Reach New Audiences With Free Google Shopping Listings

Free Organic Google Shopping Listings

In a welcome announcement for retailers struggling in the midst, Google has announced it’s accelerating its roll-out of the new Google Shopping placements format – offering free listings to retailers to advertise their products.

Merchants will now be able to enjoy completely free listings, removing the pay-per-click element that they previously had to invest for users to see their products.

But how will this new format work? And how will it affect merchants who are currently advertising on Google Shopping? See some of the most commonly asked questions about the free Shopping listings, what to expect and how they will impact your current campaign in our helpful guide:

How Will The Free Product Listings Work?

Available within the Google Shopping tab, these free listings will allow businesses with smaller budgets to gain free brand awareness. The listings will be taken from your product data within Merchant Centre, making it vital that you have your account set-up and optimised.

Will All Listings Be Free?

Some placements, like the top ranking positions and bottom banner positions, will still be paid for – meaning paid adverts will still play an important part of your strategy. The free listings will also only be available in the Google Shopping tab – meaning if you want to appear on the first page of the search engine results page, you’ll need to have a continued advertising campaign running.

When Will The New Listings Be Rolled Out?

The new Google Shopping format is being launched in the US now and will be expanded to include all countries globally over the next couple of months. This gives UK retailers the time to review their shopping campaign and or set-up an account if they haven’t previously advertised through the search engine.

Will I Still Upload My Products In The Same Way?

Yes. Your product listings will still be managed in the same way, through the Google Merchant Centre. You won’t have to do anything to these – Google will list your products whether you’re running existing adverts or not.

How Will This Impact My Current Shopping Campaign?

For many retailers the changes means that they may have to adapt their current PPC approach. Review your campaign to see if its been impacted by changes including:

• You may now be able to open out your shopping ads to include all of your catalogue. If you’ve previously excluded items to upweight your budget to products with a high profit margin, then you can now expand this.
• Paid listings may become more competitive. With fewer paid listing banner placements, the landscape may be saturated, with increased competition for these slots.
• With budget no longer being an issue, it’s now more important than ever to optimise your listings to make them stand out. An increasing number of retailers will be uploading their free listings meaning you should optimise the title, description and images to make sure your listing catches the attention of your audience.

How Do I Set Up A Google Shopping Account?

To run Google Shopping for your business you’ll need both a Google Merchant Centre, to manage your product data feed, and a Google Adwords account to run your adverts. Our team can help you set up your data feed and shopping campaign with ease – get in touch for a free consultation to find out more!