What Are Google Shopping Ads? A Detailed A-Z Guide

Have you heard of Google Shopping ads, an advertising tool that helps you increase sales, build brand awareness and compete with rivals? In this article, MONA Media will answer your questions about what Google Shopping ads are, how to create and manage ad campaigns, and how to optimize them for the best results.

What is Google Shopping Ads?

What are Google Shopping ads? Google Shopping Ads is an online advertising service from Google that lets you show your products on Google search results and the Google Shopping page.

Google Shopping Ads presents products with information such as name, image and price, making it easy for customers to choose and compare prices on the search page.

This tool brings many benefits to retail businesses: higher click-through rate on ads, higher order conversion rate, lower cost per click and a smaller budget than traditional ad campaigns,…

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How does Google Shopping appear?

With Google Shopping Ads, when you search for a product on Google you see a list of related products shown as image, name, price and seller. You can click a product to see details or compare it with others.

However, how Google Shopping appears depends on the device you use. On a computer, products appear at the top of the search page or in the right-hand column. On a phone, they appear at the top of the search page and you can swipe left to see more.

What are the benefits of Google Shopping Ads?

To cover the benefits Google Shopping Ads campaigns bring to businesses, MONA has put together the detailed list below:

A wider presence on search results

Google Shopping Ads can show many products on Google results, making you more prominent and catching customers' attention. Your ads can also appear on more channels and devices, such as Google Search, Google Images, YouTube or Google's partner sites.

Attract potential customers

Google Shopping Ads shows your products across multiple Google channels, including Google Search, Google Shopping and the Google Display Network. This makes your products more prominent and attracts more potential customers. It also raises click-through and lowers your site's bounce rate.

Easier campaign management, focused on retail

Running Google Shopping Ads makes managing a retail campaign much easier and more effective. You do not have to spend time writing ads or choosing keywords for each product; you just track metrics such as clicks, conversions, conversion value and ROAS to monitor campaign performance. Remember to use smart tools to optimize campaign results and save time and effort.

Better display on mobile devices

Google Shopping Ads shows your product information visually on mobile, including image, name, price and brand, which helps catch customers' attention. You can also optimize your ads for mobile using features such as:

• Smart bidding
• Conversion goal optimization
• Maximize performance

You can also adjust cost, audience and campaign goals per device type to improve campaign results.

Lower cost

Google Shopping Ads is a cost-per-click (CPC) format, meaning you only pay when someone clicks your ad. You can also adjust your budget and ad campaign to your business goals and ad performance.

Google Shopping ads raise click-through rate

Because products and prices are shown directly, they catch users' attention more than ordinary text ads. Customers can easily compare and choose products that fit their needs and budget, which raises the chance of clicks and purchases. The average click-through rate for Google Shopping ads is 0.86%, higher than the average click-through rate for paid search ads of 4-6% (recent research).

Easy to measure

Businesses can easily measure Google Shopping Ads through metrics such as clicks, conversions, conversion value and ROAS. You get detailed reports on your products, product groups, brands and product types. You can also connect to other analytics tools such as Google Analytics or Google Data Studio for a complete view of your customers.

Automatic updates when product information changes

In our assessment, this is one of Google Shopping's strongest points. The tool helps you manage your product list easily and updates product information automatically every night, saving time and raising productivity.

You can set up automatic data updates to track your products, and Google updates the campaign once a day, so you do not bid on products that are no longer sold or are out of stock.

To add new products, you can insert a tag and the products are automatically added to the “data feed” the next day, so you do not have to update the campaign manually whenever there is a new product.

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How Shopping ads work

To run shopping ads on Google Shopping, you need two tools: Google Ads and Google Merchant Center. Google Ads is where you create and manage ad campaigns, and Google Merchant Center is where you give Google data about your products.

As for placement, Google Shopping Ads can appear in three places: to the right of search results, above search results, or on the Shopping tab.

How is Google Shopping Ads priced?

Ad cost is probably the factor most businesses care about when it comes to Google Shopping Ads. With that in mind, MONA has summarized the 3 pricing models in detail below:

• Pay per click (CPC): The amount you pay when someone clicks your ad. Usually used for Search, Shopping and Display formats.
• Pay per impression (CPM): The amount you pay per 1,000 ad impressions. Usually used for GDN and YouTube formats.
• Pay per action (CPA): The amount you pay when a user takes a specific action after clicking your ad, such as buying, signing up or downloading.

Which businesses suit Shopping ads?

Google Shopping Ads is an ad format for e-commerce businesses, showing their products on Google search results and other platforms. In particular, it suits businesses that have:

• Website selling operations at a professional level that meets Google's standards.
• Basic Google Ads knowledge and skills.
• Quality, distinctive products and services.

Industries well suited to Google Shopping ads include:

• Fashion and accessories.
• Technology and electronics.
• Cosmetics.
• Furniture and home appliances.

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Requirements for running Google Shopping Ads

To run Google Shopping Ads, the business's website must meet these conditions:

• The site must be an e-commerce site.
• Clear payment and warranty policies.
• A website with a security certificate for SSL
• Business information
• The website must always comply with Google's policies

Steps to run Google Shopping ads

To make running Google Shopping ads easy and as effective as possible, follow these steps with MONA:

Step 1: Create a Merchant Center account, then verify your domain in GMC

To create a Merchant Center account and verify your domain in GMC, follow these steps:

Register a Merchant Center account

Register a Merchant Center account by going to https://merchants.google.com/ and signing in with your Google account.

Enter your business information, including business name, address, phone number, and choose where customers check out.

Verify your domain

Verify ownership of your website with one of these methods: add a TXT record to DNS for your domain, add a meta tag to your homepage, upload an HTML file to your server, or use Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.

To connect your website to Google Merchant Center, you need to verify ownership. Google offers 3 common methods, flexible depending on the tools you use:

Step 2: Link Merchant Center with your Google Ads account

Go to your Merchant Center account and select the settings icon. Then choose “Linked accounts”

Next, in the “Google Ads” section of Merchant Center, choose the item “Link to account”, then enter your Google Ads account ID in the box and submit the link request.

Then sign in to your Google Ads account and go to “Settings” → “Linked accounts”, find the “Merchant Center” section, select the matching account and confirm the connection to finish syncing.

Step 3: Upload product data to Merchant Center

Sign in to Merchant Center, select the “Products” tab, then go to “Data feeds”. Here, click the “+” icon to create a primary feed. This is where you upload or connect your product list so Google can show it in Shopping campaigns.

Next, complete the required information: choose the country of sale, display language and destination, usually your website or product page URL.

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Step 4: Create a Shopping campaign in Google Shopping

To start a Google Shopping campaign, first sign in to your business's Google Ads account.

On the main screen, click the “+ New campaign” button. Google then asks you to choose a campaign goal that fits your business strategy.

Choose the Merchant Center account that has the products you want to advertise. If you do not see an account here, first link your Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account. Note that you cannot change the merchant after creating the campaign.

When setting up a Google Shopping campaign, you set familiar parameters: campaign name, daily budget and bidding strategy. For beginners, start with manual CPC bidding, which gives you clear cost control and lets you learn to optimize over time.

Next, choose basic targeting:

• Geographic location (country, city, radius…) where you want your ads to show.
• Equipment (computer, phone, tablet) depending on your target customers' buying behavior.

Then create your first ad group. This is where you categorize products and set separate bids for each group, so you can control budget more flexibly based on each category's performance.

Notes when creating Google Shopping ads

To make running Google Shopping Ads go smoothly and perform as well as possible, keep the following in mind:

• Optimize product images: Product images are the first “highlight” that catches customers' attention. Make sure your product images are optimized in size and sharpness and use a white background.
• Pay attention to product titles and descriptions: Titles and descriptions must be accurate, highlight strengths and include suitable keywords, to attract customers and improve search performance.
• Filter keywords: Filtering keywords in Google Shopping Ads keeps you from paying for keywords or clicks unrelated to your content and ad strategy. This optimizes cost and reaches the right potential customers.
• Set competitive prices: Make sure your prices are competitive with rivals. If prices are too high compared with the market, your product will struggle to get customers' attention and is less likely to convert.
• Monitor and evaluate performance: This is a small tip, but one to do continuously throughout the campaign, so you have accurate information and can adjust accordingly.

That is how MONA Media has shared with you about what Google Shopping ads are and ways to run this kind of ad for your business. If you want to raise sales and brand awareness online, Google Shopping ads are an option you should not pass up.