Google Shopping Campaigns Are Now Live — How To Get Started

Yesterday morning, Google announced the Google Shopping campaign program is now available to all online merchants.

Google Shopping campaigns, which have been in beta since October, are a new version of PLAs which change how ads are created. They make creating PLAs more transparent within AdWords and give advertisers more control, allowing them to view more product information with less involvement with the data feed and an intuitive product group break-out structure. 

Google Shopping Campaigns 101

Here are three of the major elements of Google Shopping campaigns:

Layering Structure

Shopping campaigns are designed to make product group creation more intuitive for advertisers. Instead of building out product groups based on data feed labels, advertisers can create sub-product groups using all of the product information within AdWords.

Each product group for Shopping campaigns is a sub-set of the “All products” group. Product groups are built by segmenting a portion of the “All products” group; so, it’s easier for merchants to visualize ad hierarchy and avoid bid overlap.

 Product Visibility

Shopping campaigns let merchants create product groups within AdWords without needing to look at the product data feed.

Google pulls product information into AdWords and allows merchants to segment product groups from the entire data feed. Merchants can choose existing feed labels or use one of ten data feed labels to segment product groups, all within AdWords.

New Tools

Shopping campaigns feature some great tools which help advertisers leverage competitor data and their own product performance.

Some of the new tools and features include Benchmark Click Thru Rate (CTR), Benchmark Max, Cost Per Click (CPC), Impression Share, Exclusions and increased functionality of the Products tab. More recently, Google also updated Shopping campaigns to include bulk bid changes and additional product information within the AdWords login.

Google’s announcement yesterday mentions API support and a bid simulator as upcoming features which will also be included in Shopping campaigns.

Get Started With Shopping Campaigns

Before you get started on Google Shopping campaigns, here are three important things to consider:

1. Shopping campaigns currently do not migrate existing PLA campaigns.
2. Creating Shopping campaigns in addition to a PLA campaign will result in overlap.
3. Shopping campaigns are built based on a hierarchy structure. Choose your initial product group wisely and be careful what you delete.

Useful resources for getting started with Shopping campaigns:

• Google Shopping Campaign Tutorials [videos]
• Tutorial for  Shopping Campaigns Setup 
• Shopping Campaign Best Practices
• Shopping Campaign Getting Started Tips

Are you ready for the PLA update, and will you use Shopping campaigns?