4 Strategies You Need to Know to Transition to Google Shopping [Free Checklist]

The move from Product Listing Ads towards Google Shopping Campaigns is less than 28 days away. That means it’s time for online retailers to really dig in and start learning the best tactics to successfully utilize this new AdWords campaign to promote their products online.

Unfortunately, this process is anything but easy, and we felt it would be valuable to come up with a checklist for Google Shopping that clearly lays out all the strategies you need to know to make your migration process as quick and seamless as possible.

This way you’ll know how to expertly focus on your top converting products, improve your PLA efficiency and find the most competitive bid for each of your product groups.

#1: Make Optimal Use of Titles and Description Lines

• Place your top converting terms in the titles & description lines (they are used for search query matching).
• Make them user friendly & accurate.
• NO BLOCK CAPITALS.
• No promo texts in your titles or descriptions.

#2: Effectively Process the Data Feed

• Maintain a fresh feed that matches your inventory and upload the feed at least once every two weeks!
• If there is no unique product identifier information available, make sure to mark the “Identifier Exist” attribute as false.
• Be as granular as possible with Google Product categories. That will help the crawler find and display the right products under the right categories.
• Don’t blindly import all of your Adwords_labels (old PLA campaigns) to custom labels (new campaigns). There are certain constraints you need to be aware of before beginning the import process.

#3: Maintain a Smart Bidding Strategy

• Never start by bidding high on your Product Listing Ads.
• Study the landscape and add negative keywords to remove illegitimate search queries.
• Track your products and re-organize them into specific clusters based upon performance.
• Make sure you always save the maximum bid for top performing stand-alone products.
• There can be a strong tendency to default to your historic bid tools — resist this urge.
• When contemplating altering your bids, utilize the new bid simulator tool to aid in identifying the perfect, most competitive bid.

#4: Monitor the Competitive Landscape

• Monitor the benchmark CTR and CPC of other advertisers with similar products
• Make sure you track your impression share to gauge whether you should alter your bidding strategy

To make your transition as easy as possible before the deadline, we’re offering a free Google Shopping consultation and an excel checklist containing all these practices in an easy-to-read format. Click to start your upgrade and download your free Google Shopping checklist now.

If you’re interested in learning more, don’t miss our upcoming webinar on July 31 at 2pm ET, Google Shopping Campaigns: 3 Key Mistakes to Avoid During Migration”. To register, click here.