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In the evolving world of e-commerce, Google Shopping campaigns remain a powerful tool for reaching customers actively searching for products. Optimizing these campaigns is key to getting the best return on ad spend (ROAS) and ensuring your products appear in front of the right audience. Here are five actionable tips to make the most out of your standard shopping campaigns, each offering a quick win to enhance your campaign’s performance.
1. Optimize Bidding: Start with mCPC and Transition to tROAS
Starting with manual CPC (mCPC) allows you to control initial costs, especially if you're handling campaigns with low conversion volumes (under 30 conversions per month). Once you see consistent sales—about one per day—transition to target ROAS (tROAS) to automate and scale the bidding process. Remember, setting a tROAS that’s too high might limit your reach, so start with a balanced target and adjust as needed based on campaign performance.
Why this matters: Proper bidding helps you control costs while reaching more relevant users, maximizing your budget’s effectiveness.
2. Regularly Check Search Terms and Add Negative Keywords
In Shopping campaigns, search term control is limited, making it essential to add negative keywords every 24-72 hours. This proactive approach prevents wasted spend on irrelevant search terms. Use performance-based filters, such as ROAS < 1x, to identify and exclude underperforming search terms quickly. By doing so, you keep your campaign focused on terms that are likely to convert, saving you time and improving profitability.
Quick Tip: Create negative keyword lists to streamline the process and ensure unwanted terms don’t drain your budget.
3. Optimize Your Product Feed for Better Targeting
Your product feed is the foundation of your Shopping campaign’s targeting. By updating product titles and descriptions with high-converting terms from past campaigns, you increase the relevance of your ads. Additionally, optimize your images to make them visually appealing and engaging, as better visuals lead to higher click-through rates (CTR). Incorporate elements like reviews and quality scores to give your listings a competitive edge.
Why it works: A well-optimized feed ensures your products align with user intent, increasing visibility and potential for conversions.
4. Utilize Bid Adjustments to Optimize Spend
Bid adjustments allow you to tailor your spending by audience segments, helping you reach the most relevant users. Set all audience segments to “observation” initially, then analyze the data to apply positive or negative bid adjustments based on performance. Start with small adjustments (up to 10%) after 30 days, and don’t hesitate to exclude low-performing segments.
Quick Win: Fine-tuning bids helps allocate your budget to audiences that are more likely to convert, improving overall efficiency.
5. Leverage Structure for Maximum Ad Visibility
Google’s recent updates allow standard shopping (SS) campaigns to outrank Performance Max (pMax) campaigns for the same products when structured effectively. Launch dedicated SS campaigns for your best-selling products to maximize visibility. This structure gives you control over placements and improves the likelihood of high ad rank for critical SKUs.
Why this matters: An optimized structure can boost your product’s chances of appearing at the top, particularly for high-demand items, driving more qualified traffic to your store.
