PPC is a channel that has seen tremendous growth in the last five years, with businesses jumping on board and reaping the rewards, regardless of the industry they hail from. With experience and repetition your PPC strategy can be a lucrative channel, provided you have set yourself up correctly in Merchant Centre and continue to review and optimise your store. If you haven’t given much thought to improving your Merchant Centre functions, your ads may be missing out on potential traffic and conversions. Here’s how you can maximise Google Merchant Centre.
Engage an agency or have a dedicated resource
PPC has proved itself to be an always-on channel for so many small to large businesses. Although that doesn’t mean it’s a set and forget channel. Your Google Merchant Centre needs to be reviewed and optimised as often as possible, to avoid the wrong traffic finding their way to your store and costing you a click. The advantage of engaging a PPC agency is that you can effectively place that channel in the capable hands of a Google certified professional, knowing that your store will be firing strong. PPC specialists work across a portfolio of clients, which allow the opportunity to experiment with product-based sales and bring those valuable insights to your account. The alternative is employing a dedicated PPC specialist to manage the channel inhouse, although the costs may not work in your favour and the employee will need to keep themselves abreast of Google updates and changes.
Keep it fresh
When it comes to Google Merchant Centre, there is no such thing as too many updates. You should be exporting your Google Merchant Centre product feed daily, typically after you have updated your products. This means that your products are selling at the price you intend them to sell for, or have been removed from the store entirely if sold out. Businesses that fail to upload product data will be showcasing products at prices that are not optimised, and do not reflect real-time stock levels. Keep your product data fresh to avoid paying for a click that cannot eventuate into a sale.
Leverage reviews and ratings
When you have a grasp of Google Merchant Centre and how the product moves through this channel, you can start to enable other tools that will enhance your visibility and reputation. The value of seller reviews are powerful, especially when customers are shopping online. Based on your activity your reviews will contribute to a seller rating, which collates as a Google Customer Review badge that will appear in your store. This rating is between one and fifteen, so make it count.
Ensure a seamless set up
Setting up your Google Merchant centre correctly the first time will save you a lot of time down the track. This means adding information about your store, uploading your logos and stable landing pages. This is not just an aesthetic metric, failure to successfully compete your setup will mean that your reporting will not always tell an entirely accurate story and may inform the wrong decisions. A common mistake for businesses is setting up the wrong tax. Remember that tax rates are destination-based and not origin-based, meaning the user pays the tax based on the destination in which they have placed the order.
Mastering every single channel is a job in itself, but with the right agency you can take PPC out of house and under the control of an experienced team of professionals. Exploring the functionalities and features of Google Merchant Centre will inform better decisions for your store, and allow you to shift more product with a better conversion rate.