Table of contents
Google Shopping – What Is It and Why Is It Important?
The Google Shopping comparison engine is a convenient form of advertising available from the search engine level, available to users of the AdWords advertising system. This engine displays the so-called Advertisements with Product List (also referred to as Product Listing Ads or PLA). How does the comparison engine work from the point of view of a search engine user (potential customer) and an advertiser? We will try to answer these questions below!
Using Google Shopping Comparison Engine
After you have entered any phrase related to products in Google search engine, you will usually see two kinds of adverts – well-known text ads and product ads. The product advertisements show up in the form of a carousel which can be scrolled. The carousel is filled with advertising slots which contain products of various e-shops. This is how customers visit a specific seller who has a given product in their offer.
Every query in the search engine is adapted to the range of products available on various websites on the basis of the so-called product feed. We have already discussed it in one of the previous articles. Briefly speaking – every online store may send Google Ads information about its offer so that Google algorithm decides whether the product is displayed in response to the specific query. Thanks to such a solution, Google Shopping is one of the most precise advertising instruments, which is also characterized by a large reach.
How to Use Google Shopping as an Advertiser
In order to initiate broadcasting advertisements in Google Shopping Comparison Engine, at first you have to create and configure a Google Merchant Center account. Once the configuration is successful, you have to send a product feed which informs about products sold in an online store. Most stores generate such feeds automatically on the basis of information previously sent to supplement the range of products in the online store.
If the configuration of the product feed is successful, you can start configuring the shopping campaign.
Google Shopping Requirements
The product feed stores product information which the advertiser wants to use during product advertising broadcast. For this reason, it is required to send the basic product information, such as:
- id [identification]
- title [title]
- description [description]
- link [link]
- image_link [link_to_photo]
- availability [availability]
- price [price]
- google_product_category [Google_product_category]
- brand [brand]
- gtin [gtin]
- mpn [mpn]
- condition [condition]
These are basic values you can assign in the product feed. Additionally, the feed stores a series of optional and additional elements (e.g. color, weight, size), which may sometimes be required for some products.
In most cases attributes are supplemented thanks to information the online store keeper sent to its store platform – if attributes have been specified properly, they are sent to the product feed.
Advantages of Using Product Advertisements
Product advertisement is a very good source of precise and profitable traffic. Thanks to the fact that you can present your product visually (as an image) and specify its price, the way store’s products are displayed may lead directly to conversion.
The advert displaying algorithm also differs from the one we know from text ads. There are no keywords, but there is a product feed on the basis of which products are matched with specific users’ queries. Such adaptation of search engine results to the user’s phrase generates considerable and precise reach, and this is very favorable to advertisers.
