Google Shopping vs Google Search Ads ... Which is better for eCommerce?

Many people make the huge mistake of thinking that for their e commerce products they only need to run a Google shopping campaign. And then they double down on this mistake by setting up their Google Ads shopping campaign just by pressing a few little clicks in their Shopify account. This is wrong on so many levels and the only thing that you will achieve is wasting money in Google Ads and limiting the amount of profit that you can make in your campaigns. Why make trillions when we could make billions? So in this video I'm going to take you through the benefits and the negatives of running shopping and search campaigns for your ecommerce products. And then if you stick around to the end of this video, I will actually share with you the profitable strategy that I'm using for ecommerce brands like this that's working right now in Google Ads. And if we haven't met yet, my name is Aaron Young and I'm your 15,000 hour Google Ads master. And if you want to learn how to use Google Ads the right way so that you can have profitable campaigns brand regardless of your service, your product or your niche, why don't you give me a quick subscribe right now? Thank you. Okay, let's get right into this and let's go through both the positives and the negatives of using shopping and search campaigns for your ecommerce products. Now for shopping campaigns, one of the main benefits is that you get a really high level of visibility on your ads because when they're shown on mobile and desktop, you actually get that top position above any of this search or, or any of the other type of ads that are running in Google. And for users on a desktop, if your ads don't appear in that top section, you actually then get visibility in the highly visible right column ads. And then the next benefit of shopping ads is that they are image focused in that right there in the ad role, people can actually see your products so they know very quickly if yours is the product that they're looking for. And then another benefit of Google Shopping ads is that you can actually set them up so they display promotions like discounts and any other extra benefits that you want to give. For example, free shipping. Now the last benefit that I want to share about Google Shopping ads is actually also a massive big negative. And that is when we talk about that your Google Shopping ads have the ability for you to show the price right there on your ad. Now this is a benefit because it allows you to pre qualify potential customers so that if they see your ad and they see that your product is too expensive, they won't go and click on the ad which is then saving you that expense on them clicking on the ad put but they're not going through and buying your product. But the reason for why I say that the price being shown on your shopping ads is a huge negative is because it creates the perfect and easy opportunity for competitors to very quickly undercut your price. And it doesn't actually need to be by much. If you've got a lower cost item, people can undercut your price by 2, 5 or $10 in order to get the click and the ongoing sale. Or if it's a more expensive high profit item, people people may need to undercut your price by 50 or $100 so that they get that same effect of getting the click and then also the sale. So the big negative here with Google shopping ads is that it's very, very easy to get drawn into a bidding war where you and your competitors continue lower each other's prices so that your product is actually no longer profitable anymore. And then even further than that, if you're a small brand with only a couple of products to offer, there's an even bigger risk that a large big box retailer or or a large e commerce store can actually undercut your product or a similar product to the point where it's actually no longer profitable. And then just bank on the fact that they'll be able to cross sell and upsell other products which are profitable in order to make the total purchase from that customer a profit for their store. And then they can just continue this practice until they actually push you out of the market. And this is why when I'm running any type of ecommerce campaign, I always make sure that I'm also running search ads and a search campaign. And the reason for this is that while it is a negative that people don't see your price on your search ads, the major benefit for search ads over shopping ads when you're selling an ecommerce product is that you've actually got extended ad copy so that you can actually list out your exact benefits or your unique selling points that your product may have that your competitors don't have. And right now I want to show you an example of how this is working from an ecommerce brand. And the ad that I'm about to show you is currently performing at a ROAS of 1,100%, meaning that for every dollar that is spent on this ad, it's earning over $11. The reason for why this search ad is performing so well in this ecommerce setting is because we're able to put in these extra call out markers in the ad copy, which is meaning that customers are more happy to pay a higher price for this product as opposed to some other cheaper products that this product is going up against. And there's three main call outs or unique selling points that we've put into this search ad. You can actually see here that we're actually putting in here that we're the original baby muffs because this product was the first product to the market. And then we're also putting in, because this product is so popular in the markets of Australia and the United States, we're actually tying the relationship to both of those markets because this company is owned in Australia, but the products are actually made in the usa. So for both of those Australian and the USA markets there's an extra connection to this product because they know that they're supporting a local business or local manufacturing. And then the third call out or unique selling point that we've put into this ad is in this description where we're actually saying it's the only baby earmuffs that meet both U.S. and European safety standards. So with that description we're making it very, very clear that this is a premium product which is why it costs that little bit extra. And and then you can also see in here in some of these call outs and extensions we're actually putting in our full two year warranty and then also saying that there is options for express shipping now further to being able to use that extra ad copy to put in those unique selling points that your product has over your competitors. Using search ads for an E commerce campaign also allows you to take advantage of some highly effective and useful tools in search ads like promotion extensions and also the countdown timer. Now a lot of people will already know about promotion extensions which you can actually add to your account by going into ads and extensions and then extensions and then from there you just scroll down to see promotion extensions and this is where you can actually add in your promotion extensions by pressing this blue button here. And then this is how your promotion extensions will work on your search ads. And these are a great addition especially if you've got some upcoming sales. So for example, when you've got your Black Friday sales coming up, you can actually type in the percentage that you're giving and then you can actually put in a section when these are valid. And these can be used year round so they don't need to be around Black Friday. And Google does actually have a Collection of built in promotion extensions like Back to School, Black Friday, Boxing Day, and you can read the full list down through here. But even if you don't want to run this occasion, you can actually still just run it as a normal promotion extension anytime throughout the year. Now, the reason for why I like these promotion extensions because when you actually click on this extension part of the ad, you can actually nominate which page this actually goes through. So if you don't want the user to go to your homepage, you can actually take them to a special promotion page that you've set up for any promotion that you have in market. And then the other thing that I do like about adding in as many extensions as possible is because if you were to use extensions like site link extensions, as you can see in this ad example here, by using these sitelink extensions, it's actually increased the size of the ad or the real estate size of the ad and it actually pushes your competitors through further and further down the page. So this is why whenever I have E commerce ads running in the search network, I look to activate as many ad extensions as possible so that when we do appear in that number one position, we're pushing our competitors further and further down the page so that we're more likely to get that precious click. Now, the next feature that I wanted to take you through in a responsive search ad is the ability to be able to use a countdown timer. Now this is a powerful tool that you can use in responsive search ads. And the way that you do it is that when you're actually in the edit section of your responsive search ad with the headline, you actually type in the squiggly bracket or the brace. And this actually brings in this countdown feature. And then when you select that, you can actually nominate when you want this countdown to end. And you can actually also say that when you want the countdown to start. So this is meaning if you only want the countdown to appear for three days beforehand, you, you would change this five to a three. But let's keep it at five days and run it five days in advance. So we'll run through to the 21st of this month and then click Apply. And then from there before this little brace, you can actually write what you want this to say. Say for example, we could actually type in save 25% until. And then what I like to do from there is also pin it into either the second or the third position, depending where I want that to display. But for this example, let's put it in position three. Then from there you can actually see that it says here, say, 25% until five days. And this last little section will actually change, obviously in two days from now. It'll go down to three days. And then on the last day of the sale will actually turn over to hours. So whether that would be 12 hours left or 8 hours or 5 hours. And this is a great way to supercharge any promotions that you have because you're building in that time pressure, giving people an extra reason to purchase before your sale ends. And then when this is displayed in Google, I believe this has a lot more power than just seeing that little sale icon which shows in the shopping ads. And by using Google Search ads in that way, where we're using the extra ad copy to be able to sell our unique selling points and our benefits over any other products, and by also adding in those extensions like your promotion extensions and site link extensions, and then finally by also using that insertion tool on of the countdown timer, I've actually seen time and time again my Google Search ads outperform Google shopping ads. And that's why I say you need to make sure that regardless of what ecommerce product you're selling, is that you're using Google Search ads. Now, if you have never used Google Search campaigns to market your ecommerce product, I want to help you on this journey. And that's where I want to give you my Google Ads Optimization checklist. And and this is a checklist that lets you know exactly what you need to optimize in your Google search campaign every 72 hours, every week, every month, and every 90 days. And in this checklist, I also have a second tab where it takes you through the optimizations that you need to be performing on your Google Shopping campaign so that you can use it for both of your Google Search and your shopping campaigns. And to help you even further, if you stick around to the end of this video, I'll actually show you how you can easily watch my Google Search Campaign Setup tutorial so that you can get your very first Google Search campaign set up and helping you sell more products. So now we've gone through both the negatives and the positives for both of your Google Search and your shopping campaigns when you're selling an ecommerce product. So now it's come to the time where I want to give you the most powerful strategy which is working in Google right now. And it actually involves you setting up three different types of campaigns in in Google Ads so that you can have success with the E Commerce campaign. So the first campaign that you need to run is obviously your Google shopping campaign, but in this shopping campaign, you only wanted to focus on your priority products. And you can determine your priority products through these three key areas. And the first one is based on price, in that you want to make sure there's no current competitors who are undercutting your product or selling a very similar product for, for a much cheaper price. Because remember, as we said in your shopping ads, people are going to see your price. So if they see two similar products but one has a lower price, they are more likely to click on that lower priced item. And then secondly, you want to refine your priority products by looking at the sales volume and the profit margin. And with this, you want to find the right products that not only have a really good profit margin, but they also have a high sales volume, meaning that they're priced at a level or they're popular enough so that you're generating conversions and online transactions and every single day. And the reason for this is because Google shopping campaigns perform much better and the algorithm works much better in Google when you're generating regular conversions every single day. So if you've got a high profit product, but it doesn't have a large amount of volume, I wouldn't be putting that in my Google shopping campaign. And then the final factor you want to take into account as to which products you want to be putting into your Google shopping campaign is looking at adding products which have a high brand value or a high product awareness. If this is one of your core products which your brand is known for, you want to be including that in your shopping campaign. Because even if you do have some competitors that may be offering a lower price or a cheaper discount, if you've got high brand awareness and you're also known as the highest quality product in your particular niche, generally your Google shopping campaign will still be successful because people will be willing to buy from you because of their high brand and product awareness on your online store. And then after you've got your Google shopping campaign set up, you want to go through and also set up a Google search campaign. And with your Google search campaign, you want this to purely be focused on your most profitable products. So the products which have the highest value return for you after all of your costs. And the reason for why you want to focus on your high profit products is because with your high profit products, you can use those extra lines of ad copy to, to actually sell the exact benefits of why someone should be buying your product versus any other type of product in your niche. So along with using that extra ad copy to point out your unique selling points, you can also add in those extra features like your site links, your call outs, and don't forget to use that countdown timer when you've got any sales running. So by focusing your search campaigns on your high profit margin products, you're then giving them the full chance of success. Because you're not only relying on the price to be shown you in Google shopping, because you're also putting in those extra core benefits of why your product is the best product to buy. And then the third layer of this strategy is to actually run a remarketing or retargeting campaign on the Google display network with image based ads. And the advantage of running this third remarketing campaign is clear. Because once someone has initially interacted with one of your shopping or your search ads, you can then continue to retarget them with with highly specific messaging. So if you wanted to, because these ads are only going to be seen by people who have recently interacted with your website, you can put some tailored messaging in around making sure that they buy now or even offering them a special one time discount. And because this is working on the display campaign, they're actually not searching for your product or your brand name. They're seeing your ads as they're going around into other sites on the Internet. Whether it be catching up on news sites, sporting sites, or any fashion or tourism sites, basically anything they're looking at or on the Internet, your ads can be there following them around, reminding them of your product. So they may see your product, your branding and your messaging another three, four or five times before they actually make the decision to click on your ad and then finish that sale on your website. Now one thing that I do want to point out with this third campaign is that you do need to have at least a thousand people in your remarketing audience in order to be able to engage that third level of that strategy. So you may not start this third campaign for the first couple of weeks of this strategy and to check if you've got enough people in your all visitors or your retargeting audience in Google Ads, all you need to do is to go into your tools and settings and then click on Audience Manager. And then this will bring you to this page and you want to go into your all visitors Google Analytics. And then when you see that that goes above 1000, you will then be able to start that third level campaign which is that display campaign. Now as you can see that this audience is actually automatically created so as long as you actually have your Google Ads and your Google Analytics profiles connected and linked, Google will start to automatically build out this audience. So that's my three tiered or three level strategy for Google Ads when it comes to E commerce campaigns. So remember the benefits are that you're using those shopping ads to get high visibility and then you're reinforcing it with your search ads to really pull out the core benefits and and the unique selling points of your products. Plus also using those added benefits of promotion extensions. And don't forget that countdown timer where you can create some extra urgency reminding people that they only have a couple of days or a couple of hours before your sale ends. And then finally you're continually retargeting people who have recently been in your website reminding them of your product, your brand or any offers that you have in market at the moment. And that process of you retargeting them is continues right through until they finally made the decision to convert and buy your product. So why don't you let me know how you go and how your campaign performs when you incorporate that three tiered strategy using both shopping search and display for your E commerce campaign. And I would love to hear about the results in the comment section below. Now remember, when we're talking about search campaigns for E commerce, I said that I'd give you some extra help. So if you want to go through and actually see the step by step process and the strategy that I use for my Google search campaigns, I want you to go through and watch this video right here. Or if you'd like to learn more about how to correctly set up your Google shopping campaigns using product grouping so that you can actually focus on the right type of products for your Google shopping campaign, I want you to go through and watch this video right here. As always, thank you for joining me and I look forward to seeing you on one of these two videos right now. See ya. See you. I'll and.