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In this article you’ll find a number of tips and detailed steps for setting up your conversion funnels in Google Analytics.
Extremely useful for analyzing customer journeys, we strongly recommend that you set up your funnels to identify friction points in your customer journeys and improve your conversion rates.
Let’s get to the heart of the matter, and to illustrate the point, let’s say you have a promotional video on your B2B site’s homepage, and it’s doing a great job of encouraging your potential customers to give you a call. The only problem is, no one is watching that video… Or maybe you have an Ecommerce store, and you have no problem attracting people who come from social platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Many of them even add items to their Shopping Cart, but halfway through the checkout process your potential customers leave the site.
Surely these two scenarios ring a bell?
Although frustrating, these experiences are commonplace for any website owner. Fortunately, there’s a way to find out what’s stopping people from converting on your site.
All you need to find out is a free Google Analytics account and a good Internet connection. (If you haven’t yet set up Google Analytics for your website, you can do so here).
Then it’s time to set up your sales funnels in Google Analytics. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to:
track visitor behavior on your website,
identify problem areas
optimize the user experience to get more visitors to do more of the things you want them to do: like make a purchase, fill in a recommendation form or subscribe to your newsletter.
If all this sounds confusing, don’t worry. Below, we’ll explain what conversion funnels (or sales funnels) are in Google Analytics, why they’re important and how to track them in Google Analytics. We’ll finish with a look at how to take action by leveraging your conversion funnel data.
What is a conversion funnel?
A conversion funnel (or Conversion/Order Tunnel) is a sequence of steps that a user follows to complete a conversion. A conversion funnel on an Ecommerce site might look like this:
The customer arrives on the website.
Once there, the customer browses a few pages of different products.
The customer then adds an item or two to the shopping cart.
Finally, the customer buys the item(s).
The sales funnel is different for different types of website and different types of customer. That’s why it’s important to know who your customers are, and to describe the series of actions they can take on your website.
All sales funnels (or conversion tunnels) end with a conversion. A conversion can have different definitions, depending on the business you’re in and the type of website you’re running. Traditionally, when people think of a conversion, they think of completing an order on a website. But a conversion can be broader than that, such as signing up on a site or downloading a white paper. Ultimately, a conversion is any type of behavior you want your customer to adopt that results in some value for your business.
Why should every site owner care about conversion tunnels?
Conversion tunnels or sales funnels are essential for understanding the steps your customers take before reaching their final conversion, and the obstacles that prevent them from doing so.
You can think of each stage of your sales funnel as a central touchpoint that you want people to reach on their way to conversion. Once you’ve defined each of these stages, you can identify the friction zones: the places where people get stuck, leave or don’t continue the conversion process. When you have this information, you can optimize your page design and site flow, adjusting the right elements to capture more conversions. And suddenly, you know what’s working on your website and what’s not – so you can start adjusting and improving.
Here’s an example to illustrate the value of sales funnels (or conversion tunnels). Let’s say you’re a business coach. As part of your assessment process, you offer a free 30-minute consultation, so that customers can get an idea of what you do and what you can bring to the table. You advertise this consultation throughout your website with a prominent CTA (Call To Action) button. To sign up, visitors click on a separate registration page and fill in a form.
When you analyze your sales funnel in Google Analytics, you’ll see that your CTA button has a high click-through rate. Whatever page they clicked from, the number of people who see the CTA button, compared to those who click on it to go to the sign-up page, hovers around 50%. This indicates that you’re doing an excellent job of generating interest in your free consultation.
However, once people reach the page with the registration form, less than 1% fill it in. Given the high interest rate, what explains this sudden loss of interest? Your consultation is free. What do people have to lose?
Well, maybe your registration form could have too many fields, discouraging prospects from filling out your form. Or, the sign-up form is too far down the page and people can’t find it. Maybe the page loads far too slowly and people give up and leave.
Each of the above could be an opportunity to improve your sales funnel. Right now, one or more of these elements turns people off and forces them to leave. Once they’re gone, they may be gone forever. It’s up to you to test different changes to see what motivates the 1% who convert.
Thanks to Google Analytics, you know exactly where the problem lies: the page with the form. People click through to the page with the form, but stop there. The sales funnel helps you pinpoint the problem so you can stay focused and make changes that lead to improvements – instead of wasting your time working on things that aren’t part of the problem, like changing your ad copy or increasing the consultation time from 30 to 60 minutes.
What is conversion funnel analysis?
Funnel analysis turns your conversion tunnel into something you can monitor and analyze. Let’s use an e-commerce site as a hypothetical example. Below are the potential stages in your funnel:
People arrive on your website.
People navigate to a product page.
People add a product to their shopping cart.
People arrive at the payment page.
People are finalizing their purchase.
Funnel analysis involves quantifying each of these steps, and seeing how many people made it to each one. Essentially, you want to know two things: the percentage exit rate from one step to the next, and the cumulative percentage of the total. This gives you a very good overview of the friction points in your sales tunnel.
Set up these steps in Google Analytics, and you can literally see the friction points. For our hypothetical Ecommerce site analysis, here’s what the data might look like in Google Analytics:
The blue blocks represent the total number of people reaching each stage, while the red arrows point to and indicate the number of people exiting at each stage. This data tells us several things:
Of all the people who access the website, 80% leave without browsing the product pages. This represents a great opportunity for you. We might ask, does the home page do a good job of directing people to the product pages? Are product categories listed in the main menu? Are “Best of” items highlighted on the home page? These are all things we could test to encourage more people to visit the product pages.
Of those who visit a product page, 75% end up taking the next step and adding the item to their shopping cart. Nice! It’s a good sign that among the people who are interested enough to visit the product page, we’re doing a great job of convincing them that they should buy it.
Unfortunately, only around 6% of these people complete their order. So there’s something wrong. Maybe there’s a technical problem with the payment page, or people don’t feel they can trust the site with their credit card information. Maybe there are too many fields to fill in, or it asks for information unrelated to their purchase. Whatever the reason, it’s an issue worth investigating. The fact that people have added the item to their shopping cart indicates a strong intention to buy, so if none of them are converting, there must be something preventing them from validating their order.
Just by looking at the raw data, we suddenly have a ton of information to work with to optimize our website. That’s what makes funnel analysis so reliable. Once you start thinking of your website as a journey/journey for your customers, you can get into their mindset and consider the incremental steps that move them forward.
Next, let’s talk about how to apply this strategy to your site.
Use for e-commerce sites
In the case of e-commerce sites, Target ROAS maximizes the return on advertising campaigns by targeting products or categories with the best profit margins. This helps you achieve your business objectives while maintaining control over advertising expenditure.
Good to know: A well-defined Target ROAS can significantly increase profitability without requiring a proportional increase in the advertising budget.
How to visualize sales funnels for your website?
Before you even open Google Analytics, the first step is to fully understand your site and what you want your future customers to do. I recommend a brainstorming session where you map out your funnels. If you have an Ecommerce site, your funnels probably look like the ones we described above.
If you have a blog, the funnel concept still applies. There may be no product page or “add to cart” button, but you still have a home page, category pages, and blog posts. These blog posts should be considered as the “products” of your site.
You really want to think about your site, the journey you want users to take and their ultimate destination or goal. Is the goal to get people to read your blog? Figuring out how to direct them to your blog posts would be the top priority.
Remember that you could have multiple funnels within the same site. Maybe you’re a blogger who sells products on the side, so you’d have different sales funnels for your blog content versus your online store.
By the end of this brainstorming session, you should know what you want people to do, and break it down into steps (e.g. get to the site, visit a blog page, download a white paper).
How to configure sales funnels in Google Analytics
Once you’ve got your sales funnels mapped out, it’s time to collect the data. There’s a lot to do, but segments and objectives are the easiest steps to set up, so that’s what I’m going to show you today.
Let’s start with the simplest option: create a segment.
Note: For convenience, we’ll use product pages as an example in the following steps. If you’re setting up funnels for your blog, adjust accordingly.
Creating a segment in Google Analytics
You will create four segments:
one for your home page,
one for your product,
one for your basket and
one for the thank-you page.
In Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > All traffic > Channels. This report visualization shows you all your website’s traffic, broken down by channel (social, organic, direct, etc.).
Create your home page segment.
Creating a segment in Google Analytics
Clicking on “Add segment” takes you to a new screen. Here you’ll see that Google Analytics already offers plenty of relevant options for sales funnels. If you like, you can also click on “Make a purchase” and that would be it for today 😉
But your site is not identical to any other. You’ve already described the specific pages of your site that you want users to be able to browse. The easiest way to create a segment for this specific sales funnel, and avoid Google scrambling the data, is to create a custom segment.
Click on the red “New Segment ” button at top left.
Then click on “Conditions in the “Advanced” menu on the left.
click on “Conditions” in the “Advanced” menu on the left.
In this screen, you’ll define each stage of your sales funnel. Use the drop-down menu to find and select “Page”.
Search and select “Page
Then select “matches exactly in the second drop-down menu. This prevents Google from including other pages with similar URLs.
select ” corresponds exactly to “
Finally, enter the URL of your home page in the text field, or use the / suggested by Google. (In Google Analytics, / is a shortcut for your home page.) Name your segment in the “Segment name” field at top left, and click on the blue Save button.
Name your segment explicitly: here, “Home Page”.
Create your product page segment.
To see how many people go from your home page to the product page, you’ll need to create another segment. To do this, repeat the same steps above. Here they are for your convenience:
1 Click on Add a segment. 2 Click on the red New segment button. 3 Click on Conditions in the advanced menu on the left. 4 Find Page in the drop-down menu.
Then, if you have a single product, or want to create a funnel for a single product, you can continue the same process you used for your home page. Select “exact match” from the drop-down menu and enter the exact URL of the product page in the text field.
Segment creation for a product page
Alternatively, if you sell several products, you’ll want to see how many people visit any given product page on your site. In this case, you would select “contains instead of “exactly matches” in the drop-down menu, and use a common denominator in the text field (for example, if all your product pages include /shop/ in the URL, you’d enter /shop/ in the text field).
Identify the common denominator for grouping all the products on your site
Give your segment a name you can identify, such as the product name, or simply “Product Page”, and click Save.
Save the segment as “Product Page” and save.
Create your shopping cart segment
Follow the same steps again:
Shopping Cart” page segment
Finally, create your purchase confirmation or thank-you page segment
Follow the same steps again:
Click on Add segment.
Click on the red New Segment button.
Click on Conditions in the advanced menu on the left.
Search for the page in the drop-down menu.
Again, since the specific URL may vary from user to user, you’ll want to use the “contains” option and find a common denominator in the URL, such as /thank-you/. Give your “Thank you” segment a name and click Save.
Your Google Analytics should look like this:
Viewing segments in Google Analytics
Each segment is represented by a different colored line, and you can visually see the decline from one step to the next. There’s also a wealth of data for each segment described below. In this example, there appears to be a significant drop-off from the product page to the shopping cart, and again a number of people who don’t complete their order. Either of these would be a good place to start optimizing.
Setting goals in Google Analytics
Let’s move on to the more advanced option of creating and setting objectives.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll unlock other Google Analytics features, such as the Funnel Visualization report (available under Conversions > Goals > Funnel Visualization).
Visualizing Analytics Goals
To define goals, you need to access your Google Analytics administration settings. Click on the equipment icon in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen, then click on Goals.
Creating goals in Google Analytics settings
Then click on the red button “button..
New Analytics objective
Enter a name for your goal, such as “Place an order “, and check “Type: Destination”. Type : Destination. Then click on Continue.
In the last screen, we’ll use our thank-you page as the URL and select “Equals from the drop-down menu:
You now have the option of defining a value for each conversion. If you use your website primarily for lead generation, your revenue is probably not captured by Google Analytics. You can still estimate it by setting the Value field to ON, then specifying an amount. For example, if you’re using this goal to track white paper downloads, you can assume that, on average, each download is worth $100 to your business, so you should enter that. Again, this field is optional.
Objective enhancement
Next, turn the funnel ON. Here, you’ll present the different URLs for each stage of your funnel, just as we did when we created custom segments. Click Save when you’re done.
Finally, click on “Check this goal” to verify your work. Next, return to Conversions > Goals and you’ll see that you can now view the Funnel Visualization report where it shows you a visual representation of your funnel:
Google Analytics funnel visualization
This report tells us a number of things at a high level:
At the top, it shows you how many people have reached the target (120 sessions) and the overall conversion rate for this funnel (14.69%).
On the left, it shows us the previous page that brought visitors to the funnel in the first place. Often, this is the home page. It’s the most popular page for most websites, so it’s logical that it should appear here (indicated by “(entry)”).
On the right, it tells us how many people left the funnel at each stage, and which page they visited next, if they didn’t leave your site completely (indicated by “(exit)”).
Google Analytics will show you this same information at every stage. Where did your visitors come from before entering your funnel, did they leave at any stage and, if so, where did they go?
How can you use Google Analytics funnel data to optimize your site's conversion rates?
Funnel analysis helps you quantify the number of users reaching each stage, and determine the abandonment versus retention rate for each stage. Funnel analysis gives you the “What” (the cause). The “Why” (the reason) is a little harder to decipher.
Let’s take the example of our E-commerce funnel once again.
Our funnel analysis reveals that we have a high percentage of people going from our home page to our product page. That’s great! But if people don’t take that first step (go to a product page), it’s the #1 roadblock.
But many of those who reach the product page abandon their journey before adding anything to their shopping cart. This is where the focus should be. What can we do to improve our product pages?
Is it a design issue? Users don’t know how to add a product to the shopping cart? We may need to change the location, color or size of the Add to Cart button.
Is it a marketing issue? Maybe our positioning needs to be more effective, and we need to do a better job of emphasizing the benefits of this particular product.
Is it a question of price? Maybe the prices are really high compared to our competitors. When web users see it, they look at it and go.
There are all sorts of reasons why you might see friction on the funnel steps. That’s when that quantitative data really works well from a qualitative point of view, like adjusting the user experience, surveying your customers, and A/B testing your changes.
Customer surveys are a great place to start. There are many (and free) survey tools you can use for this purpose. Conduct a survey on the page where the problem arises, asking a simple question: “Were you able to accomplish what you were looking for on the site? If not, why not?”
From my experience with usage testing, you’ll find that a lot of people say they can’t find something or don’t know where to go. It’s a great opportunity to work on it.
If you’re on a tight budget, start with your friends and family. Ask them to follow the buying process on your website, but don’t give them any hints. Do they have any roadblocks along the way?
Turning insights into action with Conversion Funnels in Google Analytics
Conceptually, sales funnels aren’t a very difficult thing to grasp. We’re all consumers and we know how to do business online. We’ve all been in that position where we find ourselves lost on one website, get frustrated and leave for a competitor’s site.
This confusion represents a choke point in your sales funnel, and it can break your site. Funnel analysis helps you find these choke points. Then it’s up to you to experiment and improve the user experience.
Fortunately, setting up sales funnels in Google Analytics isn’t difficult. Follow the steps above, and you might be surprised by what you find.
In this article, we’ve put together some effective features and feed optimizations to boost the performance of your Googel Shopping campaigns during important events such as sales.
The information below is very useful for ecommerce site managers. In fact, if you manage a lead generation and forms site, this content is not for you… Our teams are of course available to discuss it with you in person! Also read: ” Optimizing your Shopping feed “.
How to improve the performance of shopping campaigns on Google, Bing and Facebook?
As you know, the prices you charge on your site and on your various acquisition channels are very important, and sometimes even decisive. To harness the power of crossed-out prices, you need to know and use the following attributes of your feed:
sale_ price
sale_price_effective_date (Google or Facebook)
These are the 2 attributes that can be created and modified, both for your Google and Facebook campaigns. Lowering prices is good for the consumer, but showing it visually with a crossed-out price is much better for your sales and more impactful for the consumer! Communicate effectively on your prices is more important!
Highlight special offers
With Google Shopping and the Merchant Center you can make your product ads even more attractive with SPECIAL OFFERS. There are 2 ways to do this:
Use the Merchant Center promotions configuration tool (in the Merchant Marketing tab)
Using the Merchant Center’s Pomo Flow
Visually, the impact can improve the click-through rate on your ads!! To do this, the first step is to apply to participate in Google’s Merchant Promotions program: Register Google Form here
Work on your rejected products in the Merchant Center?
Sometimes you don’t have to look very far to boost the visibility and performance of your Shopping campaigns on Google or Facebook. Your current offering may already be well developed, yet a large number of products may be rejected by Google’s Merchant Center or Facebook’s Business Manager. That’s a lot of products that your audience won’t be able to see or find on Google or Facebook But it’s entirely possible to identify and correct the errors that are blocking your products.
Go to the Google Merchant Center In: Products > Merchant Diagnostics Here you’ll find the most important errors to correct;
Improve the quality of your product images and visuals
Having a poor-quality or too-small image will not systematically lead to a refusal. On the contrary, it’s a warning we see all too often in Merchant Center diagnostics.
Here are the optimizations and elements to consider for Google Shopping:
Images of non-apparel products: at least 100 x 100 pixels
Images of clothing products: at least 250 x 250 pixels
No images larger than 64 megapixels
No image files larger than 16 MB
Recommendation: Choose images of at least 800 x 800 pixels.
Automatic Image Enhancement
The Merchant Center also offers an automatic “image enhancement” feature; this will not optimize the above information, but will automatically “clean up” your image. Google information: “If you activate the automatic removal tool, Google will try to automatically correct these images by removing the overlaying promotional elements”.
Here are some examples of automatic image enhancement:
To do this, go to your Merchant Center and activate the “automatic image enhancement” option.
For Facebook, the rules are somewhat different. Here are the optimizations and quality requirements for the Facebook News Feed, for images with a link:
479 x 246 pixels on computer
and a minimum width of 320 pixels on mobile.
However, we recommend a size of 1080 x 1350 pixels.
Optimize your product titles
A quick reminder of the recommendations and structuring of Titles:
The limit is 150 characters for a Title
Include the Top Keyword at the beginning of the title: In fact, the term or main keyword on which you want to position yourself should be present in the title, and rather at the beginning of the sentence.
Include the product type: if your product is a “knife sheath”, include this term in the title. It’s pretty obvious, but very useful, because by including the product type in your title, you’re describing the very product you’re selling.
Color, brand, size, gender: these are elements found in other feed attributes, but which can be added to the Title. Having a Title that’s as close as possible to your customers’ searches will enable you to position your site on more precise terms.
For different sectors, titles can be structured differently. Here are a few examples:
Electronics and household appliances: Brand + Attributes (e.g. size, weight) + product type + model or part number
Fashion and apparel: Brand + gender (men/women/children) + product type + attributes (color + size + material)
Consumables: Brand + product type + attributes
Conclusion
We hope these tips will inspire you for your next operation. As you know, we’re always available to discuss your needs in person. Get in touch with us and let’s discuss your needs in terms of feed optimization, SEA or Google Shopping campaign management or Dynamic Campaigns on Facebook.
To get 2020 off to a flying start, we’ve selected 8 Google Ads evolutions from this year, 2019, that are having and will continue to have an impact on the year ahead.
In addition to presenting these updates, Natalya Donnat – Adenlab’s Director of Operations, comments on each of them and gives you her opinion and the results obtained with these various new features. The article is comprehensive and rich in information that you can use for your own E-commerce or lead acquisition campaigns. Of course, we’re available for face-to-face discussions. So don’t hesitate to contact us and ask for more information on how we can help you manage your Google Ads campaigns and reach your goals in 2020!
New audiences for Google Ads search campaigns
Two new audience segments for more effective targeting
The first update we’d like to introduce to you is the new audience types offered by Google Ads; Indeed, for our teams and our customers, audience targeting offers significant opportunities for growth and profitability, as well as numerous advantages. We’ve made it a priority in our SEA campaign management.
It was in October that Google announced the official launch of new affinity audience segments in Points of Interest and seasonal event segments in “In-Market Audiences”.
Affinity Audiences (user interests and habits)
The Affinity audience segment is a group of consumers who have expressed an interest in a particular subject. To determine whether someone qualifies for this affinity audience, Google takes into account factors such as search history, frequently visited web pages…
In its October announcement, Google used the example of a company selling camping equipment. If this were your company, your goal would be to reach your prospects by retargeting keywords such as “camping tent”. With the affinity audience, you’ll be able to target this keyword while simultaneously associating an affinity audience like “Running enthusiasts.”
In the example below, the “Running enthusiasts” audience segment represents
In other words, affinity audiences for text ads enable you to refine your targeting, make your ads more effective, deliver a more compelling message, and increase your click-through and conversion rates.
Audiences by “User interests and habits
Seasonal Buying Audiences (in Market Audiences)
In-market audiences” allow you to limit the reach of your ads to users who are actively looking for a product or service like yours. In fact, the new seasonal shopping audiences (= Christmas shopping, Back-to-school shopping, Black Friday shopping, Mother’s Day shopping), will allow you to target consumers who are actively looking for a product or service for a specific occasion (= Christmas shopping, Back-to-school shopping, Black Friday shopping, Mother’s Day shopping).
Market audiences and seasonal purchasing segments
“Indeed, this is good news for our customers, whose objectives are often focused on growth and profitability. The affinity and in-market audiences have enabled us to target the right person at the right time, and the creation of these new segments to be all the more refined in our adjustments and optimize budgets and expenditure. Some results obtained: We used affinity and in-market audiences for an advertiser in the Cosmetics sector. Audiences were applied to the Search network and Youtube. Using the “Black friday” segment, the advertiser recorded a 28% improvement in conversions and a 42% reduction in acquisition costs.” Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager
We’ve written several articles on the subject of audience strategies. You can, however, read or re-read “How to guarantee the success of your campaigns with Audience parameters and Remarketing“.
A simple new tool for expanding your most promising audiences
With audience enlargement, the objective is clear: reach more buyers with the same budget! “an audience enlargement tool makes it possible to reach more users in order to generate more conversions for the same average cost per acquisition (CPA).“
Like Facebook’s “lookalike” audiences,Google’s audience expansion tool lets you expand your display campaigns by reaching new prospects who behave in the same way as the users you’re already targeting, i.e. increasing impressions, clicks and conversions without affecting your budget.
New audience enlargement parameters for display campaigns
“Audience Expansion is ideal for advertisers who make a minimum of 30 conversions per month, who want to increase their conversion volume while keeping the same acquisition cost, and who have no budget restrictions or restrictions on appearing on different sites. We recommend testing this feature for a minimum of 3 weeks, as the tool is based on historical data and recorded matchings, and we have seen a real increase in conversions with a constant Acquisition Cost after 4 weeks of testing.” Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager
"average position" of ads: a metric removed
For more accurate metrics and analysis
It was in February that a big change in google reporting was introduced with the removal of “average position” from Google Ads metrics. This metric has long been tracked and optimized by traffic managers, advertisers and agencies and which has been removed from our metrics on September 30, 2019. Google has decided to remove the metric in favor of a newer, more accurate metric that was rolled out at the end of 2018:
Absolute Top impression rate, i.e. in 1st position.
the “Top” impression rate, which corresponds to the 3 ads at the top of the page.
Since smart bidding solutions are becoming increasingly important, manual bidding strategies are becoming less and less useful.
Google Ads invites advertisers to consult :
the ” Search Absolute top impression share“, which reflects impressions associated with the Top Absolute location
Search Top IS“, a similar indicator but for Top positions, not Absolute positions
“The average position indicator was very important for many of our customers, who wanted to monitor their positioning on the search network. However, this indicator did not reflect real visibility coverage. We may be in 1st position, but only 10% of the time. We worked with our customers to learn how to use this new indicator. Our customers’ campaigns have gained in accuracy and performance.” Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager
Lead form ad extension
To facilitate the generation of inbound contacts (leads) via your mobile traffic
Since mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic, web users are becoming less patient and more demanding about the quality of your pages and website. Speed and simplicity are the keys to converting new customers and prospects on mobile.
In a bid to help advertisers convert more leads on mobile, Google recently launched a brand new ad extension: thelead form extension For the moment, the extension is still in Beta in France and active only on Mobiles.
With this extension, you’ll be able to collect all the contact details you need from your prospect without it leaving Google’s search engine (search results). The aim is to eliminate as much friction as possible for your prospect. What’s more, if a user is logged into their Google account when they see your ad, they can access the form (by clicking on it) already pre-filled with their details. On the other hand, they don’t need to go to your site: good or bad idea, it’s up to you to test!
Objective: to make your mobile conversion rates take off. Lead form extensions seem like a great new option, but these ad extensions do have some limitations:
Lead form extensions will only appear in search campaigns.
Lead form extensions will only appear on mobile devices and tablets.
You cannot create lead form extensions at account or ad group level. Each lead form extension can only be applied at campaign level.
The use of the personal information you collect using form extensions must comply with the privacy policy provided by your company, with Google’s data collection policies and, of course, with the regulations of your users’ country.
Adenlab Lead Form Extension
“We have tested this new extension on several B2B customers. The advantage of the extension is that we can choose for ourselves the level of detail via the form that we want to have: Surname, first name, e-mail address, telephone number, address, etc. Initial observations: Very little data has been recorded since the launch. We’ve sensed a certain reluctance on the part of Internet users to leave contact details via the form. We’re going to continue the test and will let you know our findings very shortly”. Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager
Conversions" taken into account at campaign level rather than account level
To refine and optimize your Google Ads campaign objectives
And yes, “Conversions” can now be taken into account at campaign level, not just at account level.
You may think that this is of little interest or that it doesn’t add much to your management, but beware, it’s a major change for your performance and the optimization of your objectives. Let’s go back to the principle of tracking conversions in your google ads accounts; And I’m going to take the example of a B2B E-commerce site whose conversion objective is twofold:
conversion 1: obtaining leads via a form
conversion 2: sell products directly on your site
These are 2 very important types of conversions for the site, yet totally different to manage in terms of optimization and campaign management. Before this new feature, and the arrival in force of Google’s smart bidding algorithms, it wasn’t really possible to effectively distinguish between these 2 conversions in the account. And I do mean in the account.
Indeed, for these smart (automatic) bidding strategies, there was no way of determining which specific conversion objective was the most useful for a particular campaign. In fact, and to return to the example of the B2B site, if you build a campaign whose objective is to generate leads via a form, and your prospect finally converts by buying a product, this action would be counted as a conversion even if this wasn’t the campaign’s objective (since the conversion objective should have been the validation of a form).
From now on, with conversions at campaign level, you can specify to Google that the only conversion objective that counts for this campaign is the validation of a form, and that the other objectives set up in your account have no importance for this campaign.
Bumper video creation tool - 6-second video
To improve the effectiveness and impact of your video and Youtube campaigns
The tool was unveiled at the Google Marketing Live conference. It allows anyone with a video under 90 seconds to create a series of ready-to-use 6-second Youtube video ads. Given the cost of editing a video, this is a pretty powerful tool. The real problem is the production of the 90-second video, which for many advertisers on Google is neither a reality nor an exploited means of communication due to its cost. However, this lever seems to have proved its effectiveness (at least for Lipton 😉 You can find thecase study carried out by Lipton Ice Tea, Google and Marketing Scan:** 13% more sales thanks to Bumper Ads**.
Given the amount of time spent by Internet users on YouTube, we advise you to position yourself on this platform. Don’t hesitate to reread our article on Youtube: An advertising channel for Ecommerces?
Example of Renaud Scenic’s Video Bumber:
Videos in Responsive Display Ads
Make your Display ads even more attractive
A reminder about Google’s responsive display ads: this feature allows you to prepare your images and ads so that they can adapt and be displayed automatically on the multiple formats and inserts available on Google’s network of partner sites. I.e. image ads in formats such as :
Different formats for Google Display Network images and ads
Google’s algorithms combine the images and automatically optimize them according to the content of the web page and the size of the user’s screen.
However, until March, content for these formats could only be images and gifs. Since then, advertisers have also been able to use video content in their responsive display ads.
Video integration in Display Responsive format
Here are three reasons to use this feature:
Get more impressions: Google prefers responsive display ads to standard banners.
More clicks: Responsive display ads – especially those with video content – are more attractive than standard banner ads.
More accessible and simpler: Unlike standard banners – which require time, resources and expertise to constantly optimize – responsive banners are semi-automated.
A visual format to be tested on Google search engine results (SERP)
This is the brand-new mobile advertising format unveiled at Google Marketing Live and currently available in beta version to selected advertisers.
Here is the example given by Google at the time of the official announcement:
Example of a Gallery Ads ad
As you can see, an Illustrated Ad appears at the top of the search results (SERP) with a carousel of eight images that can be scanned. There’s a clickable title and a display URL, and below each image is a brief description. What’s more, you can submit three titles for your ad, giving you the opportunity to test different ad combinations to optimize your click-through rate.
Google’s initial tests have shown that illustrated ads generate 25% more engagement (measured by clicks and swipes) than standard Text ads.
“For our part, at Adenlab, we’ve been able to implement it on several customers. The tests are quite convincing, with an improvement in the click-through rate of +18% and an improvement in the conversion rate of +12% on average. Image quality plays a vital role, and we recommend testing this type of ad with high-quality images.” Natalya Donnat – Adenlab Operations Manager
Find out more about Google’s official information on Gallery Ads.
Conclusion
In recent years, Google Ads has undergone many changes and evolutions. Testing and choosing the right options is the key to developing your campaigns and your Google Ads account. At Adenlab – SEA Agency, we know that it’s necessary to work on these new features and share our experience with our customers. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need :
If you’re using Facebook’s Business Manager to manage your sponsored campaigns, you’ve set your budgets when creating your campaigns.
In the image below, you can see that in step 3, you can select “optimize campaign budget”.
Well, this option will become mandatory for all your campaigns in February.
Creating a Facebook campaign
Creating a Facebook campaign
Why optimize your campaign budget?
Campaign budget optimization allows you to allocate your spend in the most effective way to achieve the best results, and to ensure that the cost of those results matches your bidding strategy and campaign objectives.
It’s a way of automatically distributing your campaign budget across all your ads and guaranteeing optimal results.
This feature automatically seeks to allocate your budgets in order to seize the best opportunities for results. The idea is to automatically determine which advertisement will obtain the best results, and to present it more often than others.
Historically, you could choose between: – automatic budget optimization – and manual budget distribution (at ads group level) The diagram below shows the 2 budget distribution modes offered by Facebook’s Business Manager.
Campaign budget allocation options
From now on, manual budget allocation will no longer be an option. Automatic budget distribution will be the rule.
What actions need to be taken to make the most of campaign budget optimization?
With Facebook’s automation and machine learning, you need to prepare and organize your campaigns for learning those same campaigns.
Facebook says “to avoid inefficient spending, it’s important not to interrupt and then manually restart your ad sets”.
In fact, Facebook’s algorithms are enriched by the behavior of your targets and the history of your results. It is therefore essential that your objectives are clear and that your audiences and targeting are consistent.
Here's what you need to review
Campaigns that contain different conversion points of unequal value should be segmented into different campaigns. An example would be to have one group optimize for Add to Cart and another for Optimize Shopping. The system will favor the add-to-cart ad group because it naturally gets more “conversions”. This distorts your results.
Don’t mix retargeting ads with prospecting ads (whose targeting is higher up and in the middle of your conversion funnel) as this tends to send mixed signals to the algorithm.
If you’re geo-targeting with specific objectives or budgets by geo-targeting, you’ll need to segment your campaigns according to geo-targeting in order to fully control these elements.
Think about the personas and audiences you want to target when creating your campaigns. Gather your top audiences into a single campaign and allocate a significant budget to it. If you want to test new audiences: create a separate campaign.
Don’t hesitate to consult our Facebook campaign creation guide, to take you through the steps involved in launching your campaigns. We remain available to discuss with you if you need advice or need to delegate your social and SEA campaigns.
Find out more about the statistics, benefits and optimizations required for Google Shopping.
The figures presented in Adthena’s study “The Rise of Google Shopping” are indisputable. E-merchants’ favorite ads on Google are Google Shopping ads. Ads in Google Shopping campaigns alone account for 76% of spending, compared with 24% for text ads in the US and UK. Google Shopping is the preferred advertising lever and format for E-retailers.
In fact, Google Shopping ads have the ability to highlight all your offers and products in Google search results. Thanks to this type of ad, which enhances the value of your catalog, Internet users can view the product photo, price, brand and promotion directly in the Google search engine…
Text ads vs. Shopping ads
Depending on your objectives, these campaigns can also be promoted on several Google media: in Google search results, in the Google Shopping tab, in Google Image, on partner sites and on Youtube.
In the coming months, the number of media or “surfaces” where your products will appear will increase, and so will the visibility of your products, thanks to the new“Multiplatform” program.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the key elements of Google Shopping campaigns. What are the figures and statistics to be taken into consideration? And what are the levers you can use to improve your campaigns?
Google Shopping: a must? Figures and statistics on Google Shopping campaigns
The use of Google Shopping campaigns has already borne fruit with a majority of e-commerce businesses. This is highlighted by Adthena’s study (“The Rise of Google Shopping”):
Google Shopping campaigns account for 74.6% of corporate advertising spend (US/UK)
23.6% of Google Ads spend generated 14.7% of clicks on text ads.
In the UK, the budget is higher, with Google campaigns accounting for 82% of ad spend. 18% of ad spend generated 12.1% of ad clicks.
The above statistics were obtained via the analysis of over 40 million Google ads (Shopping and text) in the UK and US, during January and February 2018 and across nearly 1 million keywords.
As this graph shows, Google Shopping campaigns cover all types of products and sectors.
Source: “The rise of Google Shopping” Adthena
What are the advantages of Google Shopping campaigns for your e-commerce business?
spending on Google Shopping has grown steadily in recent years. This is due to the various advantages of this approach:
You can reach an audience of buyers with a genuine interest in your products.
This type of ad increases the visibility of your offer and your entire catalog.
The format facilitates and accelerates the transaction. It’s a format designed for selling your products.
You can stand out from the competition with your prices, your promotions and your photos.
Merchant Center tools make it easy to highlight promotions, with crossed-out prices or coupon codes.
You can exploit retargeting strategies to retarget undecided web users.
Tools for optimizing your Google Shopping campaigns
Google Shopping campaigns can be activated via 3 levers:
Your Catalog, which is translated into a Product Flow.
Google’s Merchant Center, to which your product feed (your catalog) is sent.
Google Ads, which will connect to your Merchant Center and manage your Google Shopping campaigns.
Below, we’ll discuss the first 2 areas of optimization: the Merchant Center and your Catalog (= Google Shopping product feed).
The Merchant Center: the cornerstone of your Google Shopping campaigns
Before you can launch a Shopping campaign and feed your Google Ads account, you’ll need to get to grips with your Google Merchant Center account and product flow.
The Merchant Center is the tool that allows you to import all your catalog data, as well as control the quality of your product information. The Google Merchant Center is the product database that allows you to distribute your offers and link them to your Google Ads account. The platform centralizes your products and company information.
One of the advantages of the Merchant Center is its ability to diagnose the quality of your feed (catalog). It seeks to verify and ensure the quality of the technical elements, including the mandatory rules to be respected. We strongly advise you to check your account regularly. This often helps to avoid too many rejected products, for example.
Products refused by Merchant Center
In addition to its diagnostics, the Merchant Center offers you other tools to improve the performance and quality of your ads. Managing promotions is one of the most important levers for Internet users. And you can manage your promotions or promo codes from the Merchant Center. A crossed-out price on a shopping ad always has a strong impact.
In our opinion, the major evolution of Merchant Center lies in its new price analysis functionality. You now have access to pricing intelligence on your market, and can analyze your competitors’ price competitiveness.
Merchant Center price watch
As you can see, without a Merchant Center account, no Google Shopping campaign is possible.
How can you optimize your Google Shopping feed and what quality criteria should you work on to boost the performance of a Shopping campaign?
To gain in visibility and performance, your Google Shopping campaigns must respect a certain number of criteria. While the budget and bids that you allocate to your products and campaigns play a very important part in the success of your campaign, there are other optimizations to be made to the data and content of your feed.
Capitalize on product titles
The title is the first element seen by the user. It attracts the attention of Internet users. That’s why you need to integrate the relevant keyword in relation to the product chosen and the search made by your future customers. Keep in mind that a consumer makes several searches before buying on your site. The more precise the search, the closer they are to making a purchase. For different sectors, headlines can be structured differently. Here are a few examples:
Electronics and household appliances: Brand + Attributes (e.g. size, weight) + product type + model or part number
Fashion and apparel: Brand + gender (men/women/children) + product type + attributes (color + size + material)
Although the description isn’t often seen by Internet users, it plays an important role in your feed; in fact, the description (up to 5,000 characters) will enable you to complete the information in the Title and thus work more on the long tail and more precise queries.
Precision: although you can include a lot of content in the description, the aim is above all to be precise and concise; a clear product description will be the most effective.
Keywords and searches: think about the keywords your customers will search for to find your product; these terms must also be included in the Description.
Product description in the Shopping feed
However, the purpose of the product description is not limited to informing the prospect about your offer. In fact, it’s also designed to improve your product’s SEO. To take this approach a step further, your Google Ads search term reports will be your allies.
The fundamental role of visuals
Statistics from the Just Uno website are clear on the subject. 93% of users consider images to be an important aspect of the purchasing decision. Choose high-quality visuals with good lighting.
Photos are very often the only medium on which they can get an idea of your offer.
Google’s image quality requirements are as follows: Resolution, minimum image size, image background.
Image Flux Shopping
The power of social proof to facilitate sales
Within Google ads, you have the option of integrating your customers’ reviews of the products concerned. Make sure this data is highlighted, as 68% of prospects indicate that reviews encourage them to look into the product, or even buy it(figure provided by Bright Local). And according to IFOP, prior to purchase, 88% of consumers consult online customer reviews, forums or blogs.
To get stars on your Shopping ads and get reviews from your customers, participate in Google’s Product Reviews program:About Google’s Product Reviews program
Stream enrichment
To find out more about optimizing your Google Shopping feed :
Add new attributes to your feed. There are over 46 possible attributes to enrich your product and catalog information.
Use SEO methods and Google Ads search reports to find and select the most relevant keywords.
We also recommend that you read the following articles on our blog to improve your performance on Google Shopping:
This approach will enable you to improve the performance and quality score of your Shopping campaigns, thereby optimizing your costs and conversions.
Conclusion
Shopping campaigns are the main Google acquisition lever for e-tailers; in fact, the figures speak for themselves (76% of e-tailers’ Google Ads spend is concentrated on Google Shopping). But what about other formats? Are text formats being consulted more? Is this not an opportunity to reposition ourselves in this format, which has been neglected by the majority of e-tailers? At Adenlab, we know that it’s more complicated to seek performance equivalent to Shopping campaigns via text ads.
That’s why we’ve developed in-house methods, automations and solutions to develop complex campaigns and ensure an effective presence in line with your buyers’ behavior.
Please contact us to find out more about our Multiplatform Shopping Systems and SEA campaign management .
E-commerce is experiencing strong growth year after year. As an entrepreneur, you’re well aware that this strong growth has come with the development of digital marketing and multi-channel acquisition techniques. As you know, there are a number of practices you can exploit to attract qualified traffic to your e-commerce platform and optimize your sales performance.
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Levers such as search engine optimization (SEO) or sponsored campaigns (SEA) are the most widespread techniques.
Google Shopping sponsored campaigns are a must for e-commerce businesses. They deliver significant results and returns on investment. However, all these levers require different technical skills.
The origins of Google Shopping
The giant Google offers a range of tools to optimize the visibility of e-commerce sites. Google Shopping is one such platform that has revolutionized the world of online sales. Initially called Froogle in 2003, this tool has been entirely free of charge.
The origins of Google Shopping: Froogle Beta
The name was changed to Google Product Search in 2007 for reasons of internationalization. It is a product comparison services tool that enables all e-commerce sites to offer their products on the platform.
Google Product Search
Then, 5 years later, Google Product Search changed its name to Google Shopping. It should be noted that the tool is not free. The principle of Google Shopping is to enable online retailers to display their products directly on the platform for a fee defined by the platform. Your products are positioned according to their relevance to the user’s search query, and also according to the maximum amount you are willing to invest for each click or action made by the user.
Shopping campaigns
It’s very important to know the basics of Google Shopping, so that you can make the most of it and ensure that your Google Shopping campaigns are successful. Your ads must include several pieces of information to optimize their visibility on the platform. All product information should already be included, such as price and a technical data sheet with an image of the product for sale. For greater efficiency, it’s important to combine your shopping campaigns with Remarketing campaigns. This retargeting technique is a common and proven practice in online advertising.
The principle of retargeting enables you to automatically track visitors who have visited your site, or a particular page. It’s a powerful strategy for encouraging your visitors to convert and complete their purchases on your site.
Given the ever-changing behavior of Internet users, Google is also updating its SEO and shopping campaign techniques, notably with Showcase Campaigns. The latter offers several advantages, such as the possibility of displaying multiple visuals on the same ad. With this evolution of Google Shopping, visitors can land on a developed ad with a single click. It’s very important to have a rich catalog to enable Google to offer Internet users a wide choice of products likely to match their searches.
In addition, the creation of the Google Shopping feed is a prerequisite for launching on Google Shopping. The Shopping Feed is a spreadsheet file containing all the information relating to your products (price, name, reference, color, availability, product qualifications, etc.). You can create your Shopping Feed on a Google Sheet spreadsheet, using tools such as the Google template. This option is particularly recommended if your catalog is not large.
If this is not the case, we recommend the use of a feed module or aggregator, which will automatically create your Shopping Feed. There are several types of modules available for integration into your CMS, such as Prestashop, WordPress, Magento or Shopify. For a PLA (Product Listing Ads) campaign, as an advertiser you’ll need to reference your feed in the Google Merchant Center, and of course create an account. And a key element will be the optimization of your feed: we recommend that you reread our article onoptimizing your Shopping Feed.
If you’d like to know more about creating feeds or managing Shopping campaigns, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
Google Ads enables companies of all sizes and budgets to create targeted advertisements for people who are actively searching for their service.
It’s a powerful lever for reaching more Internet users and a targeted clientele of consumers.
But how do you use this tool provided by the Internet giant? How can you ensure that your campaigns meet your business objectives and become a real advantage for your company or online store?
Increase sales and attract new customers
Google Ads key figures
Many companies choose to create Google ads to showcase their products and services. This approach is strategic for many businesses. This is because
If you haven’t already, integrating Google ads into your acquisition strategy will bring you a number of benefits.
You’ll be instantly visible, adapting your ads to the searches and requests of Internet users, and arousing the interest of your future customers.
You’ll be able to personalize your ads according to your different prospects and, above all, track your sales targets.
Be immediately visible
Once you’ve created campaigns in your Google Ads account, you’ll have the opportunity to position yourself immediately in Google’s top search results.
Your budget will depend on the type of keyword you’ve selected, the number of products in your catalog and, more generally, the structure and objectives of your campaigns.
Positioning your site in Google’s top results is extremely important, given that 75% of Internet users are content to see only the top 5 sites on the first page of search results.
Generate consumer interest and attract new customers
On high-demand searches, this can lead to very significant traffic. That’s why you need to target the terms that will bring you conversion and a high volume of business.
Quickly adapt and change your offers and ads
With Google Ads, you can update the content of your offer and review your ads instantly.
This is obviously a major advantage over search engine optimization, which can take some time to attract qualified traffic.
For example, if you want to integrate a new range into your e-commerce or a new presentation, you’ll have to wait a few months before conquering the keywords related to this novelty (in search engine optimisation).
With Google Ads, changes and evolutions are directly taken into account.
Improve the accuracy of your targeting
Google gives companies using Google Ads the ability to target users as effectively as possible, so that ads are only shown to people who might be interested in the products.
Customize the audience parameters to suit your target. We also suggest setting up a retargeting strategy.
Tailor your strategy to your objectives
The search engine provides you with advertising formats adapted to your initial strategy and defined objectives.
For example, ads are designed specifically for product sales. To take this a step further, Google has created form extensions for lead acquisition.
This evolution is in line with new business needs. With the decision funnel, leads are more likely to become loyal customers.
To sum up:
Paid positioning enables us to address web users who are in an active search phase: this traffic is therefore highly qualified (much more so, for example, than banner traffic).
Advertisers can choose the keywords on which they wish to be present.
The billing model is “per click” (CPC), so the advertiser only pays for the traffic that actually arrives on the site.
The bidding system enables the advertiser to control the maximum CPC it is prepared to spend on each keyword (the more targeted a word, the more profitable it can be to offer a high bid, as the conversion will be good).
Market tracking tools enable sales to be attributed to each word: we can therefore calculate the cost of acquisition for each keyword and adapt bids according to the results observed.
The campaign can be monitored and modified almost in real time
Versus Search Engine Optimization ➔ traffic generation is immediate.
What are the different types of campaign and when should they be activated?
Before creating a campaign, it is important to consider your company’s strategic priorities:
What is the target audience or persona?
What are the informative pages on your site?
Which pages will convert
What are the strategic products (loss leaders, high-margin products)?
What are your prospects looking for?
What will be the traction campaigns (generic)
Conversion campaigns (long tail)
Your sector and the challenges of your campaigns
Understand your prospects’ research methodologies
And how to adapt the campaign structure to your website and offers
The structure of a Google Ads account can be very different, depending on your company’s objectives and challenges. For example, in some cases, generic campaigns are rarely deployed, as the aim is to maximize the return on campaigns and position ourselves at the bottom of the funnel: in this case, shopping campaigns are the most appropriate, as this format has the highest conversion rate (if we consider the “last click”).
On the other hand, if you want to track the entireconversion funnel, you’ll need to create several campaigns, each with its own objectives and performance. In fact, in a full funnel structure, the challenge will be to track the user journey and the contribution of each campaign to the final conversion(attribution) As you can see, it’s vital to set objectives for each type of campaign?
If your goal is to create brand awareness, you’ll need to:
Gain visibility for your site
Generate cold leads
Increase your list of new customers
Generate qualified traffic to the site
If your goal is growth, you’ll need to :
Increase the number of sales on your site
Develop sales
Control and improve ROI (Return on Investment) indicators
Inbound conversion funnel
Search campaign: text ads and keyword research
Google Ads text campaigns enable you to reach consumers at different stages of their research and needs. You can position yourself on keywords and terms related to your products and services on search engines (Google and Bing).
The key to these campaigns lies in the structure of your account and your campaigns, and consequently in distinguishing between informative searches and searches for hot prospects. In fact, you won’t have the same strategy for these 2 types of search, nor the same return on investment.
Google Ads
The positioning of advertisers is never identical, and doesn’t depend solely on the price you’re willing to pay!
The basic principles :
Paid positioning enables us to address web users who are in an active search phase: this traffic is therefore highly qualified (much more so, for example, than banner traffic).
Advertisers can choose the keywords on which they wish to be present.
The billing model is “per click” (CPC), so the advertiser only pays for the traffic that actually arrives on the site.
The bidding system allows the advertiser to control the maximum CPC it is prepared to spend on each keyword (the more targeted a word, the more profitable it can be to offer a high bid (since the conversion will be good).
Market tracking tools enable sales to be attributed to each word: we can therefore calculate the cost of acquisition for each keyword and adapt bids according to the results observed.
The campaign can be monitored and modified almost in real time
Versus Search Engine Optimization ➔ traffic generation is immediate.
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are ads targeted to the content of your website. The use of Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) allows you to appear on search terms related to the content of your website or a particular page The advantage of DSA is that it allows you to capture traffic that is not currently being captured by existing campaigns within the account.
The advantages of DSA :
No keywords to “buy”; ads benefit from a dynamic title that automatically adapts to the user’s query – and a dynamic url that redirects to the most appropriate page on your website.
Ads feature a dynamic title that automatically adapts to the user’s query, and a dynamic URL that redirects to the most appropriate page on your website.
Remarketing campaign (text, banners, videos)
Remarketing enables you to show ads to people who have already visited your website or used your mobile application. It gives you the opportunity to show ads to people who have already visited your site. Depending on the actions carried out on your site (e.g. cart abandonment), you’ll be more or less aggressive (with your bids) in bringing these same people back to your site. This feature is extremely powerful, as it enables you to target the hottest prospects and bring them back to complete their conversion or purchase action.
Remarketing – Retargeting
Remarketing methods offered by Google :
Standard Remarketing: serve ads to your former visitors when they visit Display Network websites and applications.
Dynamic Remarketing: serve dynamic ads featuring the products and services your previous visitors have viewed on your site when they access web pages and applications on the Display Network.
Remarketing for mobile applications: serve ads to mobile users who have previously used your mobile application or website when they browse other content.
Video remarketing: serve ads to users who have interacted with your videos or YouTube channel when they access YouTube and browse Display Network videos, websites and applications.
Remarketing lists for Search Network Ads (RLSA): serve ads to your former visitors as they search on Google for the products and services they need, after they’ve left your site.
Display ad campaign targeting themes and interests
Display ad campaigns targeted by themes and interests give your company the opportunity to appear on sites in the Google Display Network. Generally speaking, these are “upper funnel” campaigns, which allow you to work on visual advertisements, since they are images and banners, which will enable you to take advantage of other sites’ traffic to make yourself known.
The Display Network is a collection of Google websites (for example, Google Finance, Gmail, Blogger and YouTube), partner sites, mobile sites and applications that display Google Ads based on page content.
Example of Google Display Partner Sites
You can use attractive ad formats to reach a large number of customers with varied interests. With the Display Network, you can increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, generate more customer interaction and choose more specifically where your ads are displayed, as well as the type of audience you want to target.
Features :
Several distribution methods: by keyword, by site, by category…
The business model: auctions and CPC payments
It’s possible to find out which sites you’re listed on and “blacklist” sites deemed irrelevant or unprofitable.
This traffic is less qualified than search traffic, as Internet users are not actively searching for information.
Google Shopping campaigns
Within Google advertising, you can choose Shopping campaigns. This is the most popular format for e-commerce. In fact, it’s currently the Google advertising format that generates the most conversions and sales. Shopping campaigns for merchant sites using the Google Merchant Center enable them to display ads presenting their products (photos, product name, price) during searches on Google.com.
Allows you to promote your products in a high-impact format (photo) when web users are actively looking for a product.
Increased visibility with dual display: classic text ad + product ad.
Easy to target and set up.
Weaknesses :
Requires a Google Merchant Center account, which is not available in all countries or for all merchant sites (e.g.: prices must be inclusive of VAT, whereas some B2B sites are exclusive of VAT).
Conclusion
The success of Google campaigns has been proven. Depending on your company’s objectives, choose the right ads for your online store and your products;
Before creating a campaign, it is important to:
Understand prospect and customer research methodologies
Adapt the structure of your campaigns to your website
Think about your real needs: awareness or sales
This will determine the structure of your Google Ads campaigns, which represents 60% of the optimization of your account. In addition, the structure of your campaigns must be constantly evolving, because not only are your users’ behaviors changing, but so are you and your offer.
If you need more information and advice on your acquisition or tips on how to structure your SEA accounts and campaigns, our team ofSEA Experts is available to talk to you.
The article below is aimed specifically at acquisition managers and SEA campaign managers for Ecommerces, or for Ecommerçants wishing to work on Google Shopping.
We’ll take a detailed look at the different stages involved in launching this popular advertising format for e-merchants.
In fact, Google Shopping ads have the ability to boost site sales when campaigns are well-organized and well-managed.
As you know, Google remains the ideal medium for promoting your products via sponsored ads.
Adthena’s study “The Rise of Google Shopping” showed that Google Shopping accounted for 75% of clicks on all Google Ads campaigns by retailers.
And more recent data shows that mobile channels are responsible for even greater growth in click volume.
What we’re going to talk about below
What exactly is Google Shopping?
How to set up a Google Merchant Center account.
The Google Shopping feed: how to create a product data feed and import it?
What is Google Shopping?
Google Shopping ads
Google shopping ads (sometimes called PLA => Product Listing Ads) are for advertisers who have physical products to sell.
Advantage 1: they allow you to show right away what your products look like and how much they cost, even before the visitor arrives on your website.
Advantage 2: as these ads are more visual than text ads, the clicks they generate tend to capture visitors with a higher purchase intent than traditional text ads.
Advantage 3: For shopping campaigns, you don’t need to search for keywords to rank.
Against this backdrop, it’s hardly surprising that online retailers are investing so heavily in shopping campaigns. Budgets devoted to Google Shopping campaigns have grown steadily in recent years.
But how do ad settings work if you don’t have keywords to target like traditional text ads?
We’ll explain it below, because if you don’t have to select keywords, Google will automatically use the data from your Shopping Feed, which is hosted in the Google Merchant Center.
In fact, the first step in getting started with Google Shopping is to create a Google Merchant Center account.
Configure your Google Merchant Center account ?
Your Google Merchant Center is the tool that will centralize all your product data, so you can promote your entire offer.
It’s in the Merchant Center that you’ll integrate the products from your Ecommerce site that you want to promote via your Shopping campaigns.
When you log in to your Merchant Center account, you’ll find all the information you need about your products, including a diagnosis of their condition, as shown in the image below.
You’ll quickly see all approved products, unapproved products, clicks generated by your Google Shopping sponsored campaigns, as well as updates and recommendations on your account.
Download HTML files HTML tag Google Analytics Google Tag Manager
Each of these methods involves adding a piece of code to your website, which will be supplied to you depending on the choice you make.
It’s quite technical, and often requires the help of your developer or webmaster.
Once you’ve validated and claimed your site, your lights will turn green as above.
Google Merchant Center guidelines
Now that you’ve validated and claimed your website’s URL, you need to make sure your site complies with Google Merchant Center guidelines before running ads on Google Shopping :
Of course, you must have a secure payment system (https in the address bar, whenever someone is about to give you their payment details).
Internet users must be able to access your site from anywhere in the world.
Your website and product data must be in the official language of the country for which you are advertising.
The Google Shopping Feed: How to create a product data feed and import it
Before turning to this crucial topic, you should know that there are a few principles to respect on Google. To create a product in your feed, you need to meet all the specifications of Google’s product data.
What’s more, Google uses your product feed to match your ads to users’ search queries.
The attributes of your Shopping feed
Google’s requirements for your product feed will depend on the types of products you sell, but there are a few elements common to all that are required for every feed:
Here is the list of mandatory attributes:
id [identifier]: a unique identifier for all your products
title [titre]: a title; the name of the product
description [description]: a description of the product
link: the URL link to the precise, detailed page dedicated to the product
image_link [lien_image]: product image URL
availability:Availability of your product, in stock
price: the price of the product
Brand: the product brand
gtin [gtin]: the EAN code for Europe, the bar code (mandatory for all new products to which a GTIN code has been assigned by the manufacturer).
MPN[référence_fabricant]:Supplier reference (mandatory only if your new product does not correspond to any GTIN code assigned by the manufacturer)
condition [état] :the state of the product. Whether it is new, used, reconditioned, etc.
adult: adult or non-adult product (Required if a product includes adult content)
multipack [multipack]: the number of items contained in a single package (e.g. box of 6 candles).
age_group [tranche_d’âge]:age range of potential recipient (Mandatory for all clothing products Ex: [infants] / [children] / [adults])
color: product color if applicable (mandatory for all apparel products, as well as for products available in different colors).
gender: you can choose between male and female.
unisex[unisexe]. This attribute is mandatory for all clothing products, as well as for gender-specific products.
size: mandatory for all clothing products, as well as for products available in several sizes.
item_group_id [identifiant_groupe]: Mandatory if the product is a variant
shipping: shipping costs
Although the above list is long and there are over 40 attributes for a Google Shopping Feed.
However, these elements are generally part of the information you already have in your site’s back office and product sheet manager.
Import your product flow into Google Merchant Center
To import your product flow into the Merchant Center, Google offers several options, and the method you choose will depend on the size of your catalog.
The simplest option is to import your products via a Google Sheet (Google’s Excel) andsave a spreadsheet in Merchant Center. This method is suitable for “small” catalogs.
To do this, go to the left-hand menu, “Products”, then “Feeds” and “Add a main feed”.
In the steps below, you’ll find the import steps.
In step 3, you can choose between a spreadsheet template, or select the Google Sheet you’ve created.
Add a Product Feed
Last but not least, you can set the frequency at which your data is updated.
This is all the more important as Google requires you to present your complete product data feed every 30 days, even if your ‘inventory’ has not changed.
If your inventory shows strong variations, Google gives you the option of refreshing your data up to 4 times a day.
How to optimize your Google Shopping feed.
A number of tests and optimizations were carried out by various specialists, including Adenlab.
Very often, it’s the optimization of product titles that produces the most positive effects on Shopping campaigns.
Improving the relevance of a product’s title has in some cases led to a 10-fold increase in traffic volume.
The title of your product is certainly the most important attribute; improving your title is one of the top priorities of feed optimization.
Include the Top Keyword: in fact, the main term or keyword on which you want to position yourself, should be present in the title and rather at the beginning of the sentence.
Include product type: if your product is a “knife sheath”, include this term in the title. This is pretty obvious, but it’s also very useful, because by including the product type in your title, you’re describing the very product you’re selling.
Color, brand, size, gender: these are elements found in other feed attributes, but which can be added to the Title. In fact, having a Title that’s as close as possible to your customers’ searches will enable you to rank on more precise terms.
Product description
Although the description is not often seen by web users, it plays an important role in your feed.
In fact, the description (up to 5,000 characters) will enable you to complete the information in the Title and thus work more on the long tail and more precise queries.
Precision: although you can include a lot of content in the description, the aim is above all to be concise and precise. A clear product description is the most effective.
Keywords and searches: think about the keywords your customers will search for to find your product; these terms must be included in the Description.
Google Product Category
Google has created a list of product categories and sub-categories, allowing you to “classify” each product in your catalog.
This flow attribute is recommended, but mandatory in certain sectors;
Choosing the right category: to gain in quality, it is always in your interest to be as precise as possible when choosing your category.
The images
Images are one of the most important factors! In fact, they’re the 1st element your future customers will see before clicking on your ad. Your photo must be attractive and realistic.
**Light background **: Google requires the product photo to be on a light background. Generally speaking, a white background is best.
Image size: 800×800 pixel images are recommended. The minimum is 250×250 pixels for apparel products and 100×100 for other products.
No text or logo: only the product image should be visible. Do not add promotional text to your image.
Merchant Center has implemented an automatic image enhancement option. You can activate this setting in your Merchant Center account in :
Click on the Tools icon (the wrench at the top right of your account) > Settings > Automatic enhancement.
Improve your product titles with search term reports
Thanks to Google Ads’ search term reports, you’ll have access to the queries made by Internet users who have searched for your products.
These reports will help you better understand the expressions used by your potential customers. And, of course, identify recurring terms.
Examining search reports will enable you to find the words and phrases that most often lead to sales of your products.
Once you’ve identified these “conversion” keywords, you’ll adapt your product title to include these words/phrases.
And don’t forget: the closer the term is to the beginning of the product title, the more Google will give it priority.
To make the most of semantic optimization, regularly review your search term reports.
Conclusion
At this point, you should feel ready to launch your Google Shopping campaigns. You’ve learned how to create a product flow from A to Z.
Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with Google’s various rules and obligations, you’re ready to launch your first campaigns.
You also know that among the many attributes of the product flow, it’s the product title that counts the most.
Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the various Google Shopping settings, keep in mind that :
Analyze your products, making a clear distinction between those that earn you the most and those that earn you the least Don’t leave your current shopping campaigns in the lurch, especially when you’re working on granular campaigns Optimize your shopping campaigns according to your audiences’ purchase intentions
If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us.
If you need more information and advice on your acquisition, our team ofGoogle Ads Experts is available to talk to you.
Then click on “Conditions in the “Advanced” menu on the left.
Name your segment explicitly: here, “Home Page”.
Save the segment as “Product Page” and save.
Shopping Cart” page segment
In the last screen, we’ll use our thank-you page as the URL and select “Equals from the drop-down menu:
You now have the option of defining a value for each conversion. If you use your website primarily for lead generation, your revenue is probably not captured by Google Analytics. You can still estimate it by setting the Value field to ON, then specifying an amount. For example, if you’re using this goal to track white paper downloads, you can assume that, on average, each download is worth $100 to your business, so you should enter that. Again, this field is optional. 
Finally, click on “Check this goal” to verify your work. Next, return to Conversions > Goals and you’ll see that you can now view the Funnel Visualization report where it shows you a visual representation of your funnel: 
To do this, go to your Merchant Center and activate the “automatic image enhancement” option.
Creating a Facebook campaign
Merchant Center price watch
Product description in the Shopping feed
