Google Product Ads (PLA) are product listings that appear as ads when potential customers use the Google search engine.Imagine Google as a huge shopping mall on the Internet.Your e-commerce website can appear as a storefront and an option for potential customers to choose from as they search for products they are looking for.
Studies have shown that consumers will research their purchases online prior to purchasing in a brick and mortar store.If you have that product available at the right price, odds are that the consumer will purchase from you over driving to the store and making the purchase.
If you're not currently using this awesome website traffic driver, you may be well missing a huge potential source of customers.As an online merchant, you can purchase these ads on a CPC or “cost per click” basis. The program is very similar to Google's AdWords and they actually both work together to drive even more traffic to your e-commerce website.
The great thing about Google Product Ads (PLA) is that you are able to feature an image of your products and you are also able to position your products using keywords that describe those products.This way, you can target buyers based on the way they are searching the Internet, again very similar to Google AdWords.
Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) are a huge step upfromtAdWord text ads in that your Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) will take up more real estate on the search results page due to the fact that your product image is visible along with your product's title and a portion of the product's description.
When a potential customer comes across one of your Google Product Listing Ad (PLA) listings, when they click on the ad, they are brought to a landing page at your website where they can learn more about the product and ultimately purchase it.
Shoppers who are looking for products in a more broad sense, are taken to a Google Shopping comparison page, where you can be listed as an option for the customer to consider among other advertisers in the form of an ad.
Introducing Our Google Product Listing Ads Service
We can help you either enter the world of Google Product Listing Ads (PLA), or if you are currently using the platform, we would be happy to help in optimizing your presence there in order to maximize your profits.Our many years of experience as a proven web design company makes us experts in the area of CPC advertising for online merchants.
Advertising using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) does take some effort.It's not a “set it and forget it” solution.Your product line may change over time.You may add and delete your product SKUS or simply raise your pricing.Perhaps you need to lower or raise your advertising budget.All of these changes need to be communicated to Google in order to get the most “bang for your buck” and we are here to help.
Should I as a Merchant Use Google Product Ads?
You are probably thinking, “Yes, let's do it now!” or maybe “If it's such a great advertising platform why isn't everyone doing it?”Let us answer those questions for you.As a leader in the web design industry, we feel that the use of Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping is extremely beneficial to your over-all e-commerce effort. Google is undisputedly the leader of the search engines.It's our belief that if you interact with Google using services that they provide, the better the chance that your organic listings will improve.This is mainly due to the fact that you are sending even more information about your website and business to Google than ever before.
Google is in the business of helping people find you and your products.Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads (PLA) statistically dominate in driving traffic for online merchants quarter over quarter, year after year.Let us show you how you can turn clicks into dollars by presenting your company's products in Google Product Listing Ads (PLA).
PLA and AdWords
Before using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA), it's important that you understand the difference between Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google AdWords.The concepts and platforms are very similar yet there are some major differences.The “Click Thru”, or where the customer lands, is the same for both platforms.The customer is taken to a landing page on your website.This page could be an individual product page with a call to action for a customer to purchase the item, or it could be a specially designed landing page that is keyword and detail rich.
The latter option is great for when you have a product or group of products that needs an introduction or further explanation in order for the customer to make a decision to purchase. The “Cost Per Click” with Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) is based on your bids for ad groups that consist of products and product categories, whereas AdWords focuses strictly on keywords.It's also important to consider whether using Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping is the right fit for your business.
Merchants that sell over 500 products usually do well versus merchants that only have a handful of products, unless you have an extremely unique assortment of hard to find products.Google loves data, the more the better.While it's not a requirement that you provide all of your product listing data to Google, we encourage you to do so.
How competitive are your products?If you sell a unique assortment of products, chances are that you will do very well using Product Listing Ads (PLA) and getting a return very quickly.Rare African artifacts will sell better than the latest and greatest “As Seen On TV” product that literally thousands of merchants are trying to sell.Don't let that discourage you from using Google Product Listing Ads(s) if you have a lot of competitors.Using variations in CPC bidding as well as product category testing, we can assist you in getting your name out there and incorporating your products with your competitors and making your listings stand out amongst them.
Being Competitive with Google PLA
In order to be competitive and allow for the best exposure on Product Listing Ads (PLA), you should be able to commit to a budget of at least $1000 per day and also only include those products that have margins large enough to support advertising through this channel.The last thing you want is to have your advertising budget eaten up by clicks on products that you can barely afford to keep in your inventory.Many times, product listings that have large margins will offset the product listings that you have with narrow margins.We can assist in analyzing your inventory to list and bid on your products in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.
Be sure that your website has a quality design that customers will find appealing. When a potential customer is brought to your website from Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping, they want to see more information about the product and definitely the ability to purchase that product.A poor site design equals a bad user experience and thus your advertising performance will suffer.You may get a huge amount of traffic flowing to your website, but if the customer is not engaged or turned-off when they arrive, then they will leave and you've wasted advertising dollars.
As we are a leader in the web design space, we will do an evaulation of your website and make recommendations on how you can optimize the website in order for your Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) campaigns to be successful.
How Do I Start Using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA)?
Now, you must be thinking, “I don't have time to manage this!” or “I cannot afford to hire someone to manage yet another advertising channel!”.Rest assured that we can help.Once you decide to start using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping, we will very happy to sit down with you and create a plan for your business to begin advertising.We will go over what you are doing today and discuss what works well for you and what does not.We'll take an in depth look at your product inventory and pricing.We will decide on performance goals, whether they may be exposure or budget based and come up with the perfect fit for your online business.
Perhaps you simply want to promote your 500 bestselling items.Maybe it would be better or you to list every product you sell in order to find those “niche” buyers.Either way, we can come up with a plan that fits right for you.We'll consider your budget and make suggestions in order for you to get the maximum ROI.
Tying in Google Analytics
Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) is not a “cookie-cutter” type solution.The beauty of consulting with us is that we can customize your strategy in order for your campaigns to work for you and not against you.After we decide on your goals and come up with a plan, we will assist in installing Google Adwords and Google Analytics tracking on your website in order to track your performance and to generally get your website “talking” to Google.This step in of itself is of extreme importance.Any engagement with Google is a positive one,As we said earlier, the more Google knows about you and your company, the better the chances that your business will show up in front of hundreds of thousands of potential new customers.
Google Analytics is a free service that Google provides that is invaluable to all online merchants.Google Analytics provides you with extensive data related to the traffic on your website. Everything is tracked, including the source of visitors, how long they stayed on your website, what pages they looked at, and how they interacted with your webpages.These are only a few metrics that Google Analytics tracks.It allows you to set up “goals” in order to track the performance of your website, such as what a customer looked at and how long they were on the website prior to making a purchase from you.
We Can Get You Setup in Google AdWords and PLA
Google AdWords is a Pay Per Click or PCP program that allows you to create text based advertisements that appear in Google's search results. These ads are placed and bid on based on keywords and keyword phrases.The amount you must bid is determined by the popularity of the keywords you wish to target.You only pay Google when someone clicks on your advertisement.You must have a Google Adwords account in order to use Google Product Listing Ads (PLA).You do not however, need to use the Google Adwords text ad service of the account in order to use Google Product Listing Ads (PLA).Just the existence of an account is all that is needed.
If you are an online merchant, you may be already using Adwords and Google Analytics as well as submitting a product feed to Google in order to maximize your exposure.In order to use Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping, you must send Google a product feed.If you currently send them a feed, some changes may need to be made. One major thing is that it's extremely important for you to optimize your product's titles and descriptions. It is key to make sure that your product titles contain important product descriptors such as brand, gender, color and size.When a potential customer sees your ad, they don't want to have to guess if it's the right color or size they are looking for.Not providing this information could result in too many abandonded clicks, or in other words, people that left your site without making that purchase.
Similarly your product's descriptions should include as many descriptive words as well and less filler information or promotional “hooks” that are not directly related to the products themselves.Google will feature the beginning of your product's description in the ad, so you definitely want to optimize that first sentence.
Another change to the product feed is that you will need to have is the addition of AdWords labels.AdWords labels allow you to segment your Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) groups.This allows you to create ad groups based on top sellers, special promotions and for seasonal items.
Another task that you should be aware of is setting your ad budget and adjusting it based on performance.As mentioned earlier, Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) are charged on a cost per click or CPC basis just like Google Adwords.Once you set up a daily budget, you can adjust it based on performance over time.
With our expertise, we can help you make your budget proactive rather than reactive.The last thing you want is to get an alert that your budget has been maxxed out on a suddenly very popular product.The potential loss of sales could be major and it would be like telling your customers to go to another store because you are closed.We will make sure that your listings always have the correct funding and budget set in order to maximize sales.
Lastly and most importantly, you need to be able to troubleshoot any issues that may arise with your Product Listing Ad (PLA) listings.Google does a validation for each of your ads for a variety of factors.Even the slightest issue with your ads can cause a serious negative impact in your revenue.We can assist you in setting up your Google Shopping to work similar to eBay or Amazon.Once we've set up conversion tracking and activated your first campaign, we will set the % of each sale that you want Google to receive and begin your campaign.Careful monitoring and making adjustments is necessary and eventually your products will be presented before other competitors selling in the same category.
Get in Touch Today
Don't let any of this overwhelm you.We are here to help.Our long-standing track record in managing Google Product Ads allows us to assist you in making your own ad campaigns extremely profitable.Letting us help you will allow you to reduce costs and free up your time for you to focus on other important matters of your business.
If you are an online merchant and you are not using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) and Google Shopping, we invite you to reach out to us so we can get you started. We are confident that our track-record of quality web design and SEO management will be the right fit for us to assist your business in expanding to this awesome e-commerce channel.Even the most SEO-advanced and designed website can benefit from advertizing using Product Listing Ads (PLA).There is always room for growth.Using Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) ensures that you are getting maximum exposure and that you are reaching all of your potential customers. Let us help you succeed.