Selecting Shopping Ads
If you search online for a generic shopping term – for example ‘brown shoes’ – a series of shopping ads will appear at the top of your search.
These will give you quick access to some potential items you might be interested in buying in the form of PLAs. The price, retailer and a photo of a ‘brown shoe’ or whatever it is you are looking to purchase appears in front of your eyes.
“Shopping ads make the decision-making process far easier for consumers,” says Matthew Banes, Head of Search at Un.titled.
“They don’t need to read sentences of text, weigh up written offers, or even browse category pages on site. They’re just given a price, a picture, and a name, and can compare multiple sellers at a glance.”
Trustworthy Text Ads
Text advertisements may not have the immediate visual impact of a PLA, but they do bring benefits shopping ads do not. One element of shopping ads that is immediately noticeable and enticing is the product’s price.
But if you have other ways of generating value, text ads are a more worthwhile investment.
So for example you might have a huge range of items, many of which could be of interest to a single customer. Or you could be selling a really high value item and therefore need to push warranties, customer support, and other ways of generating trust.
Text ads offer more scope for you to push these additional benefits of shopping with you to the customer, rather than just taking the ‘buy this’ approach.
What’s Best for You?
Which option is best suited for your product range then? Well, firstly it’s important to clarify that shopping ads are only of use when it comes to selling products. From a retailer’s perspective, shopping ads and PLAs tend to typically offer much better conversion rates.
“From the consumer’s perspective, with shopping ads they know that you as an online retailer have what they want at a good price,” says Banes. “You could get dozens of clicks on a text ad, just to discover the availability, colours, price or other parts of your product aren’t up to scratch. On a shopping ad, customers will never click unless they’re already happy with all of those details, accruing less wasted costs for the advertiser.”
However, text adverts offer retailers more control over the keywords they use and target.
“Shopping ads only allow you to block keywords, not target them,” explains Banes. “If you’re selling something incredibly niche like knitwear created from high-end, specialist wool, text ads allow you to target that, with text pushing the niche elements of what it is you are selling. Shopping ads would list your products alongside sellers of all calibres – from the high end through to the cheapest.”
How can we help?
As a Google Premier Partner, Un.titled has a team of Google Ads-certified experts that can provide you with the support you need to get your PPC campaigns right.
Whether they consist of shopping, text ads or other advertising formats, our Leicester based PPC agency can help you choose the best options for your business.
“We can work to get your feed approved, audit the quality and consistency of your feed to get it exporting more items successfully, and optimise accounts to get more sales at a lower cost per acquisition,” Banes concludes.
“Our expertise extends beyond shopping however, and we also offer Google Ads audits and strategy services, Bing and Amazon PPC management, as well as international PPC if your company has a global scope. Additionally, we also specialise in B2B paid advertising and can advise you on segmentation and keyword planning, and offer tracking, optimisation and analysis of your campaigns.”
