Google Shopping Algorithm: How to Optimize For It? – AdNabu

What is Google Shopping Algorithm? & How to Optimize For It in 2022?

Shoppers today are always on, shopping seamlessly across devices and platforms, offline and online. Smart campaigns for Shopping campaigns assist you to put your products in front of the clients who are looking for what you are offering on Google, whether on mobile, at home, or in the store.

Being an incredibly significant tool in any eCommerce retailer’s arsenal, Shopping ads are known to produce well over 85% of retail paid Google search clicks. As such, they routinely produce a 400 to 1000% return on cash spent on ads. Google Shopping Algorithm, But if you can’t set up and run profitable algorithms for the Google Shopping campaigns, those statistics don’t matter at all.

You don’t have to worry, as you’re at the right place now. We’ve assisted countless eCommerce businesses—from start-up SMEs to enterprise companies to succeed with Google Shopping.

What is Google Shopping Algorithm?

This is the entry point to all retail things on Google, from ads of product listing, local inventory, dynamic remarketing, Manufacturer Center, and so much more. All these entirely depend on the foundation of Google Shopping Campaigns. It, therefore, makes a lot of sense that Shopping on Google is by far the most significant advertising channel for eCommerce. 

Why do you need to know about it?

Google Shopping entails how to get your product types featured on the nifty Product Ads on Google’s page search results. The fact that none of the companies or products that show up in these ads can be found on the first page of organic search results makes Google Shopping truly powerful. Without Google Shopping, potential customers would never see these products.

Above all, Google Shopping places your products in front of low-funnel, high-intent search traffic that wants to purchase what you’re selling.

Unlike other forms of advertising, such as social media marketing or display advertising —prospects who see your Google ads are looking for what you are selling. For instance, when one looks for a “trench coat” on Google, there’s no need to convince them that winter is about to come and they should purchase a stylish coat. They just need to be convinced that your trench coat is what they ought to buy.

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How to optimize for Google Shopping Algorithms?

Also known as Product Listing Ads (PLAs), Google Shopping ads have become an essential advertising channel for eCommerce business people over the years.

Displaying your products at the top of Google’s search engine outcomes allows entrepreneurs to insert themselves early on in the purchaser’s journey for broad product keywords. This will absolutely drive conversions directly from the results of the search engine page.

Since the landscape is now more competitive, it’s vital to be strategic about how you run your ads on Google Shopping to stay in front of your target audience and ahead of the curve as well. The average spend and cost per click (CPCs) on the channel continue to rise each year, according to the Google Shopping Algorithm, which has made it more difficult to acquire new clients through these Shopping ads.

However, the good news is that with the right strategies in place, you can gain an edge over the competition and improve your performance.

The three key areas that improve your performance marketing on Google Shopping include:

1. Products Feed Optimization
   
2. Campaign Structure
   
3. Bidding Strategy
   

Strategies that marketers can use to enhance each core area of their Shopping campaigns include:

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Step #1: Optimizing the Google Shopping Feed

Your product feed is the way by which you communicate your inventory to the advertising channel of Google’s product. Google Shopping then cross-references your feed data with your bids and search queries from shoppers in order to determine ad visibility. The more you do data optimization, the more likely your information will surface for any relevant queries.

The quality of your product feed is known to have the greatest impact on your Shopping campaigns’ performance.

Use the following strategies to optimize bids for your product feed in Google’s Shopping algorithms:

1. Organize your feed content based on Google’s specifications.
   
2. Optimize product titles to be search engine friendly.
   
3. Using keywords in descriptions and titles.
   
4. Leverage merchant promotions and product extensions.
   
5. Ensure your images are of high quality.
   

Step #2: Segment shopping campaigns with priority settings

Most retail brands endeavor to maximize the exposure of their products for top-converting search results as they decrease the exposure for unprofitable products. We always ensure the products of our client’s products remain competitive. The use of campaign priority settings isolates and pushes aggressive bids to high-value searches.

Dividing campaigns and using product categories gives you greater control over your priorities, bids, and listings. Google Shopping ad campaigns leverage priority settings so as to isolate and allocate aggressive bid modifiers and budgets in order to get certain high-value searches for a maximum impression share. Google Shopping Algorithm.

Although keywords cannot be targeted directly, negative keyword lists can be leveraged in an alternative campaign. This will then utilize priority settings for searches to funnel into the targeted campaign.

Campaign segmentation offers advertisers that use Shopping ads more control over the results that their products show up for. In addition, it also allows them to isolate and then dedicate a budget to queries that are historically known to convert well.

Step #3: Make Use of Smart & Rule-based Bidding Methods

Method #1: Automated Bidding

When managing several google campaigns simultaneously, Automated bidding can be useful. This allows Google’s machine learning to test and learn from previous performances in order to set optimal bids based on the marketing objectives.

Automated bidding also allows you to focus on goals that are long-term, while Google’s algorithms deal with the bids based on data accumulated over time, responding to changes happening in real-time trends.

According to the official automated Google bidding support page, the following are some bidding options for Google Shopping:

Option #1: Maximize clicks

• This automatically sets bids to get you as many clicks as possible within a target spend, an amount you can easily choose.
  
• Increases the clicks on low-traffic products while maintaining a certain spend.
  

Option #2: Enhanced CPC

• This automatically adjusts your bid based on the likelihood of a click resulting in a conversion.
  
• Increases conversions while controlling your bids.
  

Option #3: Target ROAS

• These automatically set your bids so as to maximize the conversion value, as it reaches an average return on ad spend of your choice.
  
• Get the maximum conversion value or conversions while meeting a Target return on ad spend (ROAS).
  

Method #2: Rule-based Bidding Google Shopping Algorithm

Always remember to never hand over 100 % of your Google campaign management to automated solutions. Instead, with the combination of a human element, use the hybrid approach of advanced automated bidding tools.

The optimum Google Shopping Rule-Based ways of Bidding include:

1. Bid Increase Rule(s).
   
2. Bump Products with Zero impressions.
   
3. Pulling Back on Wasted Ad Spend.
   
4. Reduce Bid on Bleeders.
   

The ability to set thresholds is among the main benefits of leveraging rule-based bidding. Threshold bidding is based on how retailers can set customized rules based on impressions, ROI, trends, and conversions, allowing them to make changes on the product level on the account at scale.

Transparency is another benefit. It allows advertisers to identify the rules that are working and those that are not and then make adjustments as required. Unfortunately, the majority of black-box solutions don’t allow for customization and transparency.

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The default way- step-by-step process:

When performing a Google shopping optimization plan, be meticulous when managing and launching your campaigns on it, as it is not a “set it and forget it” scenario. Pay attention to each level in your campaign to promote the number of happy clients flocking to your online store and avoid wasting on ad spending.

You first need to know the system. Google Shopping platforms consist of:

1. Google Merchant Center.
   
2. Google Ads (formerly known as Adwords).
   

Your Google shopping feed lives in the Google Merchant Center, which retains all your product data in a format compatible with the Google Ads platform. More specifically, it determines how Google Ads receives Shopping campaign data.

On the other hand, your shopping campaigns live in Google Ads. This includes budget, listing ads, bids, text ads, and so on. This is also where you make changes to campaign settings as you see reporting data.

These platforms play vital roles in the health of your Google Shopping campaigns. It is, therefore, important for you to understand how each works in regard to your campaigns. Secondly, you need to have a plan for ongoing campaign optimization. By establishing a repeatable and sustainable plan of action, you will set up your Google shopping campaigns for success.

The AdNabu way – the simple on-the-go process

Would you like to increase your conversion rates from search ads and shopping for your eCommerce business to more than 130%? Well, AdNabu will power the Google Ads Campaigns for your eCommerce Businesses effectively. AdNabu assists you in easily creating and managing search campaigns in Google AdWords. The software used allows you to increase sales and reduce the cost of sales.

Being Google Ads experts, AdNabu will make you understand how each feature in Google Ads will be used to its full potential. Internal competition can be eliminated by the negative keywords used by AdNabu. Google Shopping Algorithm, This ensures searches are triggered by the exact match type.

Using AdNabu’s Easy Google shopping feed app, you can easily set up your Google Merchant Center & create Google Shopping Feed with a few clicks without any errors. The data feed is set up instantly. Improve Product Feed for Google Shopping with scores. The scores represent best practices in Google Shopping Feed, Google Ads & SEO. Submit unlimited countries and product variants to Google Merchant Center & create Google Shopping Feed. No additional charge for countries.

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Best Practices of google shopping optimization

Success with Google Shopping for eCommerce boils down to three key areas that include:

• Feed creation and optimization – This covers a lot, including your product images, product data, and price.
  
• Bidding – Although there are several ways to bid successfully, bidding can be complex. Shifts in bidding can double the returns on ad spend for different campaigns.
  
• Optimization and Monitoring – The ability to make granular optimizations and see granular performance data is among the benefits of Google Shopping. Proper optimization and monitoring can take a good campaign and make it great.
  

Things to Consider while optimizing for google shopping algorithms

The most important fields to consider in your feed while optimizing include:

Consideration #1: Google Product Category

Note that Google Shopping campaigns don’t use keywords for targeting your ads. They use product categories. As such, being in the correct category in the “google_product_category” is important. If your category is broader, your product will be eligible for more potential searches.

Consideration #2: Product Title

As the title is the first thing people see after performing a relevant search on Google, it definitely has a big effect on your ads’ click-through rates. It is, therefore, important to spend sufficient time crafting a perfect title strategy for your feed. Endeavor to place your most important keywords at the beginning!

Consideration #3: Product Description

This field contains the information your potential clients can read in order to get a better feel for exactly what your product is. Ensure it is focused on the benefits and features of the product, but not the benefits of buying it from you.

Consideration #4: Product Page Link

You should have a page to point your clicks for you to run ads on Google! For the different mobile users’ product pages, put the link in the “mobile_link” field.

Consideration #5: Product Image Link

You need to include a link to an eye-catching image of your product in the “image_link” field if you really need your images to succeed.

Consideration #6: Product Condition

The condition field has 3 options refurbished, new, and used. This is a requirement, so do ensure to complete it.

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Consideration #7: Gender, Color, Size, Age Group

In case you are selling clothing or shoes, the gender, age group, size, and color fields are all requirements. Of course, most clients who are in the market to purchase shoes or clothes want this information.

Conclusion

The best chances you have of achieving Success on Google Shopping will come from a combination of good quality product data, planning, meticulous campaign monitoring, smart bidding strategies, and ongoing optimization.

Having a proper foundation of campaign and ad group structure, as well as continuously ensuring the correct product ads are displayed for the appropriate search terms and expanding product groups, is key to optimizing your Google campaigns.