Why Amazon’s Drop is good for your Google Shopping Campaign

With the news that Amazon suspended bidding for nearly a fortnight on product listed adverts in Google’s shopping platform (and uncertainty over whether it may happen again), smaller retailers are spotting potential opportunities to move back into some real competitive product spaces.

Between the end of April and mid-May, Amazon’s presence dropped completely off the competitive sphere in Google’s shopping auctions. The reason behind this is still a mystery (although some people are pointing to the arrival of Google’s Shopping Actions feature, which is a direct attempt to take on Amazon), but it has a lot of retailers realising that the Google Shopping landscape is shifting. With the thought of Amazon being unsettled, is it time to revisit Google Shopping if you’re not making the most of the platform? And, if you were hesitant about listing your products in the first place, how can you make sure that choosing to do so now will be profitable?

Take Advantage of Google Shopping for Your Business

Well firstly, you need to make sure you know how Google Shopping adverts work, and whether they’re viable for your business. If you’re new to the shopping landscape, or want to check you’re fully refreshed, check out our handy guide here.

Optimising your Google Shopping Campaign

Once you’ve got your campaign up and running, the most vital process occurs: optimisation.

So How Do You Get The Most Of Your Shopping Campaign?

There are many ways to optimise your campaign and increase the efficiency of your spend, but some of the easiest ways to get-to-grips with improving your performance include:

Using Negative Keywords

A lot of spend is unnecessarily wasted by irrelevant searches. If you’re selling pet accessories that are suitable for a cat, you don’t want your adverts to be triggered by a search for ‘dog accessories’. Similarly, when selling a pair of mens jeans, you won’t want to be appearing for ladies or women’s results. Use negative keywords to stop your advert from appearing in these searches.

Use Price Comparison

One of Google Shoppings biggest features is that it displays the price of your product in the listing – which can be the difference between a click or your listing being scrolled past. It’s important to stay competitive on prices. If you have a small number of products this is relatively manageable, but if you’re working with large volumes of products you may want to use a price comparison software aid to keep on top of this. Once you’ve spotted a product that’s more competitive than other retailers, you can make the decision whether to turn off the listing, adjust your price, or simply optimise the product in a different way, including:

Rewrite Product Headings

Google Shopping adverts lack the character-space that a typical search PPC advert gives you. Whereas with search PPC adverts you can make the ad copy persuasive and dynamic, Google Shopping text is limited to you heading. Most retailers don’t alter this from it’s original product format, meaning they’re missing out on a chance to make their adverts more compelling. You could rewrite a product heading to include information like the specific style of a product, brand, size, or include adjectives like ‘smart’ and ‘quality’, all with the aim of standing out to users.

 Think About Seasonality and Trends

If your budget is limited you might want to focus on quick wins and the most effective return-on-investment, so think about trends that will affect your consumers’ buying habits. Are some of your product collections seasonal, or sales influenced by popular calendar events? You can use the free tool, Google Trends, to spot patterns in the search behaviours of your audience for keywords relating to your products. Around major holidays, like bank holidays and Christmas, most of your competition will be offering sales, so think about that to keep up with their highly competitive product listings. Plus don’t forget the biggest online shopping day of the year – Black Friday. Plan your campaigns well in advance and ensure your product adverts are updated accordingly.

To find out more about getting the most effective results for your shopping adverts, or to learn more about Google Shopping Actions, get in touch today.