It’s not widely known that a free listing on Google Shopping is available to every eCommerce retailer in the UK and abroad. You don’t even need to be running paid Google Shopping advertising campaigns in Google Ads.
Having a free listing on Google Shopping is proving to be a real winner. With our smaller retailers and eCommerce clients, this is an extra FREE avenue where you can bring in quality traffic and get more conversion for your store.
The free listing facility is a great opportunity for smaller retailers, in particular, to benefit from the power of Google advertising. If your experience with PPC hasn’t been good in the past, or you’re (understandably) wary of committing your hard-earned budget, a free listing is a sure-fire way in. All you need to invest is your time and, with help from this blog, you’ll not be wasting a single second.
Free exposure to millions of shoppers on Google
Google Shopping campaigns have grown steadily into a major source of traffic and sales. As a result, more than 50% of all Google Ads spend has shifted from traditional text ads to Shopping ads. That’s a massive shift, and having a free listing is how the small retailer can start to benefit from this success. As Bill Ready, Google’s President of Commerce, said:
“For retailers, [a free listing on Google Shopping] it means free exposure to millions of people who come to Google every day for their shopping needs. For shoppers, it means more products from more stores, discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings.”
Whilst you can’t expect 100s of clicks (Google’s giving everything away!), a high conversion-rate is entirely possible. The success of a Shopping campaign – whether paid or free – almost always comes down to price. Shoppers can filter according to the cost of a product, so competitiveness is crucial if the item is to appear in listing results and convert. Through tried-and-tested promotional techniques – free delivery, discount codes, complimentary add-on products – it is possible to gain an advantage over competing retailers. Like any Google Ads campaign, however, you can’t just set up your listing and expect it to perform. Instead, identify areas of weakness in your datafeed and get it optimised.
The process of setting up a free listing
Before we get into the detail of setting up your free listing on Google Shopping, you need a solid infrastructure in place to service the sales:
- A good website otherwise conversion is almost impossible
- Excellent customer service because price on its own doesn’t always win through
- Efficient logistics to keep your customers satisfied and earn their loyalty
- Effective tracking and the ability to react fast to what it tells you
Setting up your free listing on Google Shopping takes a little time, and you’ll need to be familiar with your own CMS. There are three steps: create your product feed, link it to Google Merchant Center, then opt into Surfaces across Google (the free listing platform offering you a choice of Search, Shopping and Images).
Create your product feed
A feed is a file that contains a list of products that you want to advertise. When you add your products, you’ll assign google recognised attributes to each one. Your product feed will use these attributes to upload information to google merchant centre which is instantly recognisable. Once you’ve created a feed, it can be used and updated as often as is necessary, best practice would be to upload a daily feed.
Check the quality of your feed because Google will compare it against your competitors. Just like your organic search listing, you need to convince Google that your products are more relevant than the competition to a users search. We recommend paying attention to these six areas:
- Brand identity that’s consistent across all your media (eg your website)
- Title with the right balance of eye-catching and informative detail with attention to relevant keywords
- Description as full and as descriptive as possible, google recommends at least 500 characters.
- Link to the relevant product page on your website to encourage conversion
- Image link, again to the appropriate product image on your website
- Price that’s competitive, appropriate and matches the price on your site
Also, add in as many additional attributes as possible – including but not limited to product types, google product category, availability and more. Finally make sure you are submitting clear, relevant and up to date information, any inaccuracies between the feed and your website could cause disapprovals and or suspension from the platform.
Link your product feed to Google Merchant Center
The Google Merchant Center (GMC) is where your product feed is stored (and if you were running ad campaigns, where Google would find your product information). If you haven’t already got a GMC account it’s a simple exercise to set one up. Then link this to the feed(s) most appropriate to your retailing business.
Opt into the Surfaces across Google
The Surfaces across Google allows advertisers to increase their reach by showing their products on areas such as Images and the Shopping tab. To opt in, click on ‘Growth’, followed by ‘Manage Programs’, then finally the ‘Get Started’ button.
Two distinct advantages to setting up Free Listings on Google Shopping
There are two good reasons to take advantage of a free listing on Google Shopping. First, it can lead to sales at zero extra cost – we’ve proved this with our own clients. Secondly, it’ll teach you which products Google likes, preparing you for PPC which, in the right hands, delivers real ROI.
Get in touch if you need help setting up your free listings. We can also make sure you’ve got the strongest possible digital selling strategy in place.
