Pros & Cons of Google product listing ads

Should you consider Google product listing ads?

Google product listing ads allow online merchants to list their product image, its price and reflect their store name on a platform with a ready audience. With Google product listing ads you’re charged for the service when customers click your ad and lands on your website. You only pay when Google directs your customer to your store. Sound’s interesting, but before you consider using this service you should be aware of the pros and cons of Google product listing ads.

Is there any reason why not to list on Google shopping?

1 – Does not support all product category

The more niche and rare your product category are, the better chances of winning the limelight. But, if you sell more competitive products such as apparel you may have difficulty in getting your “Product Ads” campaign to reach the target you may be expecting. With more and more retailers using Google’s product listing ad service, it’s beneficial only if you sell products in categories like automotive, furniture, baby supplies, pet care to make the most out of it.

2 – Locked in margin

Using Google product listing ads you can easily say “We don’t have to manage our listing as we are now paying for it.” But, if you have a really strict budget you may have difficulty using this service. Therefore, if you do consider using this service, you need to keep a track on your listings or you may need to consider a lower daily budget. Like other factors, this is going to vary widely based on your products, competitions and your margins.

3 – Emphasizes on site’s quality

Google emphasizes more on the site’s quality and links as part of its algorithm to determine the site and merchant quality, so if your site is found rough around the edges it may affect your performance on Google Shopping.  This will directly hit the bottom line of your business.

4 – Less visibility for fewer products

If you sell less than 500 products, then you may have the trouble of getting visibility on Google Shopping. So, if you deal with fewer products, it may not bring in revenue that you may be expecting!

5 – Expensive

For those retailers who just think that they have to pay and Google will manage their listings, then that’s wrong. Google can turn out to be expensive for retailers who jump into this service without knowing the guidelines of Google product listing ads. Google shopping can provide merchants with more qualified leads for a smaller amount of money than any other sales channel, provided you know how their program works.

Benefits of Google product listing ads

1 – Increases your product quality

Google product listing ads offer unique and ready ad format that allows you to include product image, title, price, promotional message and your store name for each of your products, eliminating the hassle of creating ads for your each of your products. This way you can increase the quality of your product by featuring product information directly in your ads to help shoppers make informed purchase decisions. This makes shoppers more likely to quickly complete a purchase on your site.

2 – Higher click-through rates

With Google product listing ads service you will experience a higher click-through rate when compared to text ads in shopping searches. This way you can increase the chances of getting more sales, abruptly!

3 – No minimum bid

Google product listing ads are integral to Google AdWords. So, this gives an advantage as PLA’s are designated according to the campaign type in which daily budgets can be set and there is no minimum bid requirement (a bid amount of $0.01 is acceptable). Such bidding flexibility is not available in many other product listing services.

4 – Increased traffic

Google product listing ad service allows online retailers to display more than one of their products for a given customer search at the same time – that can be a product listing ad and a text ad. This means your reach with shoppers for a single search could double! This way you can experience significantly higher CTR with Google product listing ads compared to other ads shown in the same location for Google Shopping searches. In some cases, retailers have experienced double or triple standard click-through rates, diverting more traffic to their site.