Succeeding with Shopping campaigns in 2022: 5 key actions and trends

ARTICLE

Daniel Castelblanco, Regional Marketing Manager, Google Shopping l Expertise Series [January 2022]

The past two years have brought unique challenges to people and companies around the world. Our team has navigated this dynamic ecosystem by working with many businesses that use Google Shopping as their Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) to place Shopping ads across Europe. As we head into 2022, we have identified the following trends and key actions businesses can take to build a successful Shopping campaigns strategy to achieve their business and marketing objectives.

New and unexpected trends have emerged across many verticals. As a more fluid home-working culture became the new normal, traditional in-store browsing experiences have evolved. Consumers continue to look across multiple channels for alternative ways to be inspired. According to research published by ThinkWithGoogle, online window shopping increased in 2021 and this new shopping behaviour may continue in the future¹. As the economic and business landscape remains dynamic, we expect some of these trends will continue throughout 2022, impacting how companies plan and optimise their Shopping campaigns' strategy.

5 key actions you can take for a successful Shopping campaigns' strategy in 2022

We have identified five key actions for your Shopping campaign success in 2022, and some questions you can ask along your journey:

1. Identify what strategic objectives you are aiming to achieve with your Shopping campaigns:

What are your strategic business objectives in 2022? Read more in the section below.
Are your digital marketing objectives and KPIs linked to these strategic business objectives?
How can Shopping campaigns help you to address and achieve specific objectives and hit your KPIs?

2. Assess the structure of your current and planned Shopping campaigns:

Are they built in a logical way to achieve these objectives?
Are they promoting the right products to the right audience at the right time?

3. Look closely at your automation strategy:

Is your bidding strategy optimised to support your objectives?
Are you using the most effective campaign subtype (e.g. Smart Shopping campaigns)?
Are you measuring the right KPIs to support your business and digital marketing goals? And do you have the right reporting tools in place?

4. Have a healthy product Feed in your Google Merchant Center (GMC) account:

Do you have the correct and up-to-date data in your product feed to support these objectives?
Are you following best practices for Feed management and optimisation?

5. Measure Shopping campaign performance directly against your business and marketing objectives and KPIs:

Are your Shopping campaigns’ KPIs directly linked to your business and marketing objectives?
Do you have the right reports, tools and internal processes in place to track these KPIs and quickly identify and act on optimisation opportunities?
Do you review your Shopping campaigns Optimisation Score periodically and act on relevant recommendations?

Common business objectives merchants can focus their Shopping campaigns on in 2022:

In our experience, businesses can use Shopping campaigns to achieve multiple goals. Here are some examples of common business objectives and specific recommendations we suggest to focus on:

Business objective: Increase revenue and profitability (e.g. Return on Ad Spend, ROAS):

Google Shopping (CSS) Recommendations
- Consider using Smart Shopping campaigns on a tROAS bidding strategy to maximise your conversion value at a set return on investment.
- If you are selling products online and offline, we recommend you promote your In-Store Inventory with Local Inventory Ads and Omnichannel bidding.
- Setting the right omnichannel ROAS for your Shopping campaigns will help you to increase your revenue and profitability.
Business objective: Managing stock more efficiently

Google Shopping (CSS) Recommendations
- Consider using supplemental feeds. They provide additional product data in one or more of your primary feeds.
- Optimise your feed and set up feed rules, which allow you to transform your data to match Google’s data specification requirements.
- Use custom labels to indicate that products are seasonal, on clearance, best sellers, etc. These values can then be used as an additional data layer to optimise bidding, monitoring and reporting in your Shopping campaigns.
Business objective: Drive new customers

Google Shopping (CSS) Recommendations
- Use the new customer acquisition goal in Smart Shopping campaigns to reach out to new customers in the right moments.
- If you are eligible, enable Market Insights in your GMC account which offers access to retail data that can help inform your business strategy.
- Deep dive into the best-sellers reports and analyse the most competitive product price points for your industry.
Business objective: Increase website traffic and visibility

Google Shopping (CSS) Recommendations
- Use the Auction Insights Reports to compare your performance with other advertisers participating in the same auctions as you are.
- We recommend developing a strategy around 'zero-impression products' in your Feed. These are products that are eligible to serve, but may have not received impressions or clicks in the last 90 days.
- Consider using video assets in your Smart Shopping campaigns.

In 2022, the Google Shopping (CSS) team will continue to support businesses in navigating the dynamic landscape, focusing on helping to develop a successful Shopping campaigns' strategy that enables companies to sell more and better across Europe.

To discover more recommended best practises and learnings from the past two years, we invite you to check our website resources and download the key takeaways from our 2021 Online Forum series:

Download

¹ ThinkWithGoogle article: ‘4 ways the pandemic has changed shopping behaviors’ (2021)

This article was published by Google Shopping (CSS). Google Shopping is Google's CSS and a Premium CSS Partner.

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Succeeding with Shopping campaigns in 2022: 5 key actions and trends

5 key actions you can take for a successful Shopping campaigns' strategy in 2022

Common business objectives merchants can focus their Shopping campaigns on in 2022:

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