How to setup a shopping campaign

If you’re looking to promote your e-commerce store and drive more sales, setting up a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Shopping campaign can be an effective strategy. PPC Shopping campaigns allow you to showcase your products directly in search engine results, reaching potential customers who are actively searching for the items you offer. In this blog post, we’ll guide you through the steps to set up a PPC Shopping campaign to maximise your online visibility and increase conversions.

Set up a Google Merchant Center account:

To get started, you’ll need a Google Merchant Center account. This platform acts as a central hub for managing your product data and ensuring it’s eligible to appear in Google search results.

Create and optimise your product feed:

Your product feed is a file that contains detailed information about the products you want to advertise. It should include attributes such as title, description, price, availability, and unique identifiers (as well as shipping, but this can be done in Merchant Centre). Make sure to follow Google’s guidelines for creating an optimised and accurate product feed. You can of course have more attributes than the required ones, it depends on you and your products.

Link Google Merchant Center with Google Ads:

Connect your Google Merchant Center account to your Google Ads account. This linkage allows you to sync your product feed data with your PPC campaigns.

Set up your Shopping campaign in Google Ads:

Within Google Ads, navigate to the “Campaigns” tab and click on the “+” button to create a new campaign. Choose the “Shopping” campaign type and select your Merchant Center account.

Customise campaign settings:

Configure your campaign settings, including campaign name, budget, locations, language targeting, and bidding strategy. Make sure to set a competitive bid that aligns with your advertising goals. Sometimes this can be a little trial and error, regular management over your ads is always recommended.

Structure your Shopping campaign:

Organise your products into product groups based on specific attributes like category, brand, or item ID. This helps you effectively manage bids and monitor performance. You can even set up multiple campaigns to split your budget into better-performing areas.

Optimise your product groups:

Review the performance of your product groups regularly. Adjust bids, add negative keywords (if using standard shopping campaigns), and exclude poor-performing products to ensure your budget is allocated effectively.

Create compelling product ads:

Craft engaging and informative product titles and descriptions. Include relevant keywords, highlight unique selling points, and use high-quality product images to entice potential customers.

Monitor and analyse performance:

Continuously monitor the performance of your PPC Shopping campaign. Use Google Ads’ reporting features to gain insights into impressions, clicks, conversions, and return on investment (ROI). Making data-driven optimisations based on the analysis can significantly improve your campaigns

Test and refine:

Experiment with different campaign settings, product group structures, and ad variations. A/B test your ads and product pages to identify the most effective strategies for driving conversions.

Remember, setting up a successful PPC Shopping campaign is an ongoing process. Regularly analyse your campaign performance, optimise your product feed, and refine your ad copy to maximise your return on investment. By implementing these steps and staying proactive with your campaign management, you’ll be well on your way to achieving e-commerce success through PPC Shopping campaigns.