Here’s What Your Clients Need to Know about Google Search

BY Kathy Crosett
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Are your retail clients getting enough out of the ad money they spend with Google? If you’re selling digital marketing services, you should be asking that question.

Google is constantly tweaking its advertising product model. You can impress your clients by showing that you’re tracking what’s happening on that front. Check out the 2019 Benchmarks Report from Google Ads in Retail produced by Sidecar for the latest intelligence on this sector.

Paid Search or Shopping Ads

One big decision your client must make is determining how much to spend on Google shopping ads versus paid search. Here’s a refresher on the difference between the two formats.

Shopping ad technology allows your clients to feed information on a product group to Google. From there, they can set the bid on the product group or a single product in the group. Done properly, shopping ads will appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERP.) These ads also include images and reviews. 

Analysts recommend using this strategy for retailers that have a big range of products to promote. These PPC ads drive plenty of volume and traffic. But there’s also plenty of competition to get into those top positions in the SERP, so some clients hesitate to drive up ad spending in this way.

For paid search ads, your clients set bids on specific key words. In the past year, retailers have increased their Google Shopping ad spending. That interest is driving up the cost of these ads. Most search experts encourage clients to balance spending between paid search and Google Shopping ads in order to reach shoppers at all levels of the funnel.

In 2018, retailers boosted spending on Google Shopping by 24%. And they spent 17% more on paid search. One detail your clients should know about is the number of impressions that Amazon accounts for in Google’s paid search services. At the end of last year, by major sector:

  • Office supplies 60%
  • Apparel 45%
  • Sporting goods 42%
  • Home improvement 38%
  • Mass merchant 30%

The Power of Mobile

The increased competition in the search space is driving up costs. At the end of last year, the average CPC had risen by $0.88 on desktop and $0.41 on mobile for shopping ads. For paid search, the comparable increases were $0.99 and $0.51. Marketers are realizing the power of mobile. Currently, about 50% of Google’s revenue from advertising is through shopping ads while the other half is generated through paid search.

It’s easy to see the appeal for advertisers. Mobile shopping ads, once clicked, yield a 57% conversion. For paid search, conversions are 49%. On mobile the paid search CTR is 2.67%, while on shopping ads, it’s 1.04%.

Metrics by Vertical

Your client might want to know how their metrics stack up against other competitors. The average automotive parts order driven by Google paid search was $306 last year. These retailers experienced a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 11.08 and a conversion rate of 1.76%. For orders that came in through Google Shopping ads, auto parts retailers saw an average value of $187, a ROAS of 8.92, and a 1.12% rate. 

Don’t assume that Google paid search always has the best metrics, though. For apparel and accessory orders through the Google Shopping ads, the average ticket was $219, the ROAS was 8.78 and the CTR was 0.94%. On paid search for that retail category, consumers spent an average of $87 and the retailers experienced a 7.98 ROAS and a 2.67% CTR.

To learn more about how well search is working for your clients, check out the Digital Audit, available at AdMall from SalesFuel​.com.


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