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Google Shopping Ads Campaign: Sales & Revenue Optimization Strategies

In the previous chapter regarding Google Shopping for eCommerce success, we discussed how to optimize your Google Shopping product listing and boost organic traffic and sales. SEO is critical to sustain business growth and increase ROI. However, today agile marketing is essential to make your business succeed. Particularly if you’re running an online store and confronting a fiercely competitive landscape.

Thus, in this article regarding Google Shopping for eCommerce success, I’ll take a month optimization roadmap case as an example. And I would walk you through how to run Google Shopping ads, optimize the campaign. It’s in order to increase sales and revenue, in particular for the purpose to achieve a good profit margin.

You won’t learn about smart shopping campaigns in this piece. It’s because it’s almost letting you adjust budget, and bidding and resting of work are done by Google AI from my point of view. So you can’t really understand your business performance through Google smart shopping campaign. On the other hand, by the end of this article, you can learn macro and granular strategic Google Shopping ads optimization. You can understand when each approach is suggested to use when setting up a real shopping ads campaign.

1st Week Optimisation Strategy

1) Limit Search Partners

When you’re setting up a new Google Shopping campaign, you’ll find default networks in the campaign setting. By default, Search partners and YouTube and Discover on Display network are checked.

Here is why you want to make sure to switch both of them off

Suggestion: It’s very important for your online store promotion to turn these off for increasing the quality of the people that see your ads from the start.

2) Google Shopping Ads Campaign Structure

Campaign structure gets to the heart of effective Shopping campaigns. A good campaign structure enables you to bid on the products and search queries that are most valuable to you.

You don’t want Google AI prioritizes to rank your A SKU in a higher position when people search ‘security camera’. It’s because of its higher conversion rate. However, in the same product group of the same Google Shopping ads campaign, you have the other core SKU with the same bidding that are getting lower exposure.

Best Approach

When starting the 1st-week campaign, you are only targeting a single market in ads language. It’s best to split each campaign by-product collection, or even deeper by device models, and you can allocate each campaign with the same budget and same ad setting.

For example, Ring is selling smart video doorbells with different models. Each model has a unique brand keyword and generic functional keywords. So Ring doorbell 3, Ring Peepholecam can belong under an independent campaign. It’s okay to split them by using ads group level under one campaign. But the budget, schedule, bidding strategy, etc Adjustments are on the campaign level. It’s not convenient for you to optimize.

If you are targeting multi markets, you also need to activate multi-market campaigns with the same set of products. It facilitates you to look into reports and optimize. For example:

Japan_Ring Video 3_JP
AU_Ring Video 3_EN
…...

Google Shopping can syndicate your SKU product type, custom label, etc if you have set up on the eCommerce management platform, such as Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento. Then, you can select which product collection, or model you are going to promote.

3) Enhanced CPC Bidding for conversions (Manual)

Except for external SEM optimization software, Google Shopping ads has 3 bidding strategies:

It’s a fact to understand that Google doesn’t care about your business and product profitability. Their focus is on getting you to reach target audiences meanwhile spending more. So you need to consider your campaign objective, SKU P&L for calculating target CPC and select a proper one to start, rather than blindly going into automated bidding strategies, because it might have bad results for your business.

(Note: If you like to learn how to leverage Google Analytics to install custom transaction and conversion tracking, please check out this article)

A Practical Guide to Set Up Shopify Google Analytics for Collecting Transaction Data Integrated with Your Profit Calculator

When we aim to drive sales and revenue, starting with manual eCPC would be a proper option.

The reason is the Enhanced cost per click or eCPC bidding strategy is very similar to Manual CPC, but Google has the freedom to raise the max CPC that you indicated if it thinks a specific click will result in a sale. So there are two pros by starting with it

Only you know what’s the promoted SKU P&L, so only you can set a proper max.CPC. For example, if your selling item is US$100 at retail price and I assume profit margin is 20%, that means at most the cost per sale is US$20, because you don’t wanna sell more but lose more money. If the conversion rate is 5%, 20 clicks convert into one sale, so max.CPC is US$1.

In a way, you don’t need as many clicks as possible like using maximize clicks bidding strategy. Instead, you need to drive as many sales as possible and see sustainable sales volume, in order to understand your SKU item market performance and forecast the next round advertising budget if the target is expanding the sales number.

4) Single Product Ads Format

Basically, there are two shopping ad formats: single product ads and showcase ads. We strongly suggest starting with the single product ads, because the single product ads can generate clicks to your online store by each SKU, rather than landing to a canvas min page first by having spent the spent.

5) Negative Keywords

In Google Shopping, you don’t need to add any keywords. But you have the option to add negative keywords to make sure you don’t show up for certain search queries. In general, you won’t dislike high conversion rate and low cost per sale search terms, but there are 3 types of search terms you need to hold on to and see if you should add as negative keywords

The lowest hanging fruit is the irrelevant search queries. These are searches that don’t have any value at all for your business. For example, ring doorbell installation instruction, ring customer service, how to return ring video doorbell, etc. Basically, you can add them as negative keywords, such as customer service in the phrase, or broad match.

Competitor search queries are searches that include a competitor’s name together with an interesting keyword, such as Google nest amazon, hello doorbell best buy, etc. As it turns out, the searches that include Amazon aren’t completely worthless, because customers are searching similar product models which you’re selling as well, and comparing pricing among different online marketplaces. Depending on your business situation, you can either add the marketplace name as negative keywords, such as amazon in board match or leave them there.

Another group of search terms you’ll see in the search terms report of your shopping campaigns are very generic search terms, such as video doorbell, security doorbell, etc. Generally, this type of keyword has very very low click-through but has a huge amount of impression on Google Shopping.

If your selling items are already in a very competitive niche, I would suggest you add negative keywords in exact match, because CTR would affect your campaign quality score and impact cost per click at the end.

2nd Week Optimisation

You would repeat the 1st week’s part of optimization work still, such as negative keywords, adjust the bidding, budget, etc. However, after one week of observation, some of the SKU items might stand out and are generating sales sustainably, so it’s time to further maximize these SKUs performance.

As mentioned, we adjust the budget, bidding strategy, search network, etc macro elements at the ads campaign level. For avoiding good-performing SKUs on-air limitation due to the budget spent by other SKUs in the same campaign, we can create a new campaign specifically for these good SKUs.

For high-performing SKU campaigns, we can activate search partners, which our shopping product ads would also appear in Google search partners, such as Best Buy, or other publisher sites. But normally it would increase the cost per sale a little bit, so I would suggest looking into each SKU profit margin and selecting SKUs that still have a 20% profit margin from the baseline Shopping search ads.

3rd Week & 4th Week Optimisation

1) Target ROAS bidding vs Enhanced CPC bidding in high performing campaigns

Selling more doesn’t mean earning more. After 2 weeks of campaign observation and learning, we need to compare the performance between target ROAS and enhanced CPC.

Different from Amazon Sponsored Product ads, Google doesn’t have target ACoS, but in fact, they are the same thing, and you can see from the formulas below. But of course, ACoS is much easier for you to compare with the profit margin number

ROAS = Revenue / Ads Spent
ACoS = Ads Spent / Revenue

Starting with the high performing SKU by creating one more same set of campaign except for the bidding strategy

RingVideoDoorbell_eCPC_EN_AU
RingVideoDoorbell_ROAS_EN_AU

2) Day Parting

You might be aware of one weird thing that midnight still has search volume, but normally that traffic has very low conversion rates. As mentioned earlier, we suggest implementing a multi campaign with the same set of products, which include GEO. Thus, you don’t need to worry about timezone conflict between locations when you are setting up ad schedules in the same campaign. You can lower the bid at midnight, or even pause the ads.

3) Activate Google Shopping remarketing ads

After 2 or 3 weeks campaign runs, you have accumulated a certain amount of audience data, which include new customers, abandoned cart and prospects, in particular, if you are running social ads, collaborated partnership programs, email campaigns, there are lots of prospects from upper customer purchase funnel. So it’s time to convert more from the existing database by leverage remarketing.

Being said that, remarketing strategy doesn’t mean you just reach them and show the same ads again, we need to plan a mechanism based on the audience behavior and profile we are going to reach, which are calling to action, or providing new incentives.

High-performing SKUs from Google Shopping ads doesn’t mean it only performs well in Google, if you find that these SKUs don’t perform well in Facebook, display ads, it might just be dealing with the customer status and creative ads.

So creating a remarketing campaign for high-performing SKUs and reaching those prospects from other channels is a good way to convert new search volume that is benefited from other channel brand awareness campaigns.

You can specifically create a promotion price for an SKU and retarget those prospects in the past 30, 60 days who came to your online store, but just left the item in an abandoned cart, or just left your site. This approach can test if pricing is a matter of things for this segmentation customer.

4) Roll out Youtube Shopping ads, display dynamic ads for high performing and profit margin SKUs

In the 4th week, you might find high performing SKU campaign share of voice has almost closed to 100% and just fight for a high share of clicks number. This is nothing wrong with your strategy, but just admit one thing that Google shopping search volume is not unlimited.

So the question is how to generate more traffic in Google Shopping searching your brand product, or drive sales from other channels. In Google, Youtube and Display would be a good option.

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FAQ:

Q1: What is Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization?

A: Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization refers to the process of improving the performance and effectiveness of Google Shopping Ads campaigns.

Q2: Why is Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization important?

A: Optimizing your Google Shopping Ads campaigns can help you increase visibility, drive more relevant traffic, and improve your return on investment (ROI).

Q3: How can I optimize my Google Shopping Ads campaigns?

A: There are several ways to optimize your Google Shopping Ads campaigns, including optimizing product titles and descriptions, using relevant keywords, adjusting bids, and making use of negative keywords.

Q4: What are some best practices for Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization?

A: Some best practices for optimizing Google Shopping Ads campaigns include regularly reviewing and updating your product feed, leveraging structured data markup, monitoring and adjusting bids, and continually testing and refining your campaign strategies.

Q5: How can I improve the performance of my Google Shopping Ads?

A: To improve the performance of your Google Shopping Ads, you can optimize your product data, refine your targeting, adjust your bids based on performance, and regularly analyze and optimize your campaign settings.

Q6: What is the role of keywords in Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization?

A: Keywords play a crucial role in Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization as they help determine which search queries trigger your product ads. By selecting relevant and targeted keywords, you can improve the visibility and effectiveness of your ads.

Q7: Should I use negative keywords in my Google Shopping Ads campaigns?

A: Yes, using negative keywords in your Google Shopping Ads campaigns can help you exclude irrelevant search queries and prevent your ads from appearing for irrelevant searches. This can help improve the relevance and performance of your campaigns.

Q8: How often should I review and optimize my Google Shopping Ads campaigns?

A: It is recommended to regularly review and optimize your Google Shopping Ads campaigns. The frequency may vary depending on factors such as your campaign performance, budget, and market dynamics. However, it is generally advisable to review and optimize your campaigns at least once a month.

Q9: Can I track the performance of my Google Shopping Ads campaigns?

A: Yes, you can track the performance of your Google Shopping Ads campaigns using tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads. These tools provide valuable insights and metrics to help you analyze and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Q10: Are there any tools available to assist with Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization?

A: Yes, there are several tools available to assist with Google Shopping Ads Campaign Optimization, such as SEMrush, Optmyzr, and WordStream. These tools offer features like bid management, keyword research, and campaign analysis to help optimize your campaigns.

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