Why Google Shopping Should be a Staple in Your eCommerce Business

If you haven’t been in the loop lately, perhaps you’re unaware of the boom in e-commerce that’s taking place all throughout the world right now. With brands and companies moving from shopping malls to virtual storefronts, the end of having to walk on over or drive to the nearest outlet or supercenter to get something that you want or need is nigh.

With e-commerce taking the modern consumer market by storm, tech giants and small-time companies alike have put out hundreds of different e-commerce platforms where cash can change hands in exchange for goods and services. Out of all the possible e-commerce platformsyou could go with as a business that’s out to sell goods online, there’s one that you probably haven’t been looking into as much as you should: Google Shopping.

Google Shopping is another move that has been made by the giants to run far from being known as a search engine alone, innovating with more improved features, advanced sales algorithms, and expanded user reach for e-commerce businesses to use online. You may not know the name of the feature, but you definitely know what it looks like. Products displayed by the feature are the small square image product advertisements that appear on either the upper left or right-hand corner of your search results when you look for a product or service.

Typically, Google Shopping shows around four to eight of these tailored product or service listings while featuring the image of a product, 30 meta descriptions, and additional promotional text that’s geared to capture attention and generate sales. With hundreds of thousands to millions of sales being made with the help of this simple addition that enhances a user’s experience online, it’s clear that Google has somewhat cracked the code on what makes e-commerce work.

With just a few simple, yet clear lines of text, an image that catches attention, and the perfect location to reach out to potential target markets, drumming up some online business with a Google Shopping campaigncan do wonders for your ROI.

1. Make a data feed of your product list

Before you even start on running Google Shopping campaigns, it’s important to actually have your product list exported from your own website as a data feed in a certain format that contains all the necessary information that will be needed to run a Shopping ad. With the right information (such as the price, brand name, image, availability, and details), you’ll be able to prepare your campaign for success without any delays.

2. Open a GMC account

In this day and age, the step of opening a Google Merchant Center (GMC) account should already be a no-brainer — after all, how can you run specialized Google Shopping ads without having an account to do so in the first place? Luckily, setting up a GMC account is a one-time thing, and will be there for every other Shopping ad campaign that you make after the first. Should you install the data feed in the GMC account properly, you’ll be able to enjoy the perks of real-time inventory updates that can assist you and your customers in purchasing and enjoying your products.

3. Connect your GMC account with your Google AdWords account

By acting as a middleman, your GMC account will facilitate the transfer of important product information into your Google AdWords account to get your Shopping ads underway. However, it’s important to understand that setting up an AdWords account that’s linked to your GMC account involves having to send an approval request from the latter to the former.

4. Get your campaign up and running!

Once you’ve taken care of all the previous steps, you can now start creating Google Shopping campaigns for your products to your heart’s content. Setting up Shopping ads can be done in the simplest way by following these important steps:

• In your GMC account, go to your “All online campaigns” view, where you’ll see a “+ Campaign” button.
• Once you’ve clicked the “+ Campaign” button, head on over to the shopping option by clicking it as well.
• As soon as you’ve clicked the shopping option, you’ll see several standard setup options, such as “daily budget”, “location”, and “default bid.”
• After you’re done setting up your campaign, your products will go straight to the “all products” page, which should be separated from the rest to reduce your cost-per-click for different types of products.

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