Beginner or not, making an effort to try to understand Product Listing Ads (PLAs) is enough to give any grown man or woman a pretty serious migraine.
Updating product information, organizing product categories, identifying the latest consumer behaviors, implementing successful bidding strategies, analyzing the latest analytics…
It’s all just a bit much, isn’t it?
Definitely too much for one person alone. And if not, then expensive just for the sheer volume of work-related hours needed to make sense of it all.
Now, of course, there are plenty of available guides out there that can show you the best practices. And, if you’re lucky, you may even find one that can be applied to your business. But, chances are, depending on such luck will only bring you more trouble in the end.
So, what is there for you to do? Well… stick with me for a moment, won’t you? By the end of this article, I hope to have at least cleared some things up for you! And, as a bonus, even introduce you to a solution in the form of Speqta’s (SPEQT) Bidbrain™!
Why do Product Listing Ads Matter?
Since you’re reading this article, chances are, you’re probably well-aware of the benefits of product listing ads. But, just to review, let’s break down just how effective these ads can be:
- PLAs are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) image-based ads: As a rule, with PLAs, you only pay for the clicks that you get. And, what’s more, because of their visual-quality, when compared to regular text-based ads, they are actually more likely to draw in clicks.
- Helpful for measuring ROI: While the end-goal of most marketers with PLAs (or any marketing campaign for that matter) are conversions, at the very least, since you pay only for the clicks you get, you will have an easier time measuring ROI or ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) — alternative CoS (Cost of Sales) as it is often named.
- The PLA model was developed specifically for e-retailers: Even now, a lot of people still rely on ranking for individual product keywords to draw consumers to their brand. Which is all well and good if you can make it to the top. And therein lies the problem, as that is nearly impossible (not to mention resource-draining and time-consuming) for newer brands. PLAs allow e-retailers to skip that hurdle entirely since they are posted over-top regular search ads.
Nowadays, if you’re an e-retailer that isn’t using PLAs. You’re already lagging way behind your competitors. The only thing left to do then is to play catch up and figure out how to use PLAs better than these competitors. Which is our next point:
How to Set Up Your Product Listing Ads for Success
Now that we’ve cleared up why you should get involved with Product Listing Ads, let’s actually talk about how you can increase your ROI or ROAS.
I teasingly mentioned a solution in the form of Speqta’s Bidbrain™ at the beginning of the article, but first, let’s break down what it takes to have success with Google Shopping:
- Optimize your data feed! Provide detailed and accurate product titles, use high-quality images that match your target buyer’s intent, provide informative product descriptions, add extensions, etc. These are just some of the things that you’ll need to do to increase the effectiveness of your product feed, and thus, increase the chances of a consumer clicking on your listings. After all, since you cannot target specific keywords with PLAs, the product feed is everything.
- Bid based on your business goals! This might sound like a no-brainer, but to successfully increase the ROI of your product listings, you need to bid smartly. That means focusing on promoting specific brands or product categories (or both) to capitalize on the more profitable products and lowering the budget for lower-performing products and brands. The key here, of course, is to aim for the most granular bidding strategy that you can achieve.
These two tips alone should get you far, but only if you are capable of performing both in a way that will overshadow your current competitors (who may have more experience than you do.)
Increase the ROI of Your PLAs with Bidbrain™
Now to offer up a solution. My goal here isn’t necessarily to sell you on Bidbrain, only to show you the advantages of opening yourself up to new opportunities for growth. Namely, AI-powered solutions that you can use to make your life even just a smidge easier.
To clarify, according to Fredrik Lindros (CEO of Speqta): “It doesn’t take much to win with Bidbrain. It’s very good at doing its job on its own merits, so it doesn’t take much effort to put into use.” But how exactly does it win?
Well, it’s explained in more detail in an article from JaxDaily, which introduces Bidbrain in its entirety. But the short of it is… that it is capable of doing what needs to be done to ensure the success of your PLAs without much input from you.
More literally, Bidbrain is a SaaS tool that will pull in conversions for you at your desired ROAS or CoS straight from your own Google Ads account with granular, AI-based bidding decisions (set to use all the parameters and data available while accounting for thousands of clusters and bidding strategies and updating several times per day to give you an edge over your competitors.) We can’t forget that Bidbrain also doubles as a product feed optimizer for cleaning up your product feed and boosting CTR.
Furthermore, just to cinch the deal, all you need to do to start using Bidbrain is to provide your Google Ads ID, your current product feed, and your desired ROAS/CoS. Bidbrain will take care of the rest after that, requiring no further setup on your side.
In conclusion, if your current Product Listing Ads strategy is costing you more money than you’re earning… Then you’re doing it wrong. And you need to consider trying something new. That’s really all there is to it.