Do you use Google Shopping to sell your products? Do you know what Google Shopping is?
This week on the podcast my guest is Sara Jones. Sara helps online retailers grow their business using Google shopping through 1to1 ad management and by teaching them how to do it themselves in the Online Retail Academy.
Back when I ran my own product business, I tried to set up Google Shopping, but got very confused and didn’t stick with it for long. That was 8 years ago.
Sara completely changed my mind on it, she explained what is is, all the improvements that have been made, and how to set it up. There are plugs in so you can sync it with you ecommerce website. Sara also shares her top tips for how to do well, how to make sure your ads are performing, and she even has some advice on how to optimise your website so that Google Shopping really works for you.
It could be a great new income generator for you. Let me know how you get on.
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Welcome to the bring your product idea to Life podcast.
Speaker:This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd
Speaker:like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product
Speaker:creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly,
Speaker:practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.
Speaker:Let's get started.
Speaker:Hi. So today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Sara Jones. So
Speaker:Sara helps online retailers grow their business using Google shopping
Speaker:through one to one ad management and by teaching them how to do it themselves
Speaker:in the online retail academy. I was so delighted when Sara
Speaker:reached out to me and asked if she could come and talk to us about
Speaker:Google shopping. I used to use Google shopping years ago,
Speaker:and I'll mention this in my interview with Sara, and I found it so confusing.
Speaker:It was really hard to set up. I didn't really know what I was doing.
Speaker:And to be honest with you, I didn't stick with it for long. But
Speaker:today, Sara has completely changed my mind on it. She explains
Speaker:how Google Shopping has improved in the eight years since
Speaker:I was last using it. She also talks about how to get it
Speaker:set up, how to do well, how to make sure your ads are performing,
Speaker:and she even has some advice on how to optimize your website
Speaker:so that Google shopping really works for you. So whether Google
Speaker:Shopping is something you're using now, or maybe it's something you're thinking about, or
Speaker:perhaps you've never even thought about it, I think this will be a really
Speaker:useful episode. And if there's interest, I would love
Speaker:to invite Sara to come back to talk about this a bit more in depth
Speaker:as, because this is very much an introduction.
Speaker:Please, as always, let me know what you think about this episode. If you have
Speaker:any follow up questions, and I would love to be able to get them answered
Speaker:for you. But for now, let's have an introduction to Google Ads.
Speaker:Google shopping with Sara Jones.
Speaker:Hi, Sara. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker:Vicki, can we start, if you please, give an introduction to you, your
Speaker:business and what you do. So I am Sara
Speaker:Jones and I am a Google Ads manager. So I
Speaker:manage Google Ad accounts for ecommerce businesses, but I
Speaker:also teach online retailers how to do their
Speaker:own Google shopping in my membership, which is called
Speaker:the online retail academy. Amazing. Thank
Speaker:you. I guess I'm going to start with, which is probably quite an
Speaker:obvious question. But I'll be honest, I'm not sure why fully know what is
Speaker:Google shopping, Sara? So when you decide you
Speaker:want to buy a new pair of shoes and you hop off to Google and
Speaker:search for some lovely pink sparkly shoes. You'll
Speaker:see across the top of the page, you'll see images
Speaker:and prices and image ads, product
Speaker:ads across the top of the page, sometimes down the right hand side.
Speaker:Those are Google shopping ads. They do appear.
Speaker:There's also like a shopping tab, a separate shopping tab on the search results,
Speaker:which you can click into. And then it's all shopping results, shopping
Speaker:ads. But those are essentially shopping
Speaker:ads. And they can appear in places like YouTube as well.
Speaker:So, yeah, they're pretty, I love them.
Speaker:And they're the ads that you see that sometimes feel like they're following you around.
Speaker:So maybe you google something and then you might click on pair of
Speaker:shoes as an example. And then you go to YouTube and then you'll see the
Speaker:same, like little ad in the right. It's usually the right of the screen, I
Speaker:think, on YouTube. Is it that kind of ad that you might see multiple places?
Speaker:Yeah. So sometimes that can be remarketing. So
Speaker:sometimes the ads that kind of follow you around lots of other sites,
Speaker:like news sites and blogs and all that kind of stuff, those are
Speaker:remarketing ads. So that's if you've already come to somebody's website,
Speaker:clicked on a product, and if you have the setup
Speaker:done for shopping ads, you have products, it will automatically show people the
Speaker:products that they were looking at. So that's remarketing. So I guess it's kind of
Speaker:a, the follow on from Google Shopping, if you like, and then the
Speaker:product ads that you see on YouTube, those are set up separately. Again,
Speaker:when you're running YouTube ads, you can
Speaker:also add products in there as well. But the main, when people talk
Speaker:about Google shopping, they're mainly talking about those
Speaker:main results on the top of the. Google results when you're
Speaker:amazing. Thank you so much for clarifying that. That's really good to know. But
Speaker:for anyone, and we won't go into that much detail today, maybe you have to
Speaker:come back and talk to us about retargeting. So I guess stay, we'll focus just
Speaker:on Google shopping. But if people were interested in having those ads that pop
Speaker:up everywhere, that's retargeting. And that is part of Google Ads. Yes.
Speaker:Yes. Amazing. We may well cover that on another episode. Sara, that
Speaker:sounds like something to speak about. But for today, oh, different ballgame.
Speaker:Let's just talk about Google shopping for today and keep it nice and
Speaker:simple. So let's start with why might
Speaker:we consider using Google shopping? What are the advantages
Speaker:and benefits of it. So what Google
Speaker:shopping does is, as I've hinted at when
Speaker:I said, if you are looking for a pair of shoes, you go first place
Speaker:most people will go, or when they're shopping for anything, is to Google and
Speaker:actually start searching for it. So the big advantage
Speaker:of Google shopping is that you are putting your product in
Speaker:front of somebody when they're actually looking for it. And the
Speaker:analogy I like to use is like, it's like I'm going shopping and I'm walking
Speaker:down the high street and I've got a megaphone and I'm going, I'm looking for
Speaker:a pink sundress. And then the people in the shop can
Speaker:literally run out and wave their pink sundress at me. I've got one over here.
Speaker:I mean, that's kind of how I think about it. And so that's
Speaker:the biggest advantage over, say, something like Facebook
Speaker:ads where you're kind of putting your products in front of people as they're
Speaker:just scrolling the feed and not necessarily thinking about buying a pink
Speaker:sundress or a pair of shoes. The big advantage of Google
Speaker:is that much higher intent because they are looking
Speaker:for your products. And if you've got it all set up right, your products will
Speaker:show to the people when they're looking. So that's the big advantage. And as to
Speaker:sort of why people would want to run Google
Speaker:shopping really is when you get to the point where
Speaker:you're making sales on your website, you've
Speaker:proved that people want to buy your product, and then you're sitting there
Speaker:going, I just need to get more people to my website because not enough people
Speaker:know about me. And that is at the point where you're thinking, right, okay,
Speaker:we need to get more traffic. And as you no doubt
Speaker:know, you do have at some point you have to start
Speaker:paying to get people and eyeballs to your website. So
Speaker:that is when kind of Google shopping comes in. And other paid ads obviously,
Speaker:as well. But I'm talking about Google shopping here. So
Speaker:thank you for explaining that. And I mean, I can only talk from a consumer
Speaker:point of view, but I actually find Google Ads really useful as a
Speaker:consumer because as in the example you've given, if I'm looking for a pink sun
Speaker:dress, let's use the same example. I love the fact that I can type that
Speaker:into Google and I get all these results come up because it didn't feel
Speaker:like that long ago that if you were looking for a specific product, you would
Speaker:have to go to a specific website and you might search their catalog
Speaker:of whatever products they have and they not have it, and then you would go
Speaker:to another website and you would search there. So as a consumer, I do
Speaker:think that it's really useful actually, because
Speaker:it's just great that if you're looking to buy something, because I
Speaker:specialize, as you may know, Sara, and selling on Amazon, and I always say that
Speaker:Amazon ads are great because people are there to buy. And now I feel
Speaker:like possibly because of Google shopping, I do think more
Speaker:people are using Google to buy as well. But did you see that
Speaker:as compared to maybe, I don't know how many years ago, but I don't
Speaker:think, I certainly didn't consider Google my first choice
Speaker:for shopping. Yeah, because I mean, it was that
Speaker:you're searching and then you just can't be bothered to
Speaker:scroll up and up and up on just plain text listings
Speaker:because you're having to read
Speaker:and all the organic results and stuff,
Speaker:it's not conducive to, it just gets really tiring having
Speaker:to scroll and read ads and read organic listings,
Speaker:whereas the shopping, just as you say, makes it so
Speaker:easy to literally, like you'd
Speaker:have a whole row and you can scroll as well. So there's more than just
Speaker:kind of the thing. There's usually eight across the top, but you can keep scrolling
Speaker:to the right. You can immediately look
Speaker:and say, oh, I like that one. And it shows you the price as well.
Speaker:So if you're in the market for a 50 pound dress and
Speaker:that one that you're seeing as a 200 pound dress, you're like, well, you're not
Speaker:going to click on it, are you? Because that's at my price range. And so,
Speaker:yes, it does make it easier to just really dive,
Speaker:kind of narrow your choices if you like, because
Speaker:you're just seeing the ones that are relevant to you. And it's a visual
Speaker:thing. So it's quicker, much, much quicker, I think, to
Speaker:go shopping for stuff and I'm very impatient when I go shopping online for
Speaker:stuff, I like to just see exactly what I'm, oh, that's it. And I just
Speaker:click on it and away I go, me. Right. And I hadn't thought
Speaker:about, we'll talk about targeting in a moment. And I hadn't thought about it until
Speaker:you just said it. But I guess the advantage of how
Speaker:Google shopping's laid out, the advantage for sellers as well as people
Speaker:could immediately see a photo and a price. And as you say, if it's completely
Speaker:out of your price range, you're not going to click on it because I assume
Speaker:Google shopping is pay per click. So you're paying every time someone clicks.
Speaker:And I suppose that having that information right there does
Speaker:reduce the amount of clicks from people who may not ever
Speaker:be intending to buy, maybe because it's out of their price range or they were
Speaker:looking for a different colour or whatever. That's right. And of course it works both
Speaker:ways, don't forget, because there will be certain people who have a certain
Speaker:price that they expect to pay for something and if they see a 50
Speaker:quid or a 20 quid sundress they're like not interested. I want my two.
Speaker:So it works both ways. You're kind of, you're giving people so much
Speaker:more information than you can in a boring old text,
Speaker:ADHD and it's instantaneous that they see it.
Speaker:Picture price. Oh right, yeah. Okay. Click and away they
Speaker:go. Then of course it's down to your website to do the job of converting
Speaker:them. That's just something that we have to kind of say at this point.
Speaker:It's not all Google shopping won't do the whole job.
Speaker:Its job is to get those people to your website who are
Speaker:interested in your products. A whole different conversation again. Then it's
Speaker:your website's job to actually convert them and get them to buy.
Speaker:But yeah, that's why I love Google shopping so much. Absolutely.
Speaker:And to follow up on your last point that makes complete sense. And I think
Speaker:anyone who's running any type of ads, if you're getting a high number of clicks,
Speaker:but your number of sales is comparatively low, I think that would lend to thinking,
Speaker:okay, there's something missing from the actual product page because I'm getting people
Speaker:here, which is great, but they're not buying. And that would lead me to
Speaker:think, okay, there's something that I'm not telling people or there's something
Speaker:that could be improved upon. Yes. Or you're not getting
Speaker:the right people to the website. So there are some kind of nuances with
Speaker:that as well, again as with all paid
Speaker:traffic, but yes, yeah, that's absolutely right.
Speaker:The website needs to obviously convert as well.
Speaker:So. Well let's, in a moment we will talk a little bit more
Speaker:about how we get people there and how we target. I actually
Speaker:have used Google shopping myself. I think it was about
Speaker:eight years ago. I'm straining then trying to think when it was. I think it
Speaker:was about eight years ago. It was a very long time ago and I remember
Speaker:then it took me such a long time to figure the thing out because
Speaker:it was just really complicated. So I'd love to know, has it
Speaker:improved? Is it easier to use now? Yes,
Speaker:they are making it easier, which is good in some ways and not so much
Speaker:in others, but it is a lot easier than it was. I think I first
Speaker:did it about a bit longer than eight years ago, and then it was like
Speaker:you had to build a spreadsheet and upload it manually and it was horrendous.
Speaker:Nowadays, yes, there are more steps to setting
Speaker:this up than just a normal, what people
Speaker:consider as Google Ads, which is like, put some keywords
Speaker:in, write some ads and away you go. There are
Speaker:more steps to work through with Google
Speaker:shopping, but it is
Speaker:easier now because Shopify has, there's
Speaker:an app for Shopify, there's an app for Woocommerce that
Speaker:will build the file, the product feed that
Speaker:you need to create and submit to Google. And that is
Speaker:all done behind the scenes. It's all done through API and things like that. From
Speaker:that side of things, it's a lot easier than it used to be.
Speaker:It still can be overwhelming, though, for a lot of people because there's,
Speaker:oh, I've just got to, you know, an ad account, I need a merchant center
Speaker:account, I need a product feed, I need a, you know, I need
Speaker:to. There are these things. I've got errors and I've got warnings. What do I
Speaker:do? So that,
Speaker:you know, it's. But what I'm trying to say is it's a lot easier than
Speaker:it was. But, you know, some people just can
Speaker:find it overwhelming. But if you follow, if you work through it step by
Speaker:step, then it's definitely something that everybody can
Speaker:do 100%. Don't feel that, you know, don't
Speaker:believe people when they say, oh, it's all too complicated and you need to pay
Speaker:somebody to do it because you don't. That's really reassuring to
Speaker:hear. And what other things that you feel
Speaker:that you, what are the things that we need? Maybe if you
Speaker:can just briefly, but I don't know how many steps involved. If you can just
Speaker:briefly talk us through the steps and what you need, we can keep it really
Speaker:high level, just so everyone's got a bit of an overview, if that's okay. Okay,
Speaker:well, explain how I normally explain about how it works, because
Speaker:then that basically tells you what you need. Thank you. Your shopping
Speaker:ads are run, not surprisingly, inside your Google Ads account. So you
Speaker:need a Google Ad account. The difference with shopping ads and
Speaker:normal Google Ads is you also need a Google Merchant center
Speaker:account, and that's a separate account,
Speaker:which is effectively, if you can think about it, as
Speaker:a data warehouse for your product information. So that's
Speaker:Google Merchant center. They talk to each other. You also need a
Speaker:product feed. Now, anybody who's run maybe Facebook catalogue,
Speaker:you know, shopping, ads, what do they call performance? No
Speaker:shopping plus ads, whatever they are in Facebook,
Speaker:you'll be familiar with having to set up a catalog, a product catalog in Facebook.
Speaker:Same thing in Google. You have to create this, what we call a product
Speaker:feed that sits in Google Merchant center. And that
Speaker:kind of Google then looks at all your product information, says, yeah,
Speaker:that's okay, or no, we've got a problem with that. Go
Speaker:and fix it. And once Google is happy that it
Speaker:likes all the information that you've submitted for your products, it will
Speaker:then push that information through to your Google Ad account. And that is where you
Speaker:run your shopping campaign. So
Speaker:the product feed obviously is pulled from your website. Like I said,
Speaker:Shopify has the, there are multiple apps, but there's a free app
Speaker:run by Google. In shopify. There are plugins for woocommerce,
Speaker:Bigcommerce. Like whatever you're on, there'll be some kind of plugin or
Speaker:app that will generate that file that is submitted to
Speaker:Google's Merchant center account. That's the bit that
Speaker:usually confuses people. But once you realize and understand how it works,
Speaker:then it makes it a bit more straightforward. Does
Speaker:that make sense? It's quite hard to explain without visuals, but
Speaker:hopefully that's made sense. That does make sense. Thank you. I think that's just
Speaker:really helpful. Just, I think just knowing that there's the merchant center and there's somewhere
Speaker:you need to pull your product data to, like the catalog, I
Speaker:think that is just really helpful because it's really. I think it
Speaker:is a really hard thing to explain. I know. So thank you for that. I
Speaker:think just having that overview will be really reassuring because I think
Speaker:sometimes when you're thinking about trying something new, so maybe
Speaker:people thinking, okay, I'd like to try Google shopping. Often what can stop people
Speaker:is just that thing of, I don't know anything about this. I don't how it
Speaker:works and I don't want to spend hours watching YouTube
Speaker:or. That's right. And of course you can do it all in
Speaker:Shopify. And Shopify will try and get you to, oh, run your campaigns
Speaker:in Shopify. And then the problem with that is you really don't know what's
Speaker:going on. And I think a lot of people, for a lot of people,
Speaker:it's that little niggle of thinking, I don't know what's
Speaker:happening and I'm spending my money, but I don't know what's happening and
Speaker:I don't know if it's working. That's the bit, I think that puts a lot
Speaker:of people off. So if
Speaker:you could just kind of take the time to understand those elements,
Speaker:then it just gives you a bit of reassurance, I think, to understand what's
Speaker:happening and then it's easier to, or you feel more
Speaker:confident putting your money into it if you know what's happening and what's
Speaker:going on and whether it's working or not. So that makes sense. And maybe
Speaker:we can talk in a moment about how we know if it's working or not,
Speaker:actually, because that would be really useful to cover. But before we get
Speaker:to that, let's talk a little bit, if it's okay, about targeting. So
Speaker:how does targeting work on Google shopping?
Speaker:So when I talked about Google Merchant
Speaker:center, all the product
Speaker:information you submit to Google Merchant center, that product
Speaker:information is what Google uses to actually target your
Speaker:ads. So we don't say in a shopping
Speaker:campaign, please show me for these keywords, please show me for pink
Speaker:sundress and blue sandals. What we do is
Speaker:when we're submitting our product information to Google,
Speaker:it's that product information that determines when we show
Speaker:up. So this is the kind of the big step that I think a lot
Speaker:of people can miss and not understand the importance of
Speaker:optimizing. I mean, it'll be the same for Amazon. It's like optimizing
Speaker:an Amazon listing. You have to understand how people are going to
Speaker:search for certain products, and you have to make sure
Speaker:that that information is contained in your product
Speaker:feed. So, for example, if I
Speaker:sell artisan leather satchels, okay. Or
Speaker:dresses. Well, let's stick with pink sundresses, shall we? And I have a pink
Speaker:sundress that's called the aurora. And my website is
Speaker:called, you know, on the website it says the aurora dress.
Speaker:Well, that doesn't really tell Google that it's a pink
Speaker:sundress. So when we submit our information to
Speaker:Google, we have to make sure we include, this is
Speaker:a pink sundress in 100% cotton,
Speaker:pink sundress, blah, blah, blah. However, somebody would search for it, and then
Speaker:that's how Google knows when somebody searches for a pink sundress.
Speaker:Oh, right. This product, the title of the product in our
Speaker:feed says, oh, it's a pink sundress. Lovely. We'll show that product.
Speaker:Does that make sense? So that's how it works. Yeah. And lots
Speaker:of other parts of the feed that sort
Speaker:of influence that as well. But mainly
Speaker:your product title and your description. Well, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker:And coming back to what we were saying earlier about your website, obviously having to
Speaker:sell your products, I think that these are, this ties together really nicely because
Speaker:I think by having titles and descriptions that describe
Speaker:your products really well, using language that someone would be searching
Speaker:for, I think that will help hopefully with sales and
Speaker:also help if you choose to Google shopping because all the information
Speaker:is there because as you say, customers might search, if we use
Speaker:Vicky Melissandres example, people might search by color or they might be looking for
Speaker:a dress that's made from organic fabrics, for example. Or they
Speaker:might be searching by the length they want it. They want a maxi length sundress
Speaker:or whatever it is. And I think that sort of
Speaker:thinking through all of that and having that in your description works
Speaker:for both conversions and Google shopping. Yes. Yeah. Well, because
Speaker:it will help your organic rankings as well, of course, because
Speaker:anything anybody's searching for and you know, like, you know, it's
Speaker:exactly the same as it is on Amazon, you have to have all that information
Speaker:in there, otherwise the machine is not going to know that that's relevant for
Speaker:what somebody is searching. So. Yeah, but
Speaker:it's something, I think it's a step a lot of people don't
Speaker:necessarily, they don't miss completely, but they maybe don't go into the
Speaker:depth that they could do to get the most out of the shopping
Speaker:ads. That makes sense. So I think knowing this now is
Speaker:brilliant. I think you've saved a lot of people a lot of time just by
Speaker:knowing this upfront because I'm sure that this is one of those things where people
Speaker:often go back and sort of revise,
Speaker:revise their data so that it works. That's
Speaker:brilliant. And how do we know if our targeting and our
Speaker:ads in general are working?
Speaker:Are there tools where you can see the progress of your ads? Can you tell
Speaker:how many sales you're getting via ads, via organic sales? How does that
Speaker:work? So, yes, inside
Speaker:your Google Ad account, there is something called conversion tracking. And
Speaker:so basically what that is, it's, it's a little snippet
Speaker:of code that sits on your website that tells the ad account
Speaker:if somebody's actually purchased, oh, I did cart or started the payment,
Speaker:started the checkout process. And so
Speaker:you 100% have to have conversion tracking set up. Like
Speaker:I said, if you're using Shopify and you have the channel app, Google the Google
Speaker:app, it's all done for you. That's all done. So the conversion
Speaker:tracking, basically inside your Google Ad account, when you're running your ads, you can
Speaker:see, I've spent 100 pounds. I've had four
Speaker:conversions, that is, purchases, and those conversions have
Speaker:been worth 400 pounds. So I've spent
Speaker:100, I've generated 400 pounds in revenue. Happy days.
Speaker:You can also see all the usual metrics that you
Speaker:would see in an ad account. You can see how many impressions you've had, which
Speaker:is. So that's how many times you've actually shown an ad to somebody,
Speaker:your click through rate. So that's how many percentage of people have actually clicked on
Speaker:your ad. There's loads of stuff, which I
Speaker:won't go into all of that now, but you can see all of that inside
Speaker:your ad account, which just helps you understand what's happening. You can see
Speaker:whether you need to give it more budget, you can see whether you're showing up
Speaker:high on the page or further up in the ads or whether you're
Speaker:showing up further down. And that's all vital. I
Speaker:mean, you have to, as you well know, you have to know that
Speaker:otherwise you're just throwing good money after bad if you don't actually know whether
Speaker:it's working. So that's where the conversion tracking comes
Speaker:in. You don't see any data for sort of organic traffic or
Speaker:anything in your Google Ad account. You see that in
Speaker:obviously your Ga. Four account.
Speaker:But the conversion tracking shows you everything you need to know
Speaker:about what you're spending, what you're generating in revenue from the
Speaker:ads and which products, in fact, are generating the revenue even down to.
Speaker:That point, that's really useful. And I'm thinking as well that with the
Speaker:conversion tracking, that also coming back to what you mentioned earlier about
Speaker:retargeting ads, for example, and I'm guessing also
Speaker:maybe you can, I'm assuming that if we went into this, we went today,
Speaker:but going into it in more detail, you can think about
Speaker:targeting ads at people who got to various stages in the process, but for
Speaker:some reason didn't buy, of people who maybe added to cart and then went away
Speaker:or spent a while on your page and didn't buy. So I guess it's
Speaker:key to have that conversion tracking set up. That's
Speaker:exactly it. Yes. So, and again, I think a lot more people
Speaker:are probably more familiar with Facebook ads. It's the same way you can build an
Speaker:audience in Facebook ads, you can build an audience in Google Ads and say,
Speaker:I want this audience to be made up of people who visited my website
Speaker:in the last 30 days. And I want this audience to be made up of
Speaker:people who added to their cart in the last 30
Speaker:days, you know, so you can do all this. It can get quite
Speaker:nuanced for most people. You don't need to get too detailed with all of that.
Speaker:It's good enough to say, I want the people who visited, the people
Speaker:who purchased, because obviously, if they've just bought from you, you don't want to be
Speaker:wasting money showing an ad to them if they've already purchased.
Speaker:And then you can kind of work from there and build your
Speaker:audiences 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 365
Speaker:days, and then show people ads who were there last year. If
Speaker:they came to your summer sale last year, maybe they'll come back this year. There's
Speaker:lots that you can go into, but as you say, I mean, that's a
Speaker:kind of a different conversation, really. But it's all part and
Speaker:parcel. You have to kind of do everything together, don't you, to get things, to
Speaker:get the best results, I think. Absolutely. And it sounds as well that there's enough
Speaker:to be thinking about. For anyone who's listening and thinks, we haven't tried Google shopping,
Speaker:I'll give it a go. It sounds like there's enough to be getting on with,
Speaker:getting the, just getting the ads running and working for
Speaker:you. And the other areas seem a bit more
Speaker:like advanced, maybe something you might do. Once you achieve
Speaker:a good return on your shopping ads, then that might be something that
Speaker:you might consider. But it sounds like the first thing is just to get
Speaker:everything set up and running. Well, yes, yes,
Speaker:I'd agree with that. So I don't like to dwell too much
Speaker:on negatives, but I think this might be just useful for people to
Speaker:hear the, what's the biggest waste of ad budget
Speaker:that you see? Because obviously we all have a certain amount of money that we
Speaker:think, okay, we can spend this on our ads. I don't know if I want
Speaker:to say waste, but what do you see where people, you think, oh, actually, you
Speaker:could have maybe done that differently and have made
Speaker:better use of your bad budget? Let's like that.
Speaker:So I think the biggest
Speaker:place where people could potentially waste money is
Speaker:there's something called negative keywords in Google shopping. So if
Speaker:I, I can look and see
Speaker:what terms are triggering my ads
Speaker:and what sort of search phrases
Speaker:people are putting into Google and then clicking on my ads.
Speaker:So if I, if I sell now, this is
Speaker:an example of one of my members, she sells dog toys. Everything she sells is
Speaker:dogs. It's dog apparel, dog toys, everything. And she was
Speaker:getting Google because, you know, it's a machine and sometimes it can be a
Speaker:bit stupid. She was seeing search
Speaker:queries that were saying cat toys and cat beds
Speaker:and she doesn't sell any of that stuff. And surprisingly she was still
Speaker:getting clicks for it because I guess a cat bed, maybe a cat bed looks
Speaker:quite like a dog bed. I don't know.
Speaker:So the way we can use negative keywords is to say, right, Google,
Speaker:I don't want you to show me if that query contains the word cat or
Speaker:free or cheap or, I don't
Speaker:know, secondhand or something like that. So I think that's a
Speaker:big one that can potentially cost you a lot
Speaker:of money and result in traffic
Speaker:that isn't going to convert. Because we do have to be realistic. Some people do
Speaker:click on ads when like, you know, we've
Speaker:searched for cat toy and I don't sell cat toys. Why are you clicking on
Speaker:my ad? Because they do. They do. So
Speaker:negative keywords is a big one and understanding how they
Speaker:work and understanding where you need to look to
Speaker:see what searches people are making
Speaker:to show your ads, that's probably the big one. And I think another big
Speaker:one is actually
Speaker:following Google's
Speaker:recommendations. I'm using air quotes, recommendations
Speaker:and blindly following what Google tells them to do. That can be
Speaker:a big problem because Google is usually only interested in you spending more
Speaker:money. It's not generally interested in you
Speaker:actually making more profit for your business. So
Speaker:it will say, oh, change this and we'll get you 50 more
Speaker:conversions at a cost of another, however many hundreds of
Speaker:pounds. And at the end of the
Speaker:day, that's not profitable for you. So that's another big mistake, I think. I see
Speaker:people making is just, oh, Google says I have to do this and they do
Speaker:it. And without understanding what they're doing. So
Speaker:those are my two, those would be my two biggest things, I think. Thank
Speaker:you. And that's really interesting because they're actually the same things or very
Speaker:similar things that I see with Amazon ads as well. So negative keywords is, I
Speaker:think, often people don't know where to look to see, okay, what
Speaker:someone actually typed into the search bar and how much have I spent and what
Speaker:have I made from that particular query? And then, yes, Amazon is
Speaker:exactly the same where it will say, oh, increase your budget by this
Speaker:or use these keywords. And I don't even know where a lot of this information
Speaker:comes from because I always look often clients will forward
Speaker:me recommendations, say, oh, they say we should do this. And I want to
Speaker:say 99% of the time, I don't know. That's
Speaker:completely not what we want to do. I'm not sure who
Speaker:generates these machine is. It's given, it's given a computer
Speaker:algorithm and then it goes away and it thinks that this is the one I
Speaker:love. Because a client of mine sells spray can graffiti
Speaker:spray paint, and a machine doesn't understand the difference
Speaker:between art spray, which is a can of spray paint,
Speaker:and spray art, which is a picture on your wall, but to them it's spray
Speaker:art spray. Same thing. No, it's nothing. So.
Speaker:Yeah, well that's really funny. And I can see there'll be so many examples
Speaker:of things like that. And that's why I guess it's good to be making sure
Speaker:that you're looking at what's going on. And I mean, I think this applies to
Speaker:any ad you're running. You just need to be on top of it and see
Speaker:where your money's going. No, and I think, I don't know whether
Speaker:you see that, but that's one of the biggest things I see with ads is
Speaker:people setting and forgetting. And then that's like a really easy way to
Speaker:spend a lot of money. Yep.
Speaker:And how do you help businesses with Google shopping, Sara,
Speaker:what can you do to help? If anyone's listening and thinking this all sounds great,
Speaker:but actually I just don't want to do it myself.
Speaker:So I manage Google Ads for ecommerce
Speaker:businesses. Generally those are kind of
Speaker:bigger budget accounts because otherwise it's obviously not worth paying somebody to manage your accounts
Speaker:if you're only spending 500 pounds a month. So generally if people
Speaker:are already spending about maybe two to
Speaker:3000 pounds a month in ads and just haven't got time
Speaker:to deal with it and to kind of watch it and optimize it,
Speaker:then that's where I can help. Or likewise, if you're new
Speaker:to advertising but you do actually have budget
Speaker:to put in it, then I can help with that as well. And for those
Speaker:retailers who, and I would advise this actually to
Speaker:start, even if you do have the budget, I would advise that you learn how
Speaker:to do it because it's, it's important that you
Speaker:understand what's happening before you actually hand it over
Speaker:to somebody else because then you know what questions to ask when
Speaker:you're looking at your account. And so I think you need to be well
Speaker:informed even if you're paying somebody else. In fact, even more so if you need,
Speaker:if you're paying somebody else to do it. But I also, for the people
Speaker:who do want to learn and do it themselves, I have a
Speaker:membership called the online retail academy. And then people can join that and
Speaker:learn. There's a whole course in there on Google shopping
Speaker:and they can work through that and get my help and
Speaker:support to learn how to do it themselves. And everybody can learn how to
Speaker:do it themselves. Just want to stress that even if you think you're a
Speaker:complete just technophobe,
Speaker:everybody, nobody hasn't failed yet to get somebody up and running with
Speaker:Google shopping, so. Well, that's really, really reassuring. Thank you,
Speaker:Sara. And I'll link through to your website and everything you
Speaker:offer in the show notes for this episode. Thank you. And so my
Speaker:very final question is, what was your number one piece of advice be
Speaker:regarding Google shopping? I think I've already touched
Speaker:on it is do not allow
Speaker:Google to update
Speaker:things in your account. So Google will make
Speaker:recommendations and say, oh, you need to up your budget, you need
Speaker:to tweak this target, you need to
Speaker:change this setting or whatever.
Speaker:But there's also, but unless you switch it off, they
Speaker:will do that automatically. You kind of have to go in and tell it not
Speaker:to. So that would be my biggest thing would be to
Speaker:say, you need to turn off this auto apply. They call it
Speaker:auto apply. Recommendations need to be turned off.
Speaker:Otherwise, especially if you are not in your account
Speaker:regularly, you can go back into your account after a month or two and you're
Speaker:looking at and going, what on earth is coming on? You're like, what's happened? Because
Speaker:Google has just applied something that it thinks is going to
Speaker:be good. And nine times
Speaker:out of ten it doesn't work out well for you. It just gets you to
Speaker:spend more money. So that would be my biggest piece of
Speaker:advice. That's so useful. Thank you. And I think everyone now
Speaker:that's using Google shopping is going to check the auto apply switched
Speaker:on. That's really useful. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything
Speaker:you shared with Asara. That's quite all right. It's been my pleasure. It's been lovely
Speaker:talking to you, Vicky. Thank you so much for
Speaker:listening. Right to the end of this episode, do remember that you can get the
Speaker:full back catalog and lots of free resources on my website,
Speaker:vickiwineberg.com. please do remember to rate and review this
Speaker:episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think
Speaker:might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.