How to Optimize Google Shopping Campaigns for Maximum ROI

The best way to optimize Google Shopping campaigns is to incorporate unique images, data feed and website alignment, high bids on profitable products, A/B tests, and accurate product data.

Buyers flock to online shopping — more than 2.6 billion to be exact. And while your local shop or online store might generate sales, you can tap into a wider audience by selling your products on Google.

Google Shopping offers buyers a natural digital window browsing experience where they can scroll through products. But to skyrocket return on investment (ROI), you need to optimize your Google Shopping campaigns.

The process is straightforward, and the cost-per-click (CPC) can even be more affordable than PPC search ads.

Here, we consult HawkSEM CEO Sam Yadegar, SEM manager Brian Hewlett, and director of account performance, Jessica Weber for insights on the unique landscape of Google Shopping and ways to optimize your campaign for better ROI.

How to optimize Google Shopping campaigns: 9 steps

Publishing Google Shopping Ads requires more than a high-res image of your product and a snappy headline. To see ROI, they need adequate product data, pricing details, and descriptions. But launching your campaign is just step one of the work ahead.

Keep reading for Hewlett’s nine tips to optimize Google Shopping campaigns.

1. Make the most of your Google Shopping Ads titles

Google says that while you have 150 available characters for your Shopping Ad title, your customer will only see the first 70 characters in the search engine results page (SERP).

Nonetheless, the search engine giant still recommends that you use the entire title length available.

Remember, you’re writing for a potential customer further down the buying journey than your average browser. This is someone who wants to know pertinent details about your product so they can make an informed purchase.

They won’t care as much if your product title isn’t as catchy or clever as it is descriptive.

While we’d recommend punchy and concise titles for regular PPC ads, HawkSEM’s director of account performance, Jessica Weber, recommends you include relevant product information within your Shopping Ad title:

“Google pulls shopping ad titles directly from your product titles in your feed,” she says.

“We recommend optimizing your feed to include high priority keywords, brands, size/color identifiers, MPNs, and any other information that the user may find useful when they are shopping.”

But she offers a word of caution against overusing marketing lingo:

“We do not recommend using much marketing language like you would in search ads as this will reduce Google’s ability to match your product to searches and shopping titles are not always fully visible to users,” says Weber.

Remember to try to match product titles as closely as possible to your audience search queries. You’ll also want to include key specs about your products.

This is precisely what we did for our Seattle-based ecommerce retail client, Thriftbooks, which resulted in a 50% higher average order value (AOV) and a skyrocketed ROAS.

Here’s an example of a great product title:

(Image: Google Shopping results for “electric kettle”)

Which one would you choose? At first glance, the Black+Decker product feels like a better option. You can see key benefits right there in the title: rapid boil, 1.7 liters, and cordless function.

The Anko kettle includes its brand name for awareness, but a few features and highlights would bolster the title.

Bonus: don’t forget about custom labels

Sometimes, you’ll notice a special flag within a Shopping Ad, like a marked-down price or best-seller highlight. These are known as custom labels, which add criteria to separate product groups, garner interest from your audience, and assess performance.

Here’s an example from the electric kettle search from before. Notice how a few of them have “SALE” in the top left corner, along with marked-down prices in green?

These are from ads under the Clearance custom label. You can also monitor the performance of products under certain labels to help justify a sale or inform how long you run it for.

Google offers five options for custom labels and display options. Note that not all of them appear as labels within your Shopping Ads, but they are useful to help monitor performance.

• Season: Winter, Fall, Summer, Spring
• Selling rate: Best seller, Low seller
• Clearance: Clearance
• Release year: 1900 to 2100
• Margin: Low margin, high margin

2. Speak directly to your audience in your product description

Is the title of a novel enough to sway a book browser to buy? Maybe, but more than likely, it’s the synopsis (the summary on the back or inside cover) that’s going to seal the deal.

The same goes for your Shopping Ads. The product description is the precious space where you spin a tale (aka share the details) so riveting, they can’t help but click buy now.

The product description length in Google Shopping is a whopping 5,000 characters, or roughly 1,000 words.

Your description is what truly has the power to convert your audience. You can use it to demonstrate your product’s functions, but most importantly, you should make sure the benefits are clearly relevant to your audience.

This is your chance to describe who your product is for and how it will improve your reader’s life.

Weber suggests you use this space fully to dive into your product details and outshine competitors:

“We recommend taking full advantage of this opportunity to provide more optimized text about your products, including all details that would be on your actual website,” she says.

“Though not as high of a priority for Google’s matching, it will help optimize user experience if they are trying to shop on Google or decide which vendor to click on. If you provide professional, fleshed out information about your products, users will be more likely to choose you over a brand that doesn’t present themselves the same way.”

Final tip for product listing descriptions?

Focus on the product, not your entire inventory or brand history. You have your website to dive into your brand story and values. Your product description should focus exclusively on, well, all the juicy details of your amazing product.

3. Cater your bids to each product

Let’s say you’re an electronic retailer and sell everything from earbuds to big-screen televisions online. You create a Google Shopping campaign for each of your products, but they differ in size, profit margin, popularity, and purchase history.

You can adjust your Google Shopping campaign structure to bid on keywords based on your item ID, product category, product type, or price. This is a more strategic way to approach bids that preserves more of your ad spend.

Another way to strategize bids?

4. Bid higher on your best sellers

Remember, Google Shopping Ads will cost you for every click. Even if you generate a ton of traffic from a Shopping Ad to your website, you’ll be in the red if those website visitors remain permanent browsers.

That’s why it’s so important to monitor ad performance and identify the campaigns and products that drive up your conversion rate.

Here’s where to find your data:

• In the top-right menu of your Google Ads account page, navigate to “Reports”
• Then select “Google Shopping” from the drop-down.
• A new drop-down will appear with options for category, product type, item ID, store ID, MC ID, channel, and channel exclusivity.

From there, you can view performance specs for specific products and see which ones are the heavy hitters and which ones are striking out. Once you identify your conversion-drivers, you can bid higher on those product ads to generate more ROI.

As for the strike outs?

5. Exclude products that don’t bring sales

It’s unlikely that every product will be a hit with your audience. So if you notice any products that bring minimal conversions, don’t feel disheartened. Instead, stop paying for those ad placements.

You can exclude these from your campaigns so that you can improve your return on ad spend (ROAS). But you don’t have to abandon them immediately.

Try to optimize your ads and monitor progress on these for a couple of weeks before you exclude them entirely.

Keep in mind that exclusions aren’t permanent. You can always toggle these later if you think they’ll become more profitable down the line.

Here are some common examples for switching back and forth between exclusions:

• Seasonality: You might have items more popular in the winter versus summer months, according to the product type and general performance analysis.
• Promotions: Limited time offers or sales on particular products might encourage more buyers, so you can include them in your campaigns again after excluding them.
• Availability: Sold out of a product? Exclude them from your campaigns until you restock.

6. Use images to stand out from the competition

A quick Google search might generate a ton of Shopping Ads that all look the same, or similar. For example:

(Image: Google search result for “electric toothbrush”)

All these images are high-quality and clearly professionally done. The only problem? They all look pretty similar.

Perhaps each brand conducted A/B tests to inform their image choices (more on that later). But if not? You really want to stand out so your audience becomes curious about your product versus your competitors’.

Take this example if you navigate through the slideshow of products. Which one stands out?

Your eyes might linger on the first image because it’s more zoomed-in on the product. But if you look to the right, you’ll notice the second image offers four attachments — a unique product feature to spotlight.

The third photo catches attention because it features hands and the human element is eye-catching. On top of that, the bluetooth capability is clearly demonstrated both in the title and by including the cell phone in the image.

But there’s no need to guess which images will resonate both with your audience. The best way to know is to test them.

7. Conduct A/B tests

As data-obsessed PPC and SEO strategists, we don’t leave any campaign live for long without an A/B test to back up its structure.

Google Shopping campaigns rely heavily on more retail-specific product qualities like product images, titles, and specs. So if you want successful Shopping Ads optimization, data from A/B tests should inform every element you include.

For example, you could test stock images with human models to see which generate higher clickthrough rates (CTRs) or conversions. You could also compare product keywords in your title or highlighted features on your product page.

Our secret for a successful A/B test? ConversionIQ, our proprietary tech.

While we only recommend testing one ad element at a time with A/B tests, our unique performance management system helps you contextualize results from those tests within your overall digital marketing strategy.

8. Match Google Shopping feed details with products and audience

The Google Shopping feed is a source of data that the Google Merchant Center uses to inform and display your product data.

Many ecommerce businesses import feed data from their online storefront on Shopify, Google’s API, or an Excel spreadsheet. However, imports aren’t always 100% accurate to your product availability, pricing, or details.

That’s why you need to consistently check your product feed to verify Google is pulling the most accurate product data for your audience.

Let’s say your audience sees one price on your Google Shopping Ads, and a more expensive price on your website.

Maybe it’s a currency conversion issue, or it could be an outdated feed. An inconsistency like that might put off a potential buyer, so it’s vital that pricing is consistent across your campaigns and website.

But what if you have different product data for different audiences?

For example, you might sell a product at a cheaper price to customers in one country versus those in another. Or, you could offer different shipping options depending on your audience’s location.

In these cases, you’ll want to do some fine tuning. When it’s time to do some feed optimization, you could choose to have your regional feed override the details in your primary feed for specific audiences.

That way you can ensure your international audience sees ads more tailored to their lifestyle, budget, and preferences.

9. Leverage remarketing

Shopping Ads are a great strategy for remarketing audiences (people who have already interacted with your ads or content). They display more detailed information about your products to inspire an already interested audience to click “add to cart” and follow through with it.

You can bid higher to target audiences with online history or ad click history with your brand, as it dedicates your ad spend toward more market-qualified leads (MQLs).

Yadegar recommends taking advantage of shopping campaigns for top-funnel audiences and remarketing for those at the bottom of the funnel.

“When it comes to shopping,” says Yadegar, “the path from discovery to purchase can be quick.”

All set on your optimization process? Awesome. But before you go live, be sure to sidestep a few ad landmines.

3 mistakes to avoid in Google Shopping Ads campaigns

While mistakes can happen, ignoring them could end up costing you more over time in wasted ad spend. That’s why it’s important to familiarize yourself with some common pitfalls of optimizing Google Shopping Ads campaigns:

1. Limiting product attributes: Color, size, SKU, type, availability, and brand are all examples of product attributes you can include in your shopping feed. The more you include, the more you stand out from your competition.
2. Forgetting negative keywords: This is a standard practice for all PPC campaigns, and Shopping Ads are no different. Negative keywords help you preserve your marketing budget for only the most relevant audiences likely to buy your products.
3. Relying too much automated bidding: Smart shopping (similar to smart bidding in Google Ads PPC campaigns) lets you leverage Google’s machine learning algorithms to maximize clicks and conversions for your Shopping Ads based on ad performance. While we love the efficiency of automated bidding strategies and use them for Shopping campaigns, we never set-and-forget bids because ecommerce landscapes, audience preferences, and pricing change so frequently.

What is featured in a Google Shopping product page?

Google Shopping campaigns are ad campaigns that show up on the Google Shopping network. The home page shows spotlighted ads for categories like electronics, hobbies, clothing, toys, home decor, and much more.

(Image: Google Shopping)

Google Shopping Ads appear at the top of the SERP when you type in relevant search terms into the search bar. You’ll see a quick view of the product’s most important details, like image, title, purchase link, price, and overall rating.

The ad format is a little different from your average PPC search campaigns because it’s catered more to a shopper’s experience than the persuasive Google Ad that focuses more on selling.

Once you navigate to the product landing page, you’ll find abundant product information to help online shoppers make a purchase, including:

• Product image: A thumbnail image appears in the results, while a larger image appears on the actual product page.
• Product title: The title shows up in the SERP and product page.
• Top features: These are bullet points that best describe the product’s main offerings, and only show up on the product page (not the SERP).
• Product description: A 5,000-character maximum description to go into deeper detail about your product — much longer than yours average 150-character meta description.
• Buying options: These are links to available websites where you can purchase the product, with a few notes on details like delivery time and minimum orders.
• Price comparisons: This is a sliding scale that shows the product’s price compared to the price of other sellers online.
• Reviews: You’ll see an average star rating to assess reviews at a glance, with the option to scroll down for more detailed experiences from buyers.

Here’s what all that looks like on this Google Shopping product page for an Apple iPad:

(Image: Google Shopping product page)

Additionally, Shopping campaigns offer more retail-specific performance metrics in Google Analytics, as well as custom reporting dashboards in the Merchant Center.

For example, you can look at clicks, conversions, and impressions for individual products, as well as holistic performance across multiple product ads, ad groups, or categories of products.

The takeaway

Google Shopping campaigns are an ecommerce marketer’s bread and butter. They mimic an online shopping catalog and place your products in front of a wide target audience at a fraction of the price of traditional Google Ads campaigns.

That is, if you consistently optimize Google Shopping campaigns for better ROI.

Overwhelmed by the details? That’s why we’re here.

As a Google Premier Partner, HawkSEM has unparalleled expertise and knowledge into the ins and outs of Google’s algorithms and how to successfully manage campaigns for an average 4.5X ROI for all our clients.

Plus, we service a wide range of client industries, including ecommerce brands who benefit the most from Google Shopping campaigns.

Ready to send your audience on a shopping spree? Let’s make it happen.