How to Setup your first Google Shopping Campaign (Part 1) – Tips from AdsOnSearches® for Shopping Feed Campaigns

Google Shopping Campaign was launched on August 2014, after the transition from Product listing Ads (PLAs). Google Shopping ads will appear as small, square type images at the top of the Google Search pages. Sometimes these ads appear just above the top in the upper right-hand corner, and also under the premium ads on the left side of Google search result page. These images draw the eyes of users, and attract a disproportionate share of clicks.
Ecommerce stores that run AdWords Google Shopping Campaigns regularly reap highest ROI through these simple square ads.

Below are the steps to setup a Google Shopping Campaign (GSC) and tips to E-commerce site owners to get a better Click through Rate and higher ROI through these campaigns.

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Step One: Create a Product Data Feed

Data Feed represents Product Inventory from the E-commerce site. It is a specially formatted file containing list of all products and all the associated relevant information (price, brand, image, product description, availability etc.). Assuming you are not a technical geek with the capability to code your own site entirely by hand, you’ll probably want to speak with your webmaster about exporting your product list as a data feed.

Step Two: Open a Google Merchant Center Account

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Go to https://www.google.com/merchants to learn more about it. The main purpose is to plug in the data feed from your site. This should be a one-time job. If you set up and install the data feed correctly, it will update automatically as your inventory charges.

Step Three: Linking Your Google Merchant Center Account to your AdWords Account

After completing the above steps, next step is to link your GMC account with your AdWords account. The reason is that GMC acts as a intermediary, evaluating your feed, keeping an eye on the data, and making sure the format is correct.

Step Four: Link these accounts:

Go to your Merchant Center Account, click “Settings,” then AdWords”
Click “Link Another Account”, enter your AdWords Customer ID, and save it.

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Step Five: Register your Data feed

Before you upload your data feed, you’ll need to register it in Google Merchant Center. The main purpose is to let the system know when we’d be uploading the feed.
To register your feed:
Navigate to the Feeds tabs, and click + Data Feed button
Provide the “basic information”, then Feed Type, File name and “Continue”

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Step Six: Upload your Data Feed

After registering your Feed, the next step is to upload a data file into it. There are different ways in which you can upload your feed. If you are new to Merchant center, then the best viable option will be to directly upload. When uploading your data Feed, you have three upload options:
Direct Upload (File under 20MB in size
FTP Upload (Files under 1GB in size)
Automatic Upload ( Scheduled Fetch)

Tips on maintaining your Data Feed:
Publish your data feed file daily to keep it fresh even if you haven’t changed anything. (Feeds expire every 30 days)
Keep your product titles to 70 characters or less to avoid truncation and poor ad serving
Images should have a white background and not smudged images.

This article is written by Abilash, You can reach him at abilash@adsonsearches.com