Boost Your Retail Sales with Free Google Product Ads

COVID-19 is bringing unprecedented times for business owners around the globe. In the US, our unemployment rate is steadily rising each week since the start of Stay At Home Orders. As a response, Google is allowing retail operations to make use of free Google Shopping ads to maintain their sales. Retail Foot Traffic is at an all-time low, and Google has been tracking how successfully we are social-distancing ourselves. Look up your local area’s stats in the Google Mobility Report.

We even put together an animation to inform people about how Missouri is doing:

Disease control experts are speculating that additional breakouts of the virus could come – requiring further cycles of Stay-At-Home orders. It’s hard even to predict the impact this will have on small businesses across the US. The industries and employees getting hit the hardest by the stay at home orders are the restaurant and retail space.

Restaurants have experienced significantly reduced sales, like most other industries. Yet, there are many “fast” solutions available for regrouping the way they operate their business. Utilizing platforms like UberEats, Postmates, OrderUp, and other food delivery services, a restaurant can quickly get their menu available online and available for online order. Restaurants can make use of one of these services or take on delivery responsibilities in-house. What can retail operations do to shift gears from in-store sales quickly?

Setting Up Google Shopping Ads

Google Merchant Center, the platform used to manage Google Shopping Ads, can be a somewhat complicated system to set up. It requires product and inventory feeds from your website updated and maintained with stock, shipping, return info, and more. This roadblock is often enough to make retailers avoid getting their products online.

If you currently have a WordPress website but do not have your retail products listed online, this is likely one of the best possible times to change that.

Benefits of e-Commerce stores:

Longer site visit durations due to gaining more product info and shopping product options.
Increased page views and page count for the site
Ability to purchase products out of state or from other cities
Coupon and offer capabilities for seasonal sales
Collection of customer info for mailing lists and more
It is easy to update your product inventory and make changes
MOST IMPORTANTLY: Ability to drive traffic directly to products for purchase

To see an example of a WooCommerce website, check out our website rebuild for Color Up:

Visit Website

By allowing free product ads, Google hopes to jump-start local economies by making it easier and more affordable for retailers to get started with online advertising. To qualify, you must have an existing retail website with e-commerce products and a Google Merchant Center account with a properly setup product feed. From there, you can apply within the dashboard.

Google Shopping ads are possible for almost any e-commerce website. Still, we are big fans of WooCommerce for WordPress sites. If you manage a Shopify, Squarespace, or another e-commerce platform, you can search for Google Shopping Feed integrations. In some cases, feeds are created quickly by copying all of your product info and store settings, along with automatically updating your inventory within Google Shopping. However, in most cases, it isn’t that easy.

Google Shopping setup requires payments to be processed via Google and then deposited into your accounts. Setup also requires extensive information, including; return policies, shipping policies, all product info, and properly structured Google Shopping actions. Often, this can be expensive when working with an agency. Getting free advertising placements makes this one of the best times to get your Google Merchant Center account setup for your retail store.

Even if you don’t wish to ship products or advertise with Google, converting your website to an e-commerce store has its advantages. That website type allows for curbside pickup and local delivery options that can keep a business alive during hard times.

Ready to Monetize Your Website?

Need help setting up your e-commerce store or Google Shopping account? Let our team help you sustain your business during this time by generating more online sales.

Get Started