3 June 2021

The Three ‘Paid Search’ Questions to ask in June

Have you got a Summer Sale coming soon? 

Many companies will spend time and money promoting a big summer clearance sale in their physical stores with point of sale, posters and banners – and then spend only a few minutes updating the website prices – if at all. So this month we’re asking three questions to make sure your Summer Sale is a success online.

Question 1 – Have you updated your Shopping Feed correctly?

One of the big appeal of sales is that the customer gets to see how much they are saving. It’s not just a matter of putting new prices on all your products and uploading them. The Schema Markup and Google Product feed all have specific codes to highlight Sale prices and special offers.

Our top tips:

• Use [sale_price] and [sale_price_effective_date] in the Product Feed to control the value of the offer shown to shoppers, and the date from which it starts.
• Make sure the Schema markup on the page is being implemented correctly using Google’s Rich Results Test Page

Question 2 – Should you launch a new shopping campaign for the sale goods?

This is a question we get asked often, usually just before Black Friday or Christmas. It is an easy thing to do as well. Simply give each sale product a custom label, separate them out and launch a new campaign of just sale products. 

There are advantages and disadvantages:

Pros

• This will give you better control over your budget, which is especially useful if the sale has changed your margins by a large percentage.
• The data will appear neatly segmented in reports and Google Analytics.
• It is then easy to revert back to the non-sale bids.

Cons

• This won’t work with a Smart Shopping Campaign – the algorithms won’t have time to find your customers and the first days of your sale may fall flat.
• Products and images can be re-reviewed by Google – finding minor faults that it didn’t pull you up on last time.

As long as the campaigns have different priority levels it will be clear which feed’s budget should get used on the click and you can structure your campaign accordingly.

Question 3 – Did you know Google wants your returns and refunds information?

There’s been a drive by Google Shopping advisors to get more information on every product since the platform appeared. One of the latest pushes, especially for big value items, is getting your businesses Returns and Refund policy uploaded with your products. It is claimed by Google that a clear and visible R&R policy can make a huge contribution to making a big sale. 

If you have a ‘universal’ policy covering all your products then the policy text and a website link can be added in google merchant centre. If you have specific products with different or unusual returns information then you can use [return_policy_label] in your product feed to override or add to the general info. 

This doesn’t mean you can hide your terms and conditions on your website, it just means a customer can get more information before making their purchase. This also gives them a good indicator that your website is an established and trustworthy business. With Google Shopping, first impressions are important.