selection of products,” Lewis remarked.
The coronavirus pandemic has boosted enterprise at Amazon, which needed to rent 100,000 new employees final month and now plans so as to add one other 75,000.
Amazon restricted online shipments of nonessential merchandise to its warehouse for a month starting in March, to be able to make room for merchandise reminiscent of bathroom paper and hand sanitizer attributable to skyrocketing demand due to the pandemic.
It resumed accepting nonessential product shipments final week.
In one other transfer that harm Google, Amazon
sharply minimize its purchases of Google Ads.
Further, Amazon
has been attracting online advertisements at Google’s expense.
Fight for the Ad Market
Facebook and different gamers are nipping at Google’s heels as effectively.
The online advert market “includes players like eBay, who are looking to deliver greater impact, scale, scope and analysis of audience and buying behavior and intention,” Miller identified. “This is where new formats and more content-driven, image-driven, and carousel-style formats have come into play.”
Google “has made smart moves in their partnerships, especially in helping big retailers tie in with point-of-sale inventory management solutions, so local feeds become easier to manage and maintain,” she continued.
“While Amazon is driving advertising to drive e-commerce specific business, Google can go beyond and can also drive local sales, which will certainly become even more important when businesses start to reopen and look for a speedy recovery,” Miller mentioned.
That could also be essential. U.S. spending on search promoting will fall by between 9 % and 15 % in H1, 2020, based on eMarketer.
Twitter pulled again from its advert gross sales projections for March, which analysts consider
fell by about 20 %.
Facebook’s advert gross sales have weakened in international locations aggressively combating COVID-19, the corporate acknowledged.
It’s doubtless Google advert gross sales even have been hit.
However, online advert gross sales have been falling earlier than the pandemic, Miller mentioned, and the coronavirus “just accelerated the fall.”
