How Do Shopping Campaigns Work?

Shopping campaigns feature a product or a set of products you want to promote. You can promote all products or a certain subset of products, e.g. do a summer sale, offer discounts on certain items or offer free delivery etc. Shopping results show based on keywords with a clear commercial intent.

What are the types of Shopping Ads?

There are currently 2 types of shopping ads – smart shopping ads and standard shopping ads.

Smart shopping ads perform in semi-automatic mode, where Google decides who to show the ads to, when to show these ads and what products to promote. Compared to the standard campaign, this campaign offers fewer controls to the advertiser.

Standard shopping campaign, in turn, allows you to have greater control over your campaign, however campaign management requires more time.

Can I run Smart Shopping and Standard Shopping Simultaneously?

Yes, you can run both campaigns side by side.

Are Shopping Ads Better Than Search Ads?

In many ways they are better, especially for ecommerce businesses. Traffic from these campaigns is often significantly cheaper, while its quality is clearly not worse, or even better compared to search campaigns.

Do You Pay for Google Shopping?

Google shopping listings can be shown as organic (free) results or as ads. If you choose to run Google Shopping ads, you will be charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, meaning that you will pay only when a user clicks on your ad.

Your shopping listings can also show organically in the shopping tab of the search results page, and this type of listing is free.

Give Your Business a Marketing Boost with Done-For-You Shopping Campaigns

What Do I Need to Start a Google Shopping Campaign?

You will need a Google Ads account as well as Google Merchant Centre. Products are pulled into the Merchant Centre (MC), while you control campaign delivery from your Google Ads account. The two entities need to be linked together.

Are Google Ads Worth It for My Business?

Yes, ads help businesses grow, however a lot also depends on the type of business you’re running. One of the most important considerations is your average order value (AOV) and/or lifetime value (LTV). Having this information, we will be able to figure out if YouTube Ads will help your business advance. Let’s take a look at several examples:

Example 1:

Product cost: $10

Cost of Goods: $5

Avg. CPC: $5

To generate a conversion in this case, in the best case scenario we will need 30 clicks. Given the CPC, we will need to have spent at least 30 clicks * $5 CPC = $150 to acquire a new sale.

Conclusion: you will have to spend $150 to generate a sale that will bring in $5 in revenue. This will cause a loss of $145, which doesn’t make Google Ads expedient.

Example 2:

Product cost: $1500

Cost of Goods: $500

Avg. CPC: $5

Let’s assume we will need the same 30 clicks to get a sale. This means we will have to spend the same $150 to acquire a new sale.

In this case a $150 investment in Google ads gets us a $1500 sale. This is clearly profitable and we can aggressively scale this business through Google Advertising!

Frequently Asked Questions

Google Shopping ads are product-focused advertisements that appear in Google Search results and on the Google Shopping tab, featuring images, prices, and merchant information.

You will need a Google Ads account, a product feed (generated by your store) and a Merchant center setup. All three assets need to be connected with one another.

Google Shopping has a free traffic program, and once you set up your Merchant Center and connect your product feed, your listings will start showing organically. 

Standard shopping campaigns and Performance Max campaigns. The latter offers greater reach and is AI-driven, however gives you less control over your campaigns.

For e-commerce brands Google Shopping usually gets better results that Google Search. If you sell products online, we definitely recommend a Google Shopping campaign.

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