The online shopping trend is becoming increasingly popular due to the convenience it offers users. This requires businesses to innovate and optimize their advertising campaigns to reach customers effectively. Google Smart Shopping Ads are one of the most optimized forms of advertising today, applying AI to manage ads, maximize performance, and increase conversion rates. In today’s article, Optimal Agency will guide you on how to run Google Smart Shopping Ads effectively.
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What is Google Smart Shopping?
Google Smart Shopping is one of Google’s latest ad formats that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to automatically optimize shopping ad campaigns. This enhances the ability to reach target customers and increases conversion rates to orders.
Similar to standard Google Shopping campaigns, this campaign uses product data from Google Merchant Center to create shopping ads to display to those who have the demand and potential to purchase. These data include images, prices, website addresses, product features,…
With Google Smart Shopping Ads, you only need to set goals and budget. Tasks such as bidding and distributing ads across Google platforms like Google Search, YouTube, Gmail,… are handled by Google’s machine learning technology.
Furthermore, ads can be displayed in various formats including product ads, inventory ads, and display ads. For targeting, you can aim at new potential customers or run remarketing campaigns to reach old customers.
The deployment and optimization process for a shopping ad campaign usually takes about 15 days. During this time, the AI algorithm will gather complete data about the product and target customers to maximize the ROI for the advertised product.
Why do businesses favor Google Smart Shopping campaigns?
Simple and quick campaign setup
Unlike Google Shopping Ads, where advertisers have to perform complex customizations to create and publish ads, with Google Smart Shopping, advertisers only need to perform basic setup steps like choosing goals and budget to successfully publish a campaign. This saves time and effort for advertisers when creating campaigns, especially for businesses with large product data feeds.
Smart targeting
Google Smart Shopping ads use user behavior data from previous campaigns to select the most potential customer group for the campaign. This ensures that the ads are displayed to those who need the product or service and the highest potential to purchase.
Automatic testing and optimization
To improve the effectiveness of Google ad campaigns, advertisers need to constantly test, monitor, and optimize the campaign. With manual methods, the number of test variants created is limited. However, with Google Smart Shopping, this process is automated, saving advertisers time in campaign setup and increasing ad optimization.
Time and cost savings
Google Smart Shopping campaigns use the existing product data of businesses to set up ads across multiple networks. Google’s robust system will test these ads to display them in the most suitable position to enhance ad effectiveness. In a Google Smart Shopping campaign, Google’s machine learning technology will automatically select positions and bids for each ad. This is useful for those who do not have much time to set up comprehensive advertising strategies, helping advertisers improve campaign effectiveness, and save time and cost.
How to create Google Smart Shopping Ads campaigns?
Create a sales website/landing page
To deploy a Google Smart Shopping campaign, you need a website or landing page for your product. Google will use the product data you have posted online to create links to search results. Google will recognize the product URLs on your website or sales landing page. When users perform a search query for the product, your ad will be displayed. If customers click on the ad, they will be redirected to your sales website.
Create a Google Merchant Center account
If you want your products to appear in Google Smart Shopping search results, you need a Google Merchant Center account. First, fill out the required information in the registration form, including country, store/business name, website address,… and select Continue. Next, read Google’s terms and conditions, select I agree, and then Continue. Choose the integration program you want to use and select Continue. Finally, select Create Account to get a Google Merchant Center account and start deploying Google Smart Shopping.
Verify website ownership
Besides creating a Google Merchant Center account, you need to complete website ownership verification so that products can appear on Google. Currently, Google offers three ways to verify website ownership: Google Analytics account, Google Tag Manager, and HTML tag/file. Google recommends using the third method, HTML tag/file, to verify website ownership. To maintain verification status, do not delete the meta tag even if the URL has been verified.
Add return, privacy, & shipping policies
To protect customer rights when shopping through its platform, Google requires sellers to clearly state their privacy, return, or shipping policies. For the return policy, Google does not require businesses to support product returns for purchased customers but requires clear information about supporting returns.
Google encourages businesses to be more responsible with customer information, so a data privacy policy is mandatory for Google to approve products. For shipping policy, Google requires businesses to provide a fair shopping experience through their shipping support policy.
Create a product data list for synchronization
After creating and verifying your Google Merchant Center account, you need to synchronize product information from your website to Google Merchant Center. Google uses this data to introduce your business products to those searching for them. You can add individual products or bulk upload via Google Sheets or use protocols like http, https,…, to update at preset times. You can upload the product data file through SFTP, FTP, or Google Cloud Storage on your computer.
Optimize product images
Google places a high emphasis on customer experience and values high-quality product images. This is the most important factor in appearing on Google Smart Shopping. Furthermore, images create the first impression and attract customers to click on the link to view more products and make purchasing decisions. Google does not allow ads with poor-quality images to appear in the list. To enhance competitive advantage and increase ad click-through rates, ensure your product images have standard sizes and are eye-catching to drive traffic to your website.
How to set up an effective Google Smart Shopping campaign?
To effectively set up your Google Smart Shopping campaign, you should apply the following tips:
Choose popular products
If you are in the testing phase of advertising on Google Smart Shopping, you should choose products with a high conversion rate. These are products that are frequently searched for by users, with an ideal conversion volume of over 100 conversions within 30 days.
Avoid using similar products
When creating a smart shopping campaign with several of your products, be selective and avoid using similar products. Additionally, exclude products from the existing display and shopping campaigns. This can help optimize your budget and enhance the effectiveness of the new campaign. Failing to exclude similar products can affect the traffic generated from regular Google Shopping Ads campaigns.
Do not segment the ads campaign
Since the data you provide to Google is limited, segmenting a Google Smart Shopping campaign will reduce the overall campaign performance. Only do this if your business goals specifically require it.
Limit changes in the initial days of the campaign
In the initial days of creating a Google Smart Shopping campaign, avoid making any changes or adjustments. This is a crucial period for the campaign to automatically adjust to optimize performance and analyze data over time. Based on this data, you can implement future campaigns more effectively.
From the article above, you now have a clearer understanding of Google Smart Shopping Ads and how to effectively deploy such a campaign. This information will help reach target customers, increase brand awareness, and boost sales.
Please see more:
- How to run Google Shopping Ads in detail?
- How to do Dropshipping on TikTok for beginners
- Popular content types today you should know
FAQ
Google Smart Shopping is a powerful advertising tool for many businesses. It is suitable for various industries such as e-commerce, fashion and accessories, electronics and digital, home goods, services and travel, cosmetics, and more.
If you want to implement a Google Smart Shopping campaign, you need to create a Google Merchant Center account and link it with your Google Ads account to initiate the campaign. Additionally, you must comply with Google’s sales policies, specifically having return, shipping, and privacy policies on your sales website. Moreover, to use this type of ad, you need to have a product feed on Google Merchant Center with at least 100 conversion events with standard Google Shopping ads within 30 days.
