What is Google Shopping?
Google shopping is a service offered by Google where web shops can offer their products for a fee. The service makes it easier for users to compare the prices of a product. Every product links to the site on which it is offered.
When searching for a product, between 4 and 16 products appear in the search results. These shopping results are usually above the text advertisements and are therefore clearly visible. You also see the product photo and price and potentially reviews of the store, whether the product is discounted, the name of the store, etc.
Why employ Google Shopping?
Google Shopping is combined with the Google search engine, whereby the products appear in the search results. This is also one of the aspects that differentiates Google Shopping from other comparison websites.
If users search for a paid product in the search engine, the product appears in Google Shopping next to the normal search results. Because of this the users see your product much more often. It is a big platform with a lot of suppliers, because of this useful comparisons are made between products for the user.
From our experience we can see that Google Shopping delivers between 40% and 60% of the revenue within an AdWords campaign.
Google Shopping is a growing platform both when it comes to reach, but also possibilities. Both Dynamic Remarketing, RLSA for Shopping and Customer Match now belong to possibilities that can increase the effectiveness of campaigns.
What does Google Shopping yield?
Results can vary per segment and branch. Below are a number of case studies that compare Shopping campaigns with normal campaigns.
Farfetch is a fashion chain from London with a big web shop. Through the use of Google Shopping in 4 countries they have increased their revenue by 40%. Their conversion rate rose by 13%, and the click-through rate also rose. The costs also dropped considerably, next to the cost-per-click their cost-per-acquisition also lowered by 20%. [case study]
US-Mattress is one of the biggest mattress sellers of the US. The company wanted more insight into the shopping behavior of their 250.000 customers. That is why they started using Google Shopping campaigns. This resulted in the rising of the click-through-rate by 30%, a significant rise of the ROI and conversion rate and a lower cost-per-acquisition. [case study]
What is needed to get started with Shopping?
Google Shopping uses the “pay-to-play” model for web shops, whereby the relevance and offered amount play a role in the search results.
To display your products in the Google results, a Google Shopping feed has to be placed in a Google Merchant Center. In Google Merchant Center it is possible to upload your products and add information about the products and your website.
The working of Google Shopping
It is important that this feed is set up well, because this is what makes for a higher rating. Next to the Google Shopping feed, there are other factors that influence the ranking. For example, reviews of other comparison sites, the quality of your website and the offered amount.