What are Shopping Ads?
Typically, you will find Shopping Ads at the top of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) above the Search Ads and Organic results. Standard (Product) Shopping Ads on Google allow advertisers to promote retail products using the product's image, title, and price along with the store name.
Additional information such as product ratings, Google customer reviews, shipping information and merchant promotions can also be included in the ads. These ads provide an added visual appeal (especially when compared to Search Ads), which can help attract potential customers. They are also featured at the top of image results and on a dedicated page. They have proven to be great for eCommerce companies advertising on Google to generate sales as well as build brand awareness.
What are Google SMART Shopping Campaigns?
Smart Shopping campaigns are a subtype of Google’s Shopping campaigns. They are a combination of Standard Shopping Ads and display remarketing ads with the goal of advertising retail products across Google’s networks (Google Search Network, Display Network, YouTube and Gmail). They use automated bidding and ad placements to maximize audience reach and conversion rates.
These campaigns pull product data directly from a feed that can be set up on Google’s Merchant Center and uses Google machine learning to intelligently show them to customers who are more likely to convert and spend more.
Additional Recommendation
One thing to note is that if you choose to run Smart Shopping campaigns, you will want to ensure you pause any Standard Shopping or display remarketing campaigns to avoid cannibalizing your own marketing campaigns and interfering with Google’s machine learning.
What are the benefits of using Smart Shopping Ads?
Smart Shopping campaigns allow you to run your ads in multiple places simultaneously to help expand your audience reach while also getting higher quality leads. It’s been reported by Google that advertisers who use Smart Shopping campaigns drive over 20% more conversion value at similar costs than those using Standard Shopping campaigns.
Simple Set-Up
Since the initial setup process is relatively easy in the Google Ads interface compared to other campaign types, sellers can experience less hassle and start benefiting from getting the ads up and running.
The advertiser will only need to provide the relevant creative assets for the display portion, set up a budget, and provide an optional Target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) to help optimize for both a specific performance goal and Conversion Goals (such as new customer acquisition or store visits).
Easy to Manage
As your online store’s up-to-date product data will be pulled from your Merchant Center, it will automatically feed information to your ads so that conditions and availability of the products will be set to accurately describe the products you are advertising. This means there’s less footwork required from the merchants and advertisers to manage all the product listings and ensures enough inventory to continue running ads for a specific product.
Maximized Performance
At the same time, your merchant feed can help to serve your highly relevant dynamic remarketing ads to your online store’s visitors based on the products they have viewed while on your website. This helps re-engage the shoppers to come back to purchase more products, or reminds them to finally commit to the purchase of the item they have been eyeing.
Furthermore, because these campaigns use intelligent machine learning based on the settings (“maximize conversion value” automated bidding) and the user data that is collected, the ads will be auto-optimized to show in the ad spaces where they’re most relevant for your specific budget, products and target audience.
Final Thoughts
Smart Shopping can be an effective tool for eCommerce businesses in so many ways, especially for those who want to avoid time-consuming management of their shopping ads.
However, if you’re new to Google Ads with little to no data to leverage for Smart Shopping campaigns, or you strive to have full control over data collection, ad placements and bidding strategies, then this may not be the best option for you.
Merchants and advertisers will need to weigh the benefits of time savings compared to sacrificing full control of their campaigns to see which option makes the most sense for their businesses.
Contact the Pay Per Click Specialists at TechWyse to see if Smart Shopping Ads are the right choice for your online store!
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It is important information for us to use this guide for beginners to Google shopping ads. so thank you for write a informative blog.
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First of all thank you for write a amazing blog. Because it is very important information to guide for beginner’s to google shopping ads to us.
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Hi! it was really helpful for me thanks for such an interesting article. searching shopping ads so thank you.