Google Shopping Ads are powerful tools, but they’re just that–tools. When optimized through data, Google Shopping Ads can increase visibility, drive traffic, and grow revenue.

If you run a startup or midsize business, you need to know how to use every advertising tool available, instead of running ads and hoping they work. E-commerce Google ads are just one piece of the puzzle.

Kinds of Google Ads

When most people think of Google Ads, they think of search ads. In reality, there are many kinds of ads offered through Google:

Search ads: These are displayed among search results when a potential customer is looking for something adjacent to your product
Display ads: These are the visual ads that appear on webpages, sometimes the product of businesses making use of remarketing for e-commerce.
Video ads: Before, during, or after, skippable or not, these ads play during YouTube videos.
App ads: Only used if you’re selling an app, Google has you designate text, language, and budget, then uses your data to do the rest.
Discovery ads: Appearing on the Google Discover feed and YouTube homepage, Google generates these ads using customer intent data and a range of images, logos, and text you submit.

Why Shopping Ads Are Different

First of all, Shopping ads don’t use keywords, they use your product data. This means that when Google generates and serves your ad, it will be to shoppers best paired with that offering. This allows Shopping ads access to more information and lets Google optimize their appearance.

Better Leads

Shopping ads can include price and product information, meaning potential customers save time researching competitors and are immediately closer to pulling the trigger on a purchase.

Better Campaigns

Because you don’t use keywords, you can invest in Shopping ad campaigns based on product groupings you set in your data feed.

Better Visibility

Shopping ads can have prominent placement, and if you have multiple products, they can appear in diverse forms on the same page.

Google Shopping Ad Optimization

Product feed affects how your products appear in Google’s ‘Shopping’ results, so optimizing that is one of the key parts of getting the most out of your ads.

Description: Be thorough and clear. Mention core features, benefits of your product, and things that set it apart. Try and do all of this while making the information easy to take in at a glance.
Images: Use high-resolution images that focus on the product. Again, you want would-be customers to know what you’re selling and how great it is with one look. Lifestyle photos can be powerful, but make sure that what you’re selling is center stage.
Title: Make sure you include name, brand, model, size, and key attributes. Use any and all consumer data to know which keywords shoppers use when searching so you can include those, as well.
Categories: Google automatically assigns a category based on your description (another reason to be clear and precise) but you can override that category to benefit your campaign if needed.

Campaign Structure

With your data feed perfected, the next step in optimization is making sure you have a plan for your campaign. Just like you don’t want to dump money in Google Ads and hope for the best, you don’t want to launch a campaign and hope it reaches who it needs to.

You can help your campaign be dynamic in a few ways. For example:

You can use smaller budgets to experiment with products that are seasonal or have previously been low-conversion.
You can bid aggressively with high-margin bestsellers to find your ceiling.
You can group clearance items to put them on their own track with distinct messaging.

As with much of Google Ads, you can choose to automate a large part of this, but getting those few extra percentages out of your investment comes from customization. Thankfully, you don’t have to understand and execute that customization all by yourself.

Optimize More Than Your Ads

When you’re a startup or mid-sized business with limited resources, Google Shopping ads can be a fantastic investment with huge return. Like all things, however, they work best when they’re treated as dynamic systems with multiple facets.

BERK Labs can help you get the most out of your investment–we can help you build smart and responsive Shopping ad strategies that are data-driven. And if you’re starting out, we can show you the basics, like how to run Google Ads for e-commerce. See what we can offer your business today!