6 Tips to Improve Your Google Shopping Results
July 26, 2021
Struggling to get the best results from Google Shopping? Here are six tips and tricks that can dramatically improve your results.
If you are an online retailer and you want Google to be a sales channel, you must be on Google Shopping.
Whether people are doing a brand-specific search or a general product query, if Google recognizes a shopping intent, they’ll favor shopping results.
This is not just in terms of ranking but also the quality of the listing. Since shopping results have images and prices, they’re far more eye-catching.
For example, if I’m shopping for a Santa Cruz longboard, I’m more likely to click on a shopping ad than their website listing:
However, Google Shopping can also be really competitive. Getting at the front of the carousel, or even on page one of the shopping page itself, is an ongoing challenge.
Here are some tips that get you ranking, keep you there, and improve your conversions. Note that these are advanced strategies that will require experience with Google Shopping to implement, but novices can also get an idea of what’s possible from this post.
#1: Segment brand searches
Brand name searches in Google Shopping often perform differently than non-branded searches, requiring a different bidding strategy. Specifically, branded, product-specific searches show greater buying intent and convert better, meaning they usually need higher bids.
To do this, create two different campaigns where you focus only on branded keywords in the brand campaign. In the general product query campaign, put the branded terms in as negative keywords so the branded searches will channel to the branded campaign.
This will let you optimize more effectively for each type of keyword query, improving rankings and quality scores. Data shows* an average of 27% reduction in cost per conversion when this strategy is implemented.
#2: Test your bids daily or hourly
Bidding mechanics on Google Shopping are far more sensitive to micro-changes than they are on Google Search. A change of just a few cents at the right times can double your revenue.
In Google Shopping campaigns, you’ll want to test your bids extensively using a bidding script. Maximize click-through rates by increasing bids at high-performing times and decreasing them at lower-performing times. Here is a data example of segmented bids by the time of day that increased overall CTR by 11%:
#3: Offer competitive prices
Consumers on Google Shopping are price shoppers. Data clearly shows that cheaper products get more clicks and conversions. In a test on an e-commerce site that has similar products with expensive and cheap options, the cheaper offerings overwhelmed the more expensive versions.
The cheaper products had:
- 134.2% higher impression rates
- 135.3% more clicks
- 29.5% lower cost per order
- 61.3% higher conversion rates
- 280% more conversions
Google Shopping facilitates this by making it so easy to compare pricing on the same product from different stores. Price shopping is part of the user experience they’re promoting:
If you are consistently the highest price on the same or similar product compared to your competition, you have nowhere to hide on Google Shopping. Without competitive pricing, you won’t fare well.
#4: Optimize your product titles
Product titles are the most important piece of content to optimize in your feed. It’s vital to have your keyword target in the product title. Follow that with descriptors that people might search on.
If you’re doing a brand campaign, put the brand name first. If you’re focusing on a general query, lead with that keyword phrase.
Descriptors, like colors or sizes, should be included in product titles, but don’t make them too long or they won’t fully display in results.
Here are some suggestions:
#5: Segment by profit margin
With many product lines, you have to segment campaigns based on profit margins. In these cases, you may need to have single product ad groups to execute an optimal bidding strategy.
For example, say you sell flat-screen TVs. One sells for $99, while another sells for $1099. You need a different bidding strategy on the more expensive model because the revenue is so much greater. If you have the same bids on the $99 model, you may wipe out your profit margin on clicks.
Data shows a 230% increase in conversion rates and 85% decrease in cost per acquisition with this strategy.
#6: Use RLSA campaigns
One of the most confirmed pieces of data in digital marketing is that consumers usually don’t convert the first time they visit a website. With so many options at their fingertips, people hesitate and surf on most of the time, even when they’re in the market to purchase.
This is why remarketing is so important. For Google Shopping, you can use remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA).
Here’s how it works. I do a search for the Santa Cruz skateboard I’d like, find a site with a good price and visit. Tempted as I am to buy, I know I need to get my water heater fixed before I can spend the money. I leave the website.
But a tracking code called a cookie is now on my browser. With RLSA, the website I visited can bid to have an ad show at a higher position to me when I go back and search again to make my purchase.
I get the water heater fixed and search again on Santa Cruz longboards. This time, the site I visited before is in the first spot because of RLSA.
You can target even more specifically. RLSA ads to audiences who abandoned their cart have seen conversion rates increase by 400% because they target people with serious buying intent.
These repeated searches represent a vital target audience that is further along in the buying cycle. You’re justified in bidding higher to recapture this traffic.
If your Google Shopping is struggling, try some of these strategies. In the competitive world of online shopping, you need to use every trick in the book to get top results.
*Data Resource Clicteq.
Originally published on 8/4/17
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