Google Shopping Ads is one of the most popular options for eCommerce merchants to advertise their products and attract potential customers. However, these Google Shopping campaigns do not offer many customization options, and the only thing that users can control is the cost-per-click (CPC) that they are willing to shell out on their campaigns.
More returns from advertising almost always encourage sellers to increase their advertising investment. However, if returns are not satisfactory, then advertising spending is usually inhibited, which directly lowers the scope of business growth and revenue.
Google Shopping does not allow users to focus on specific products and increase advertising spending on the products that give you greater returns. To that extent, it is limited in functionality and flexibility. However, like all problems, this one too has a solution Google Shopping feed custom labels.
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What are Google Shopping feed custom labels?
Suppose a merchant using Google Shopping campaigns wants to subdivide and categorize the products that are a part of the campaign into custom and personalized values. In that case, this can be done with the help of Google Shopping feed custom labels.
For example, you can use custom labels to classify your best-selling products, on sale, low-priced, and so on. With these custom labels, you will monitor the performance of those specific products on the campaign and control bidding for the products under the custom labels.
The criteria under which the products are divided are entirely up to you, and the custom labels are only visible to you and not your customers.
You can have up to five Google Shopping feed custom labels numbered 0 to 4 and which can be leveraged for increased campaign flexibility and greater returns on investment in advertising.
Google Shopping feed custom labels in detail
Why use custom labels in Google Shopping Feeds?
Correctly applying Google Shopping feed custom labels to your range of products selling online is a clear-cut way to implement an improved marketing strategy that aligns with your business goals and return targets.
Such custom feeds are crucial because they allow you to segment your products into groups of your choosing based on the attributes you prescribe. Once segmented, you can adjust your campaign bidding strategies based on the groups and your expected outcomes.
This flexibility is highly crucial to allow for greater returns on investment and more customer acquisition. Not only can you alter the way your custom product groups are advertised, but you will also be able to get detailed performance insights for each of the groups, facilitating better planning and review as opposed to a clump of data across your entire product feed.
Use the right feed management tools. You will be able to completely overhaul your product feed and create dynamic rules to categorize new products into custom labels while also streamlining and closely observing your advertising expenses.
With custom labels, you can run advertising campaigns that are better suited to your business model, and there will undoubtedly be an increase in your returns on advertising expenditure over time.
How to segment products for custom labels
Now that you probably have a clear understanding of custom labels and how they help create a better marketing strategy, the following are just some segmentation attributes that may prove to be a game-changer for your returns, depending on the size and nature of your business.
Since there is no one-size-fits-all option for custom labels, you must pay attention to how your products are presently performing across the board and how you can leverage the use of custom labels to get better results.
Price-based custom labels
One of the most commonly used and most effective custom labels is based on price points. Price points are sometimes also referred to as price buckets and are used when custom labels are designed to separate products based on their pricing.
For example, a company selling mobile phones may have products in the $0-$200 range and the $700-$1000 range, and for obvious reasons, a similar marketing strategy may not yield the best results.
With price-based custom labels, these products may be divided according to their selling price and allow the seller to create a different bidding strategy for other product groups.
This will allow for greater flexibility in advertising and permit you to spend more on marketing certain products selling at a particular price that guarantees more significant revenue.
Performance-based custom labels
Every eCommerce merchant will know for a fact that it is next to impossible to have every product on your catalog selling like hotcakes. Therefore, a large portion of your revenue will be from a small group of bestselling products that are more popular than the rest, in simple words.
In such circumstances where the demand for a particular product or set of products is high, it makes sense to leverage the demand to acquire more customers.
Without the help of custom feeds, increasing your advertising spending across the board on Google Shopping campaigns makes very little financial sense. Enter performance-based custom labels.
With these custom labels, you will create a group of products that are outperforming the rest in the market and cashing in on the increased popularity on demand.
You will be able to bid higher and spend more on campaigns for those products only. This is a sure-fire way to attract more customers and ensure that you maximize the earning potential of your most sought-after products.
Profitability-based custom labels
If you are an online seller offering a range of different products, there is bound to be a difference in their profit margins. For example, if you are selling a $10 hat, you might have a profit margin of $4, and if you also sell watches or jewelry that cost over $100, you might have a profit margin of $30 or more.
In the above example, it is evident that the bidding strategy for the hats cannot be the same as the one for the watches or jewelry.
In such cases, you can easily create custom labels that help you sort your products by their profit margins, thereby increasing your advertising expenses for the products with higher profit margins while reducing the bids for the products with low-profit margins.
This allows for an intelligent marketing strategy that is low-risk and financially sound.
On-sale custom labels
Sales and discounts are the best ways to boost revenue and profits in a short period and are very popular among sellers and customers alike. If you are a seller who wishes to place certain products on sale at discounted prices, those products will likely sell more and appeal more to customers at the discounted price, thereby bringing in more revenue.
This means that it would be recommended to increase the bidding on the on-sale products in an attempt to attract more customers and generate more revenue. With the help of custom labels, you will be able to group the discounted and on-sale products and increase your campaign expenses in the short term without affecting the other products in your catalog.
Sellers who wish to adopt the on-sale custom label strategy should do so at least two weeks before the sale season. For example, if you want to have a Black Friday Sale, make sure that you are ready with the custom product labels and updated marketing strategy at least two weeks before the day of the sale.
Seasonal custom labels
Some online sellers, especially those who sell clothing and fashion accessories, may have different offerings based on the season, i.e., Summer, Winter, Spring, and so on. When the products are seasonal, it could prove time-consuming and expensive to constantly update product feeds and add and remove products with each passing season.
With custom labels, you will be able to divide your products based on the seasons in which you wish to put them up for sale, and during those seasons, you can quickly increase the bidding for the relevant product group.
When a season ends, you have two options. You can either disable the entire product group or decrease the bidding on the particular group to balance your expenditure.
Gender-based custom labels
If an online store sells products exclusively for men or women, this custom label is not relevant, but like most other sellers, if you have products designed for both men and women, you might need to divide the products with the help of gender-based customers labels.
If you find that the products for women are selling more than the products designed for men, then the sensible thing to do would be to increase the bidding on the womens range of products. With gender-based custom labels, you can do just that and advertise the products that are performing better more aggressively.
Product collection-based custom labels
You may have just introduced a set of new products on your online store that you want to advertise as much as possible. Suppose you have a featured or unique product collection that you believe deserves more reach and traction.
In that case, you can quickly implement a marketing strategy that will allow for aggressive advertising of those products while, at the same time, not affecting the rest of your product offerings.
This can be done with the help of product collection-based labels, which will highlight and showcase a particular group of products.
Methods to create custom labels in your Google Shopping feed
There are three ways by which you can optimize your Google Shopping feed with custom labels, and they are as follows.
Add extra fields on your eCommerce platform
Almost every eCommerce platform will allow you to Add specific and custom areas for your products. Therefore, you can easily add as many fields as you want, such as season, gender, profit margin, price, and so on from within the platform itself.
However, this method is time-consuming and labor-intensive and will require you to add information for all of your products individually.
Create feed rules in Google Merchant Center
In a recent update to its functionality, users can now create custom feed rules based on their product feeds via the Merchant Center itself. Products will be divided into customized groups based on these rules.
This was a feature that was almost exclusively available only with paid tools but has since been made freely available on the Merchant Center.
Create rules with third-party Google Shopping feed tools (paid)
While the first two methods are free of cost, sellers can also opt for data feed management applications to help them prescribe custom product feed rules for all their products. This method takes little effort or technical know-how on the part of the sellers, which makes it highly efficient.
Steps to implement custom labels in your Google Shopping feed
You will have to go through four steps to create and implement custom labels in your Google Shopping feed. Performing each step with proper diligence and considering your business model and targets will help you maximize the benefits of custom labels. The steps are as follows.
Product segmentation
Segmenting your product catalog into different product groups is the first step in the process of implementing custom labels in your Google Shopping feed.
This segmentation can be based on any of the criteria mentioned above in the How to segment products for custom labels section, such as gender, price points, profit margins, etc.
Creating your custom labels
Now that you have a clear idea of how you want your products to be divided to boost your revenue, it is time to create custom labels that will help you integrate the product groups seamlessly with your Google Shopping feed.
This is extremely important because if you modify your campaigns based on the product segmentation off the top of your head, you run a greater risk of error.
Add custom labels to your Google Shopping feed
Once you have created your custom labels for your products based on your segmentation preferences, it is time to add them to your Google Shopping feed.
Google Shopping allows for up to five custom labels, and how you add these custom labels to your feed depends on your preferences. The three methods have already been dealt with in this article.
Modify your Google Shopping campaigns
The final step in the process is to modify your Google Shopping campaigns with the help of the custom labels you have created.
Change your bidding strategies depending on the potential returns of specific product segments and reap the benefits you will accrue in terms of more significant revenue and return on advertising expenditure.
Frequently Asked Questions about google shopping feed custom labels
How to scale Google Shopping?
There is no one method to improve your performance on Google Shopping. You can use several strategies, including the use of proper keywords in your product feed, modifying bidding to favor top-performing products, ads retargeting, and so on.
How do I create a Google Shopping feed?
A Google Shopping feed is a list of your products that you wish to advertise on the platform, and this can be created right from the Products section of the Google Merchant Center in a few easy steps. Click on Products, followed by Feeds, and click on the plus (+) button to add a Google Shopping feed.
How do I optimize Google smart shopping campaigns?
Google Smart Shopping Campaigns offer an unparalleled level of automation in terms of online marketing and uses machine learning to make marketing decisions for you to maximize sales and returns.
While Google Smart Shopping will decide what to advertise, when, and where, you can optimize these innovative campaigns by having accurate and streamlined product feeds and analyzing data to modify your budget from time to time.
How do I create a feed in the Merchant Center?
Click on the Products tab in the Google Merchant Center and then click on the Feeds option. On this page, click on the plus (+) button to create a new feed. Enter the essential details required, such as primary feed name, country of sale, language, input method, and so on, and you are good to go.
Conclusion
We hope you now have a clear picture of how using and integrating custom labels into your Google Shopping feeds could significantly improve product performance and give you more control over your marketing expenses.
By applying smart product segmentation and customized bidding strategies, you are almost guaranteed greater returns on advertising investment, which translates to more revenue and more marketing resources at your disposal.
