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Google have announced plans to rollout free listings into Google Shopping. This is a significant update – presenting a huge opportunity to list products on the platform for free.
Way back in 2002, Google Shopping was known as Froogle and was originally free to use, so this move will bring back memories for many of us.
It then re-branded to Google Product Search and finally Google Shopping in 2012, switching to the paid-only service that year.
Free Google Shopping listings will initially go live in the US at the end of April, with a global release later this year.
The free listings will be displayed much like the organic search results that we are so used to. Paid shopping ads will be listed in the upper most positions and above the free natural shopping listings below.
These will show within the Shopping tab on Google.
Existing paid ads will be augmented automatically, enabling them to benefit from the new free listings in addition to these paid ads already running.
This news presents retail businesses a huge opportunity to get ahead of the game.
Retailers will be able to list all their items and drive added visibility to their stores. Of course, given the challenges we face today, these organic shopping listings will hopefully benefit many smaller companies and make their products more visible as an increasing number of people browse online.
It’s important to remember that Shopping listings support physical retail stores as well as online ecommerce.
With the rollout being phased, UK retailers have the chance to get prepared for this now.
Managing Google Shopping is complex. We currently help businesses optimise their paid campaigns to invest budget in the right products and maximise ROI and volume of sales.
With free listings the opportunity will grow. We will be able to optimise the free listings together with the paid.
Testing products using labels, or tags, allows us to structure your campaigns and run tests across new products, or those with greater priority.
Higher priority products, which convert well and generate high ROI, should be promoted with paid listings. Meanwhile, new items or perhaps lower value products could be tested first in the free listings.
We can also test messaging between products and across the Shopping listings to determine which performs best and how to maximise your visibility.
An important part of Shopping management is to feed Google with correct and optimised product data.
Currently, most product shopping data is contained within a feed, which is sent to Google using the Merchant Center. Product pricing, titles, URLs, descriptions, images, stock status are all crucial to creating accurate and up-to-date shopping listings.
By optimising this data and ensuring its completeness, we can drive highly relevant traffic whilst complying with all shopping requirements.
As Google moves to introducing more and more automation, it is crawling this product data directly, so it’s vital product pages contain full schema mark up.
This is likely to play an important role in this new rollout so that Google can list items using its web crawl, rather than relying on data fed from specific feeds.
Google are also furthering their support and direct integrations for many ecommerce platforms.
With a closer partnership with PayPal, Google are likely to provide the ability to purchase directly from Google results pages.
Data insights will become more important – as will tracking this added visibility from organic shopping activity.
Measuring the impact of the new free listings, and managing the overlap between paid and free, will offer opportunity to balance both of these results.
This is an exciting opportunity for both small and larger businesses, and certainly a significant change to the paid only Shopping ads that have become so familiar.
If you need more advice on how to deal with these changes to Google Shopping, we can help. Speak to our PPC experts by calling 023 9283 0281 or reach out to us on social media with any questions.
James has led Vertical Leap’s PPC team since early 2012, and is responsible for ensuring the effective and efficient delivery that our customers relish. He has a wealth of experience, having managed PPC campaigns across all markets and platforms for more than 15 years, and manages a thriving team of experts. An ecommerce specialist, he loves the data driven nature of PPC. After achieving a BEng degree in Mechanical Engineering at university, he applied his strong problem-solving and mathematical skillset to paid advertising, where he can optimise and analyse the complexities of click and conversion data. James can very quickly identify and solve any hurdles surrounding a PPC campaign to ensure quick wins, successful results and ongoing ROI. James loves his motorbike, brewing, and camping in all weathers; but spends virtually all his weekends sailing his sea fishing boat around the Isle of Wight not managing to catch anything to feed his family.
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