As an online seller, your ultimate goal is to attract new buyers at a manageable cost. You can tweet and pin away for traffic — but you can also catch real customers by getting your product before shoppers right when they need it.
Enter Google Shopping.
Being the largest search engine in terms of traffic, Google is a great platform to make buyers aware of your product at the moment when their interest is at its peak.
In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at what Google Shopping is, how it works and how you can use it to drive your sales.
What is Google Shopping?
A shopping search engine from Google is called Google Shopping. Shoppers can utilize it to search for products for sale from online merchants.
These search results likewise display up in the image ads form in regular search when somebody looks for a product. This makes it easy for shoppers to compare offers from various vendors.
For instance, please take a look at the search results for the term “headphones”:
Notice the “Shopping” tab right beside “Images” right below the search box? By clicking on it, you will be redirected to Google Shopping search at Google.com/shopping.
If you click on any of the search results, you’ll be taken on to the merchant site.
Google Shopping is a paid search. Unlike normal search, there are no “organic” results in Google Shopping. Every product you see was paid for by an advertiser to show up for that query.
How Google Shopping Works
Retailers list their products on Google Shopping to show up on search results.
In fact, they have the option to upload their entire inventory and start shopping campaigns so that the right product is shown to the right buyer.
Google promises that putting up your products on its platform “makes the world your storefront”. This enhanced visibility gives you access to millions of customers.
Previously, Google used to have organic listings in its shopping results. However, Google has now switched to a purely paid model. Like AdWords, you will have to pay for each click to your store.
But Google Shopping is more than just targeted traffic to your store. Google likewise offers retailers ways to generate demand and manage listings where they want it.
Here are some services Google offers:
- Listing management. Use Google’s Merchant Center to upload your products and manage your listings.
- Payment and delivery: Google also offers qualifying store payment options via Android Pay and delivery via Google Express.
- Local inventory ads: if you have a physical store as well, you can show up your product for local searches and generate footfalls to your store.
- Advertising: This is the main Google Shopping service — promotion for particular listings on your target queries. Google offers dynamic retargeting to show your ads across the web.
You can see all these services on Google Retail.
Who Should Use Google Shopping (and Who Shouldn’t)
Google Shopping isn’t for everyone. There are a few situations where you might not want to use it.
DO use Google Shopping if:
- Your product category or product has a good search volume. Use the AdWords keyword planner to calculate this volume.
- Your product has built-in demand. That is, most searches for your product have a strong commercial intent.
- You have a conversion-focused design. Since you’ll be paying to advertise on Google Shopping, you must have a well-optimized landing page to convert shoppers into visitors. Else you might get a lot of traffic but not enough sales.
DON’T use Google Shopping if:
- You need to generate demand for your product. This usually happens in innovative, category-defying products where you need to first demonstrate your product’s value before selling it.
- You have a lot of competition. If there are tons of advertisers already on Google Shopping, you might find it unprofitable to buy ad space. This also applies if there are large brand name advertisers among your competitors.
How to Sell on Google Shopping
Here, we’ll brief how to promote on Google Shopping manually. If you sell online with Builderfly, there’s a way for you to automate your Google Shopping Ads. Go to your Manage store and launch your first campaign in few simple steps. The smart algorithm will even optimize the campaign for you so that you get better outcomes at a lower cost.
Add products to Google Shopping
Start by signing up for Google’s Merchant Center. This will enable you to manage your listings and upload your products manually should you choose to.
You’ll have to enter your website URL, your store name and your country of operation. After entering these details, Google will ask you to upload a file to your server to verify site ownership.
Once you’re done, you can log into the Merchant Center. Here, you can add and manage listings, update your business information and change tax/shipping details.
Listings in the Merchant Center are grouped under “Feeds”. A store might have multiple feeds, say, a feed for your regular products, another for seasonal products, and one more for products sold in another country, etc.
To add a feed, go to Products → Feeds in the Merchant Center. You can also name your feed and select the country.
The only thing you must keep in mind here is your product’s “identifiers” — Brand, GITN, and MPN.
Once you’ve taken these steps, your products will show up in the Merchant Center. You can now start selling on Google Shopping.
Buy shopping ads
Google Shopping listings are entirely paid. If you want your products to show up in search results, you will have to pay for it – like AdWords. To start advertising, you will need an AdWords account.
After setting up the account, log into your dashboard and click on “Create your first campaign”
Give your campaign a name and pick “Shopping” under ad type on the next screen.
You will have to connect your Merchant Center account to AdWords before you can start advertising. After linking the two accounts, you can select your placement and optimize your bidding. Once you’ve selected your products and target keywords, you can start selling on Google Shopping!
Over to You
Google Shopping is a powerful way to reach new buyers right when they need you the most. Google’s immense reach and targeting capabilities make it an extremely effective customer acquisition channel.
However, achieving the results you expect will take time, patience, and hard work.
Make sure to follow Google’s set guidelines and optimize your listings and you’ll soon have shoppers flooding your store ready to buy. Know more here about how to sell on Google using Builderfly platform.
