Duane Brown is the CEO & Head of Strategy at Take Some Risk Inc.

At Billo Summit 2021, Duane shared how to hit profitability with Google shopping in 90 days.

Shopping Feeds in 2021 – Principles of Google Shopping 

Myths around shopping feeds include:
  1. Don’t need shopping ads because of search ads – If you have shopping ads on top of search ads, you take up more of the search result page, so you take up more real estate. The reality is that if you run your shopping ads, it takes up 70% of the search.  So, every time someone runs a search, a shopping ad comes up.  
  1. Shopping feed plays second fiddle to campaign structure – Shopping feeds are the heart and soul of a campaign because this is the data that Google uses to understand when to show your campaigns.  If your competitor’s shopping feed is better than yours, they will outrank you, get cheaper CPCs, drive more revenue and make more money.
  1. Peak Seasons or Holidays like Christmas mean crazy Google Shopping Adjustments – Every brand has deals during these peak times, and brands increase their supply in the market. What happens is that demand increases, supply also increases, and so does the level it takes to enter the market. It is better to focus on your ad spend at this time vs. trying to outbid brands. Focus on data, not real-time.  The idea isn’t to sell more products, it is to make more profit. 
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Shopping feeds – Manual vs. Automation:

Shopping feed attributes required to create a shopping feed for Google:

ID – An ID that helps Google understand one SKU from another – no more than 50 characters

Product Title – A title that makes sense and is no more than 150 characters.  Such attributes are brand, product, weight/size, gender, age, and material;

Product Description – You can pull the product description from your site. Max 5000 characters. Make sure every word counts;

Link – Product link.  Make sure it is a clean link;

Image Link – Link to your image.  Make the image as high in resolution as possible, at least 650 x 850 pixels. Make sure there are no UTMs.  You can add up to 10 additional photos.  Make sure to add availability;

Price – Clean price – no currency signs, no commas.  Make sure the currencies are correct;

Brand –  Make sure your brand is correctly displayed;

GTIN (UPC) –  Global Trade Item Number – An ID that every SKU has so Google can tell which product you are selling. 

Condition – What condition your product comes in – refurbished, second hand, new, etc;

Google Product Category (GPC)– Taxonomy for your product.

This is the minimum bar you need to get to be successful for Google Shopping. Think about your shopping feed as a keyword for a search ad – if you don’t have the right keyword in search, you won’t rank correctly in search; if you don’t have the correct shopping feed, you won’t rank correctly in Shopping. 

Supercharge your Shopping Feed:

Other Attributes *Clothing:

If you are a clothing retailer, then having a primary shopping feed doesn’t cut it anymore. These additional attributes supercharge your shopping feed.  Most brands do not fill these out.  If you do for your brand, you have a better chance at a higher ranking on Google. You always want to do the works others don’t to get ahead in Google Shopping. 

  • Age Group
  • Gender
  • Pattern
  • Color
  • Material
  • Size Type & System 

If you don’t sell clothes, some other attributes that Google just added are:

  • Non-Clothing
  • Available Date
  • Subscription Costs
  • Installment
  • Multipack

Google is constantly releasing new attributes for different eCommerce products. 

80/20 Rule 

In business, the 80/20 rule is that spending 20% of your time will yield 80% returns, but we find in paid ads that spending 80% of your time generates 20% results. Spending 80% of your time on your shopping feed instead of your campaign will yield higher results.  You cannot campaign your way out of a lousy shopping feed. The better your shopping feed is, the better your results will be. Often, 20% of your SKUs make up 80% of revenue. One caveat to this is the long tail. If you are amazon, you will have millions of SKUs that make up your revenue.  However, most businesses are not Amazon. 

SKU Optimization 

SKU optimization is looking at the SKUs you have and deciding which ones to keep or discontinue. 1st Party Sellers-  Decide what is selling and what is not by looking at the attributes that are selling and not. Remove products that are not selling.  3rd Party Sellers look at brands vs. SKUs to see what is selling and what is not.  

Smart Shopping with Google Ads

Smart Shopping campaigns make sense for brands that are selling a lot in regular shopping. Campaigns appear in Search, YouTube, Display, and Gmail.  In Smart Shopping campaigns, you want to have at least 50 purchases a month, consistent sales, and not focus on peak seasons.  Focus on your top SKUs year-round. Remember to mix your campaign types in Smart Shopping. 

Always keep working on your shopping feed to make it better consistently!