Below is a sneak peak into my soon to be released book Make Each Click Count Using Google Shopping – Revealing Profits & Strategies.
Introduction –
Make Each Click Count Using Google Shopping – Revealing Profits & Strategies is your guide to unlocking profits inside Google Shopping and magnifying those profits using the latest techniques and strategies typically applied by the only the top Google Ad agencies.
The fact is that Google Search ads have continued to become more competitive as more and more businesses advertise their products and services using this original Google ad type.
Although opportunity still exists using Google Search ads, most eCommerce advertisers tend to achieve substantially higher profits and generate a substantially higher volume of sales using Google Shopping.
There are two main reasons that overall sales and profitability both are typically higher for companies advertising with Google Shopping ads compared to Google Search ads – how they work and how they are setup.
First – How Google Shopping Ads Work
When Google Shopping ads are displayed, users are shown the product image, price, product name and the name of the merchant before they even click on an ad. In addition, when they do click an ad, users are ALWAYS directed to the product page EVERY time. There is never any confusion on the shopper/user side.
For Google Search ads on the other hand, even with the best well-written ad copy some shoppers may be expecting something different when the click on your ad then when they land on your website.
This confusion and surprise will lead to the customer quickly returning to Google (called a bounce). However, even when shoppers bounce you, the advertiser, are still charged for the visit.
Second – How Google Shopping Ads Are Setup
For Google Search ads, advertisers go into their Google Ads account, create a list of keywords, create an ad and typically the ad is live within a few hours.
This simplicity of setting up an ad is the main reason that especially Google Search has become more and more competitive.
In order to run a Google Shopping campaign, advertisers first must open and format their Google Merchant Center account. Upload their products into that account and link their Merchant Center account to their Google Ads account.
In order to run a well-optimized Google Shopping campaign, advertisers must then segment their products into different campaigns and adjust their bidding on products, device, location, etc.
Being a bit more complicated is a good thing for the advertisers willing to discover what is available in Google Shopping as being more complicated weeds out the competition that is either too lazy or too distracted to take full advantage of what is available using Google Shopping.
With so many moving pieces to optimize with Google Shopping, it is no wonder that automation such as Google Smart Shopping campaigns are becoming more popular (we will dive into these more in the chapter – Is Using Google Smart Shopping Campaigns Smart for Retailers?).
For now, know that what is laid out in this book is the current best-practices for quickly increasing your profits and sales using Google Shopping.
Won’t This Book Become Outdated?
The short answer is YES.
It is hard to believe that it has been almost 5 years since I published my first book – Make Each Click Count – T.O.P. Guide To Success Using Google AdWords.
In the 5 years since that book was published, the Google interface has changed multiple times. Some of the terminology has changed. Heck, even the name has changed (Google AdWords is now Google Ads).
However, the strategies and underlying system for my original book has not changed.
Likewise, with this book, I can promise with absolute certainty that in a year or less (maybe even by the time this book is published) some of Google Ads interface will have changed.
That is just the nature of Google AdWords (excuse me, I meant to say Google Ads).
However, what won’t change are the advanced strategies on how to segment your account and how to use the historical data to optimize your account to predict future success.
What Does This Book Contain?
This book has been divided into 5 main sections.
- Laying The Groundwork – Here Google Shopping is explained including the history, what it has now become and what it looks like.
- Optimizing Google Merchant Center – Properly optimizing Merchant Center with complete data is essential for success using Google Shopping campaigns. This section focuses on the importance of Merchant Center as well as best-practices and common techniques for creating a fully optimized Merchant Center account.
- Basic Optimizations Inside Google Ads – This section convers in detail the strategies and best-practices for optimizing Shopping campaigns inside the Google Ads interface. Discover how to best optimize your campaigns using historical data to predict future success in relations to keywords, adjusting product bids, adjusting mobile bids, adjusting location bids and more.
- Automating Google – The fourth section goes into detail on automated features of Google Shopping including the new Google Smart Shopping campaigns, different automated bid strategies and merchant participating in Google Shopping Actions.
- Advanced Techniques – Written for those wishing to dive even deeper into Google Shopping, this section looks at advanced techniques such as using the Google Ads editor; using supplemental feeds and using positive keywords to control search terms.
How Should You Read This Book?
How to read this book is going to depend on you and what you want to take from the book. Reading the book in order, cover-to-cover will lead to some great insights in a perspective you have never thought about – even for the most experienced advertiser and provide a full look at advanced techniques and strategies.
For the advertiser just starting with Google Shopping, this book will lead them through a journey from inception to completion with a step-by-step guide to create and maintain successful Google Shopping campaigns.
If you are pressed for time, start reading the chapter that details where you currently need help in your account. However, make sure you return to read the full book!
Why Did I Write This Book?
My name is Andy Splichal and I have been managing Google Ads campaigns for almost twenty years! Since 2001, I’ve managed hundreds of thousands of dollars for my clients.
Since 2014, I have managed Google Ads for private clients through True Online Presence, where I’m the founder and CEO.
True Online Presence is a partnered Google Ads agency that continually strives to provide profits through best-practices and cutting-edge proprietary strategies for our private clients using Search, Shopping and Display ads.
Since publishing my first book in 2015 – Make Each Click Count – T.O.P. Guide To Success Using Google Shopping, the opportunity for profitability has shifted to Google Shopping ad types.
And although the original book included a section on Google Shopping, there was not enough specific step-by-step detail for someone to create a successful Shopping campaign TODAY.
That is why I released this book, to demonstrate how we are optimizing Shopping accounts with great success for our private clients and invite those willing to put in the work to not only read this book, but to apply the techniques taught in order to enjoy the same level of success!
I hope you enjoy the book.
Andy Splichal
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Splichal is the founder of True Online Presence, the founder of The Academy of Internet Marketing, author and certified online marketing strategist with twenty plus years of experience helping companies increase their online presence and profitable revenues. To find more information on Andy Splichal, visit www.trueonlinepresence.com or read The Full Story on his blog, blog.trueonlinepresence.com.