Google Product Ads

[ChrisHolgate]

Hi,
I was wondering if I could ask is perhaps someone could give me some clarification as to how the amount we bid on Google Product Ads reflects the product positioning on Google Shopping?

We have a Google Product Data Feed which is then linked up to our Adwords account so that we can determine a PPC bid amount. In instances like this it doesn't seem to make sense that one person may be paying 10ppc and another 20ppc when the buyers criteria for sorting merchants was purely down to the price.

Since the buyer has the option to sort their products in price from minimum to maximum the sort order cannot be manipulated by Google based on the amount the merchant was paying. As such, how is determining a cost per click figure relevant when the customer is searching by base price low > high on Google Shopping? Surely I should just set the limit to £0.01 and rely on the customer determining the sort order (which ultimately will lead to a higher conversion rate) than allowing Google to skew the results based on bidding 20-30 times this amount?

I should state that I'm in the UK. I do realise that a high PPC amount will increase our chance of exposure on standard search pages but my question does relate solely to results listed on Google Shopping.

Thanks for your help!

Chris

[tretanto]

Hi Chris,

Getting back to the matter...

Google Shopping search only returns a limited number of SERPs (no more than 10-20 pages). My guess is that when you sort by base price low Google doesn't return the cheapest products from all products within its database but just from those products in the initial SERPs. So if you didn't make the cut in the auction at the beginning you will be left out in the sorted listing as well.

[Alick300]

Hi Chris,

Google Shopping doesn’t allow you to see your average position on the page or give you insight to the Quality Score of your feed, there may be a temptation to increase your bid with the assumption this will deliver improvements in both and, therefore, better results but it isn’t a sure fire formula in case of Google shopping.

First you should check impression share. Here you will see how much of your impression share is being lost to budget, and how much is lost to rank. If rank is low, consider raising bids or improving product descriptions in your feed via Google Merchant Center.

Please also check Benchmark CPC , that will helpful for you to know how competitors are bidding.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

[ChrisHolgate]

Many thanks for your response.

My pondering was how the amount of money bid affects the ranking on pages such as http://bit.ly/1i4dPec

Looking at the above URL you will see products listed in terms of price and as such what differentiates the guy choosing to pay 1p a click or the guy paying £1 a click in this list?

[JasmineA]

Hi Chris,

Apologies for not getting back to you quicker.

I believe that Daniel was correct. There are only so many slots available on one page. Even if you search for Grand Theft Auto, there are only roughly 20 positions for a consumer to choose. Then they are listed by price, as most consumers want to see them by price.

You can really shine in the shopping section like this by getting a large number of reviewers to review your product. I don't know of many people who use the Google Shopping area without the reviews section. so Even if you were selling something for .99, if you had zero reviews you were probably more likely to not get the click.

These ads have always been the cheapest I've ever run. I would definitely recommend playing with your bid and monitoring the impressions, click through rate, and conversion totals. Every business has its own difference when working  with the Shopping campaigns so I would highly recommend spending some time to really isolate your top performing products from your feed and bid on them individually. The more specific you make your bids the less you will likely end up paying.