One of the great advantages of using Google Ads is that it allows small businesses to have the necessary momentum and to face their competition, in such a way that the rules of the game have changed; the big fish no longer always eats the small one. In this context, can you imagine what would happen if Google Shopping – Google for Retail were free? From April this dream came true.
On other occasions we have offered you valuable information about this tool, talking about topics such as:
How to create a Google Shopping campaign
Google Ads for Ecommerce
In this post, we want to share with you how you can help your business in these difficult times that google shopping is free.
Discover these types of campaigns in-depth and forget about setting limits on your profits.
Why is Google Shopping now free?
If something has been revealed during the pandemic, it is having an eCommerce that is vital for small businesses.
In these times when shopping is a health risk, the user has taken refuge in his home and increasingly attends to his needs through the screen of his mobile or computer.
In this sense, Google shopping campaigns are ideal for making your products known to users so that they can find them more visually and comfortably.
For this reason, starting in April, Google reached out to small retailers and offered free Google Shopping campaigns in the United States.
This action has been overwhelmingly successful and has helped launch their business to small entrepreneurs at this stage in which online sales have come to our lives to stay. For this reason, as of October, this measure has already been incorporated in Europe.
With this action, the American giant makes it easier for small businesses to get closer to the user during the pandemic and for new businesses to enter the digital scene, strengthening the world economy.
According to the data provided by Google, businesses that have taken advantage of the free Google Shopping campaigns have obtained twice the number of visits to their website. An important boost that we cannot miss if we have an online store.
What is Google Shopping?
Before explaining how you can activate Google Shopping campaigns for free, we want you to know well what they are and what they can contribute to your business.
This service invented by Craig Nevill-Manning allows you to search for products on different online sales websites and compare them.
The advantage it brings to small entrepreneurs is that it doesn’t matter if your business is new, bigger, or smaller. In the same way, the user will be able to see what you offer and compare it with the products of your competition.
These types of campaigns are not new. In fact, they’ve been built into the search engine for two decades in order to tackle e-commerce giants like Amazon or traditional retail websites like Best Buy and Walmart.
How to build Google Shopping campaigns
How to activate Google Shopping campaigns for free?
Now that you know what these types of campaigns consist of and how they can help you, we are going to explain how you can activate them step by step.
Create your Google Shopping account in Google Merchant Center
The first thing you have to do is sign up for Google Merchant Center. To do this, you must follow the configuration steps that the platform indicates, in which you must include basic information about your business, review of terms, and verification of the website.
Setting up taxes and defining shipping rules
To launch your ads it is essential that you enter the type of tax of the country where you sell your products as well as the shipping rules.
To do this you must go to “general settings” and enter your tax rates. In case you sell in the United States, just by including the state, Google will do the rest.
Link your Ads account with Google Merchant Center
To start launching your free Google Shopping campaign, it is essential that you link the two platforms. To do this, you must click in the Merchant Center panel on the Google ads option in settings.
Make sure both platforms have the same email address and that your Google ads id is ready to link accounts.
Web design Google Shopping
Set up your Product Feed
At this point, the time has come for you to show Google what you sell and for this, you have to upload a feed to Google Ads with the products you want to be shown.
This file is uploaded in TXT or XML and when preparing it you have to take into account the following aspects:
Make sure there are no missing data. A title, a description, a link to the image, the availability status, the price, and the category must always appear.
Keep your product feed updated. You have to verify it at least once a month because if you don’t, Google will invalidate the file.
Check that prices and products are consistent with those on your website
Some content managers such as WordPress, Magento, or Prestashop create this file automatically. If the CMS does not have this option, you will have no choice but to do it manually. To do this, you can use one of the templates in Google docs since Merchant Center works with that format.
Once you take these steps, you are ready to enjoy the benefits that free Google Shopping campaigns can offer you.
It is important to remember that free Google Shopping campaigns only have one ad group, but this can be divided by different types of products.
If your business has been active for a while, you can choose to remarketing to those people who visit your website but have not chosen to buy your product. To do this, you can link your Ads account to Analytics and import a custom segment.
When is it more profitable to bet on Google Shopping?
Although Google Shopping campaigns are now free, they are not for all types of businesses.
Although it seems obvious, they do not serve to promote services only physical products so they are only valid for online stores.
If your products cannot compete in price with those of your sector, it is better that you do not opt for shopping campaigns and focus on search or display if what you want is to achieve visibility.
Now that you know how free shopping campaigns work, what are you waiting for to take advantage of them? If you need help from a professional team to help you manage them, contact us.
