What is Google Smart Shopping?
In 2018, Google launched next generation shopping campaigns, Smart Shopping Campaigns.
The type of campaign is one of Google Ads latest. The purpose of the campaign type is to reduce the need to maintain/manage Shopping campaigns while reaching new surfaces in Google's network of advertising locations.
The type of promotion automatically optimises itself with the aim of generating as much value as possible by means of machine learning and automation.
Google Smart Shopping campaigns can be displayed in many different places.
Smart Shopping ads are not only available in the same places as the traditional Shopping adverts, but can also be displayed elsewhere. Smart Shopping campaigns also include: remarketingSo let's say that this is the same thing as that.
One of the disadvantages of Smart Shopping is that the campaigns are in a “black box”. You get very little insight into what happens, where your ads are shown and when they are shown.
Something that also gives you little room to make yourself changes to the campaign. Now we're going to look at some of the things you can do to get better results:
How to optimize Google Smart Shopping Promotions
Okay, let's just jump in there. Here are 5 things you can do to get more out of your Google Smart shopping campaigns.
1. Exclude non-seller products
Not all products are suitable for shopping – neither Smart nor usual.
Some products you already know do not work well in Shopping – for example, products where you have much higher prices than your competitors.
Other products that do not sell you will eventually be able to see in your Smart Shopping Report.
To remove some products, go to the Smart Shopping campaign, and go to “Product Groups”. Here you choose to split the product groups by “item id”.
Here you can split your product groups into product IDs, which allow you to see each product separately.
Once you have done this, you will get all the products in the product group per line. This way you can easily see how good performance the product has in Smart Shopping.
If you want to exclude a product, it's easy. All you have to do is click on the green dot, and you choose “Exclude”.
Here you can both see performance by product and exclude products you no longer want to have in your Smart Shopping campaign.
2. Exclude locations
Not all positions work equally well. Google Smart Shopping can be displayed in many places. Some places work better than others and some places you just won't be.
How to figure out where your ads have been displayed
If you go in and look for “Placements” in your Google Smart shopping campaign, you will probably be disappointed. You won't find them here.
But there are ways to view it! Many tools, such as Optmyzr, who uses Google Ads' API can retrieve placements data from Smart Shopping campaigns – but fortunately you can do it inside Google Ads as well.
To find the data, you first have to go to “Reports”. Here you set up a report with “Placements (Group)” below lines and select the columns you want to view. Here's a good idea to look at, among other things, views, clicks, CTRs and conversions. To only watch your Smart Shopping campaign, you can apply a filter for this/these campaigns.
Here you can see how Smart Shopping your adverts have been shown.
Now that you know where your ad has been displayed, you can start excluding the locations you do not want to be at from your campaign.
How to exclude locations
If you try to exclude a location at the campaign level in a Smart Shopping campaign, you get the following error message “This target can’t be soved because it’s incompatible with this campaign.”
Fortunately, there's a way around. Instead of putting the exclusions at the campaign level, you can place them at the account level.
Here you can add exclusions for Smart Shopping.
Here you can exclude web pages, apps, youtube videos and channels.
That's all you need to know about how to find and exclude locations on Google Smart Shopping.
Three. Account level filters
We're going to keep going in the same street as over here. At account level, you can apply some filters that automatically remove some locations that are incompatible with your brand.
Here you can set exclusions.
Walk through both “Excluded content” and “Excluded types and labels”.
4. Optimize product titles
Either you are running Smart Shopping or regular Shopping campaigns, it is important to go through your product titles. Here there may be a lot of things to do about small changes.
For example, having keywords in your titles can increase CTR and the number of sales. If you have run regular shopping campaigns then take a look at the search term report there (unfortunately not available for Smart Shopping) and see which search terms your products are displayed on. Try to add these to your product titles.
Your product titles are also important for Google to decide whether your product is relevant or not for a search. So definitely spend time looking for improvement potential here!
Here's some tips from DataFeedWatch on how to put together product titles for Shopping ads in different categories:
DatafeedWatch recommendations on how to optimise titles in different product categories.
There are several places to change the titles of your products.
- Back-end in PIM/webshop system/Google Sheets
- The application used to generate the feed from your product data
- Feed management tools like DataFeedWatch and Productsup.
- Google Merchant Center
Also look at the rest of the data you have in your product feed. Make sure that all data is properly updated. Changing images and prices can have a major impact on CTR and the number of sales.
Read more tips about feedoptimization for Google Shopping here and how to optimize Your product feed.
5. Create more Smart Shopping campaigns with different ROAS goals
Google recommends that you put all products in the same campaign when you are setting up Smart Shopping. But it's not always that trick.
One of the few opportunities you have to manage Smart Shopping is through which ROAS goals you set on the campaign. Some products must have a high ROAS for the sale to be profitable, while other products can manage with a lower ROAS.
Therefore, you should consider creating more Smart Shopping campaigns with different Troas goals. Good margin products can be put in the campaign with the lowest ROAS goal, low-margin products can be put in a campaign with higher ROAS targets.
Do you need help with Google Ads?
We in INEVO have a lot of experience working with Google Ads for big and small retailers and online stores. Contact me for a completely uncommitted chat here.