Here's What REALLY Works In Ecommerce Google Ads 2024

Summary

The video script discusses the 'Merchant Excellence' report in Google Ads, a tool to enhance e-commerce advertising performance, particularly for shopping ads. It's available to certain users in the EU who utilize comparison shopping services and meet a monthly spending threshold. The speaker outlines key takeaways from the report, emphasizing the importance of a high-quality data feed, addressing disapprovals, optimizing titles, and utilizing data enrichment to boost ad performance. The script also covers the significance of product ratings, promotions, and shipping offers in improving click-through rates and conversions.

Takeaways

• 📈 The 'Merchant Excellence' report in Google Ads is a valuable tool for e-commerce advertisers, especially for those using comparison shopping services in the EU with significant monthly spend.
• 🔍 Although the report is not available to everyone, insights can be gleaned from a provided PDF that details the report's contents and significance.
• 💡 The quality of data in your Google Merchant Center feed is critical for the performance of your shopping ads and will become increasingly important as more ad formats are powered by this feed.
• 🛒 The report emphasizes the importance of having a high product approval rate, with disapprovals and missing GTINs being key areas to address for improved ad performance.
• 📝 Optimized titles in your data feed can significantly increase click-through rates, and should be a focus area for advertisers looking to boost performance.
• 📈 Data enrichment, including detailed product descriptions, categories, and types, is highlighted as an important factor for improving the quality of your shopping ads.
• 🌟 The use of annotations such as product ratings, promotions, and shipping information can enhance the attractiveness of your shopping ads and improve click-through and conversion rates.
• 📉 The report provides benchmarks and a prioritization system to help advertisers understand where their campaigns stand and what areas require improvement.
• 🚀 For those who qualify, the Merchant Excellence report offers a detailed analysis and actionable insights to improve the performance of shopping ads campaigns.
• 💻 Regular monitoring and optimization of your data feed, including checking for disapprovals and ensuring all fields are accurately filled out, is a continuous process essential for ad success.
• 📊 The report underscores the correlation between a high Merchant Excellence score and better performance in Google Ads, indicating that attention to detail in feed management pays off.

Q & A

What is the Merchant Excellence report in Google Ads?

The Merchant Excellence report is a specialized report in Google Ads that helps e-commerce advertisers improve their shopping ads campaigns. It provides insights and benchmarks to optimize product feeds and enhance ad performance.

Is the Merchant Excellence report available to everyone?

No, the Merchant Excellence report is only available to advertisers who use comparison shopping services in the EU and spend over 100K monthly on shopping.

What can one learn from the Merchant Excellence report even without access to it?

Even without direct access, one can learn about the importance of data feed optimization, product titles, GTINs, and data enrichment by reviewing the PDF description of the report provided by Google.

What is the significance of having a high-quality data feed in Google Merchant Center?

A high-quality data feed is crucial as it powers various ad formats and is a key determinant of offer quality in shopping ad auctions. It will become increasingly important as Google continues to expand ad formats.

How can fixing missing GTINs impact ad performance?

Fixing missing GTINs can lead to up to a 3X click uplift, as indicated by some businesses, by ensuring that product data is accurately represented in ad campaigns.

What is the importance of checking for data disapprovals in Google Merchant Center?

Regularly checking for data disapprovals is vital to maintain product approval rates and avoid negative impacts on ad performance. Google suggests doing this weekly.

How can optimized titles in a data feed impact click-through rates?

Optimized titles can drive a significant increase in clicks per offer, with some suggesting an increase of up to 15% based on testing and experience.

What does 'data enrichment' refer to in the context of the Merchant Excellence report?

Data enrichment refers to the process of optimizing various aspects of the product feed beyond just the titles, including images, descriptions, product categories, and types.

Why are product ratings important for shopping ads?

Product ratings are important as they can significantly increase click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates by building trust and providing social proof.

What steps can be taken to improve a Merchant Excellence score?

To improve a Merchant Excellence score, one should focus on maximizing total offers, increasing approval rates, enriching data feed, using annotations effectively, and ensuring product types are accurately filled out with relevant keywords.

How can the Merchant Excellence report help in boosting return on ad spend (ROAS)?

The report provides insights into areas of the data feed that can be optimized to improve ad performance, such as offer quality, bid levels, and relevance, which in turn can boost ROAS.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Introduction to Merchant Excellence Report

The speaker introduces the Merchant Excellence report, a tool within Google Ads designed to enhance e-commerce advertisers' performance with shopping ads. The report is not widely accessible, but the provided PDF offers valuable insights into improving ad campaigns. The speaker promises to discuss the key lessons from the report and how to access it, focusing on the importance of a high-quality data feed for successful ad performance. The report's availability is limited to users of comparison shopping services in the EU with substantial monthly spends, but the PDF's contents are universally applicable. The speaker also mentions additional resources available to advertisers, such as free audits and the significance of maintaining a high approval rate for product data.

05:00

🛒 Maximizing Product Approvals and Data Quality

This paragraph delves into the importance of product approvals and data quality within the Merchant Excellence report. The speaker emphasizes the significance of fixing errors such as missing GTINs, which can result in a substantial increase in click-through rates. The speaker also discusses the priority of addressing data disapprovals, which can occur for various reasons and affect ad performance. Titles and data enrichment, including optimizing product descriptions and categories, are highlighted as critical for improving ad effectiveness. The speaker suggests a weekly review of the merchant center for any disapprovals or data feed issues and provides tips on how to fix them using Google's guidance.

10:01

🌟 Enhancing Ad Performance with Data Enrichment

The speaker discusses how to improve ad performance through data enrichment, including the use of annotations, product ratings, promotions, and shipping information. The importance of having a review aggregator to enable product ratings is stressed, as well as the impact of promotions and shipping offers on conversion rates. The speaker also touches on the role of a good return policy in enhancing customer trust and ad performance. The focus is on ensuring that all aspects of the product feed are optimized to increase impressions, click-through rates, and overall ad effectiveness.

15:02

📊 Improving Merchant Excellence Score for Better Ad Performance

In this paragraph, the speaker focuses on how to improve the Merchant Excellence score, which correlates with better performance in Google Ads. The speaker outlines several key areas to focus on, such as maximizing total offers by ensuring all products are approved, increasing targeted offers, and improving data quality to boost impressions and click-through rates. The importance of using custom labels, item IDs, and product types to organize and enhance the product feed is also discussed. The speaker emphasizes the need to avoid generic images and to fill out all relevant fields in the product feed to optimize ad performance.

🚀 Conclusion and Call to Action

The speaker concludes by expressing a desire for the Merchant Excellence report to be available to all advertisers, questioning why it's limited to certain users. They summarize the key takeaways from the report and emphasize the importance of a high-quality data feed for e-commerce advertisers. The speaker also encourages viewers to explore additional resources for optimizing Performance Max campaigns and promises to provide more insights in future content.

Keywords

💡Merchant Excellence Report

The Merchant Excellence Report is a specialized report type in Google Ads that provides insights into the performance of e-commerce advertisers' shopping ads campaigns. It's not widely available, being accessible primarily to those using comparison shopping services in the EU and spending over a certain amount. The report is valuable as it helps advertisers understand what aspects of their data feed are crucial for high-performing campaigns. In the script, the speaker discusses the report's significance and how to access it, emphasizing its role in improving ad performance.

💡Data Feed

A data feed in the context of Google Ads is a file or set of information that contains details about products, such as titles, descriptions, images, and prices. It is critical for shopping ads and performance Max campaigns as it directly influences the quality of ad offerings. The script highlights the importance of maintaining a high-quality data feed, mentioning that Google's Merchant Center uses it to power various ad formats and that optimizing the data feed can lead to significant improvements in click-through rates and conversions.

💡Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is a platform that allows e-commerce businesses to manage and submit their product listings for display across Google's advertising network. It is central to the script's discussion as the place where advertisers manage their data feeds and where the Merchant Excellence Report is accessed. The speaker mentions that optimizing listings in the Merchant Center can impact ad performance positively.

💡CSS (Comparison Shopping Service)

CSS stands for Comparison Shopping Service, which is a type of service that allows users to compare products and prices from different retailers. In the script, the speaker notes that the Merchant Excellence Report is available to advertisers who use CSS in the EU and spend a significant amount on shopping ads, indicating a focus on a specific subset of advertisers for this report.

💡Product Approval Rate

The product approval rate refers to the percentage of products in an advertiser's data feed that are approved by Google for display in shopping ads. The script emphasizes the importance of maintaining a high approval rate to maximize the number of products eligible for advertising, which in turn can increase the visibility and reach of the ads.

💡GTIN

GTIN stands for Global Trade Item Number, which is a unique identifier for retail products. In the video script, the speaker discusses the importance of having accurate GTINs in the data feed, as missing or incorrect GTINs can lead to disapprovals, which negatively impact ad performance. Fixing GTIN issues is mentioned as a way to potentially increase click volume.

💡Data Disapprovals

Data disapprovals occur when certain items in a data feed do not meet Google's criteria for advertising and are therefore not approved for display in shopping ads. The script stresses the significance of monitoring and addressing data disapprovals to ensure that products are advertised consistently and to avoid potential drops in ad performance.

💡Data Enrichment

Data enrichment in the context of the video refers to the process of adding more detailed and valuable information to a product's data feed, beyond the basic requirements. This can include detailed descriptions, high-quality images, and other metadata. The script mentions data enrichment as a way to improve the quality of the data feed, which can enhance ad performance by making products more appealing to potential customers.

💡Annotations

In the script, annotations refer to additional pieces of information that can be added to shopping ads through Google Merchant Center, such as product ratings, promotions, and shipping information. These annotations can help differentiate products in ads and potentially increase click-through rates and conversions.

💡Performance Max

Performance Max is a campaign type in Google Ads designed for advertisers looking to drive performance across Google's network with minimal effort. The script discusses the importance of optimizing data feeds and other aspects of ad campaigns for Performance Max, as the quality of the data feed directly impacts the effectiveness of these campaigns.

💡CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Click-Through Rate is a metric used in digital marketing that measures the number of times an ad is clicked compared to the number of times it is displayed. In the script, the speaker mentions that optimizing various aspects of the data feed and using features like product ratings and promotions can significantly increase CTR, which is a key indicator of ad performance.

Highlights

The Merchant Excellence report in Google Ads can significantly enhance e-commerce advertising, especially for shopping ads and performance Max campaigns.

The report is not universally available; it's exclusive to users of comparison shopping services in the EU with spending over 100K monthly.

A PDF document describes the Merchant Excellence report, providing insights even without direct access to the report itself.

Google offers free audits for data feeds to those running comparison shopping services, with a low threshold of 500 USD per month spending.

The Merchant Excellence report provides a ranking of various items against benchmarks, indicating areas for improvement.

The quality of data in Google's Merchant Center is pivotal for the performance of shopping ads and will become increasingly important as more ad formats are powered by it.

Three main factors influence shopping ad auctions: offer quality, bid level, and relevance, with offer quality being primarily determined by product data.

Fixing missing GTINs in the data feed can lead to up to a 3X click uplift, underscoring the importance of accurate product data.

Data disapprovals can significantly impact ad performance, and regular weekly checks are recommended to maintain approval rates.

Optimized titles in the data feed can drive a substantial increase in click-through rates, with the potential for a 15% increase based on the speaker's experience.

Data enrichment, beyond just titles, involves optimizing all aspects of the product feed for better ad performance.

Usage of annotations in shopping ads, such as product ratings, promotions, and shipping information, can enhance ad appeal and performance.

Product type in the data feed is a critical field that should be filled out with four levels of depth for optimal performance.

The Merchant Excellence report can help identify areas such as disapproved items, generic images, and invalid GTINs to focus on for optimization.

Maximizing total offers and approval rates ensures that as many products as possible are available for advertising, thus increasing potential impressions and sales.

Improving the Merchant Excellence score correlates with better performance in Google Ads, indicating the importance of a high-quality data feed.

The speaker expresses a desire for the Merchant Excellence report to be available to all advertisers, not just those meeting specific criteria, for the mutual benefit of advertisers and Google.

For e-commerce advertisers looking to master Performance Max campaigns, additional resources such as the speaker's top 10 tips video are recommended.

Transcripts

I recently came across an excellent type

of report that you can run in Google ads

that's going to help you be a much much

better e-commerce Advertiser when it

comes to shopping ads and performance

Max the report type is called Merchant

excellence and although it's not a

report type that is available to

everyone this PDF that I have for you

today describes the report and there's

so much we can learn about the report

and about improving our shopping ads

campaigns just by looking at this PDF

and I want to run through the PDF with

you today to give you the key lessons

you can learn from this PDF from this

Merchant Excellence report even if you

can't access the report and I'll show

you how to access the report if you

qualify for it in just a bit but even if

you can't access a report you should be

able to take some learnings from this

and understand exactly what to do next

to boost your return on ad spend in your

performance Max or shopping ads campaign

okay so I've got the PDF in front of me

this is the PDF that Google put together

to describe exactly what the merchant

Excellence report is and why it's

valuable and what is important to make

sure you have a high performing shopping

ads campaign by the way uh I'm going to

put links for all this stuff in the

description below the video but they

have a link here there's a Google help

file and actually this report is

actually only available to people who

use comparison shopping services so if

you add vertising in the EU if you're

plugged into a CSS and if you're

spending over a certain amount then you

can access this report for everyone else

L we're going to run through the PDF

together because we can learn most of

what we need to learn just through

looking at the PDF uh but if you come to

this page here and if you are running a

CSS uh approach to your Google shopping

ads in the EU you've actually got two

cool free things you can get so free

Audits and merchant center uh Merchant

Excellence report so pretty much

everyone can get a free audit of their

data feed done by Google uh so

eligibility for the free audit is anyone

running CSS uh all CSS uh runners or

Merchants can request this service and

you only need to be spending 500 USD per

month on shopping that's a pretty low

requirement a lot of people meet that

requirement so I haven't checked out the

feed audit today we're going to talk

about the merchant Excellence report um

and the merchant Excellence report

unfortunately is a bit harder to get you

have to be running uh CSS in the EU and

you have to be spending 100K monthly on

shopping so I'm guessing a lot of people

watching this video won't qualify for

that but don't worry if you don't

qualify because as I say there's so much

we can learn just by looking at this

document here where Google is telling us

what is important about your data feed

and what's important about your data

feed is ultimately going to be what's

important about your shopping ads

campaign and your performance Max

campaign because those campaign types

are leveraging your data feed okay so

these are the table of contents I am

going to provide you a link to this

report in the description below so I

don't want to go through every page in

detail what I want to do is just kind of

scroll here and tell you what I think is

important to know and what you should

focus on okay some introductory Stu

quality of data injected into Google

Solutions is critical and when they say

the quality of data injected the talking

about your data feed really uh this is

this I find really interesting merchants

Center will continue to power more ad

formats over time as it has happened

over the past few years so what does

that mean that means that well look at

this timeline in 2014 your data feed

could power shopping campaigns and

display campaigns and pretty much those

display campaigns were just retargeting

that was in 2014 now in 2023 your data

feed and your Google merchant center

account can power all these ad formats

here and as stated by Google this is

only going to get more overtime so

having a good quality data feed is

already really important for your

e-commerce Google ads account today and

it's only going to get more important

over time so take note of

that okay your shopping ad auctions it's

like three main factors the offer

quality so that really just means your

your product how good is your product

how good is your pricing and that is

indicated by your product data so this

Factor here your offer quality that's

all pretty much determined by your data

feed uh and then you've got your bid

level that's going to be determined in

Google ads by the smart bidding

algorithm or by whatever bid strategy

you've chosen relevance always important

with Google ads offer quality is super

important so yeah like it goes without

saying the quality of your product the

quality of everything about your product

what you're offering to the consumer

super important yeah duh uh this is how

the merchant center uh sorry the

merchant Excellence reports looks if you

qualify for it so it looks pretty snazzy

I haven't seen one of these out in the

wild yet but they actually take all

these different items and then rank them

uh know versus Benchmark status yes or

no priority level so it's a great report

I'm I'm hoping to get my hands on one of

these reports and I'm going to run

through my client list and see which of

my clients is actually spending more

than 100K monthly in the EU on SC CSS uh

hopefully I can get a follow-up video

out to you showing you how the report

looks but for now let's just learn from

the

PDF uh okay so this is just showing you

more stuff about how the report itself

looks okay yeah yeah yeah we get it the

report is cool yeah I get it we don't

have the report right now but let's just

learn from this

PDF yeah okay so I get that like this is

just sort of

summarizing like things you can learn

from the report but down here we're

actually okay now we start getting into

the meat and potatoes look this is a

slide from Google telling you exactly

what is important in your data feed and

we have things that actually I talk

about all the time if if you follow me

and and know me you'll know that these

are things that I often talk about so uh

your gtin that's a field in your data

feed according to Google some businesses

have seen up to a 3X click uplift after

fixing missing gtin so what does this

mean this means go into your merchant

center for your shopping ads campaign

for your performance Max campaign it

means check your disapprovals check the

Diagnostics of your feed you should be

doing that Weekly in my opinion and

sometimes you're going to see a gtin

error if you see that gtin error fix it

like and if you don't believe me that

this is important well here's Google

also telling you that this is important

uh even more important though than gtins

in my estimation is this one data

disapprovals I would have put

disapprovals at the top really I think

that's the most but I put either

disapprovals or titles at the top I

wouldn't have done the list in this

order if I was prioritizing B on most

important I would have said number one

on the list is either disapprovals or

titles maybe the joint top and then I

would have said gtim then I would have

said data enrichment but disapprovals

whatever prioritization you give it it's

important right like you can get your

products disapproved for just seemingly

really random reasons and sometimes a

product that is approved now might just

suddenly get disapproved next week

because I don't know Google's automated

bot just doesn't like you for some

reason like it they have have automated

Bots that are running these kind of

approval processes and you never know

like some little change on your landing

page or site might suddenly upset the

but so don't even if you've got a 100%

product approval rate right now in your

shopping feed don't assume it's always

going to stay that way check your

Diagnostics in Google merchant center

once per week and then you're going to

spot if there's any issues with gtins

and any issues with disapprovals both of

these things are important I think

disapprovals is more important so focus

on those and if you see anything get

disapproved in your feed fix it Google

merchant center will kindly tell you

exactly how to fix the disapproval you

just have to click on the little

question mark bubble in Google merchant

center and it will tell you how to fix

the thing so fix it uh titles are super

important I've been saying this for

years optim like Google says optimized

titles can drive a 1% increase in clicks

per offer actually the the testing that

I've done and seen others do indicates

that the increase here is a lot larger

actually based on on my data and you

know what I've seen from uh spending

millions of dollars on Google ads I

actually kind of see these two things

the other way rounds based on what I've

seen like I would say actually from what

I've seen titles can increase click

volume by 15% whereas data enrichment I

put that more in the 1% boundary based

on the data I have it's interesting that

Google is kind of saying something else

here uh I'm not seeing the same like

based on the accounts that we run we

could argue over like what the actual

uplift is either way do both of these

things right problem solved uh

personally I would say uh titles is the

most important part that's the part of

your product feed that Google pays the

most attention to so get all your good

high volume keywords in your title and

really what they mean here when they say

data enrichment is they mean all the

other items of your feed right so

there's you tons of other uh variables

in your feed there's tons of other like

bits of the feed to fill out not only

you have your title you've got like your

images your description your product

category your product type so in this uh

chart here what you can basically think

of data enrichment is is it's like

optimize your titles here and then data

enrichment means optimize the rest of

your feed also right

um yeah usage of annotations so this

means like all the other little things

that you can add onto your shopping ads

when you use the correct functions in

Google merch centers so product ratings

yeah just absolutely do product ratings

to enable product ratings you need to

have a review aggregator you can use

like a premium third party platform uh

like yo for example or if you want to do

it cheaper you can use Google customer

reviews which is free just just bit bit

more of a setup it's a bit technical the

setup either way you need to be

collecting reviews for your products you

need the review feed to be plugged into

Google merchant center that will enable

when done correctly that will enable

product ratings these stars that show up

on your product super important uh

raises your CTR Merchant promo

promotions any price promotions or

offers you have on your site you can go

into Google merchant center you can set

up that promotion in Google merchant

center so that it does this it shows you

the promotion on your shopping ads if

you're running promotions this is just a

no-brainer you need to do that in Google

merchant center to promote your

promotion fast and free shipping yeah

definitely gives you a conversion rate

uplift and a CTR uplift and if you're if

you've got a good shipping offer make

sure you've configured that in Google

merchant center because it helps uh sale

price drop price once again this is just

like Common Sense stuff if you're

dropping the price if you have good

shipping if you have promotions on put

that information in Google mer Center

because you will see CTR and CVR uplift

and then once again returns like if

you've got a good return policy you can

make sure by the settings in Google

merchant center that is displayed on

your shopping apps so do that uh okay

case study skip through that case study

skip through that I just want to focus

on what what the learnings are for you

and what's important let's just

translate this for you into English

right maximize total offers what that

means is don't have any products

disapproved right it's it's what it's

saying here is an offer is basically a

product um so like if you've got 100

products in your feed make sure that's

100 approved products if 10 of the

products are disapproved then you're not

maximizing your total offers uh so yeah

increase your approval rate uh that's

the that's the same kind of thing

actually these two are kind of related

actually maximize total offers is more

about having as many products as

possible like if you have the product

make sure it's in your feed if you have

100 products have 100 items in your feed

one for each product and then approval

rate yeah that's making sure you have no

disapprovals increase targeted offers so

yeah if you've got uh products in your

feed actually advertise them in Google

ads get more customers that way yeah

makes sense increase Impressions dat

quality so that this is basically saying

you get more Impressions when you really

enrich your data feed uh like okay more

English

language your your product feed make

sure it's full of keywords make sure

it's high quality don't just autocreate

the product feed and leave it at that

actually go through all the items in

your product feed and think about is

this a good title is this a is this a

good description is this a good product

type and uh boost CTR so attributes help

differentiate yeah so have a good image

use promotions get your reviews showing

up all that lovely stuff so these are

some things that are important that you

can do uh I don't really want to focus

on any of those just want to call out

for you here some of the things that I

think are most important yeah like so

okay so their merchant Excellence report

one of the things it reports on is how

many items you have disapproved uh how

many items have a generic image uh like

items with price and avail ility so make

sure you fill out those fields uh

invalid gtins so these things here just

tell you uh what's important in your

product feed and give you an idea of

things you need to pay attention to and

optimize yeah make sure your stuff gets

approved don't let disapproved stuff sit

in your

feed this one here is important as well

I'd like to call this one out like like

these ones here custom label item id uh

item group ID that's more for

organization it doesn't really affect

the performance of your campaign but

this one here really does so product

type and this would have fallen under

data enrichment product type is another

field in your feed and most people do a

bad job of this don't do that do a good

job of your product type so look for the

product type field in your feed and make

sure that you filled it out to four

levels of depth you get four levels of

depth in your product type feed most

people only use one and then they often

just make it exactly the same as their

Google product category waste of space

use all all four levels of your product

type and put good keywords in each level

right then you'll be doing much

better okay so there's some stuff you

can do to increase

Impressions some stuff you can do to

boost clickthrough

[Music]

rates what can you do to improve your

score improving your score your Merchant

excellent score will mostly correlate

with getting better performance in

Google ads okay there's a glossery tab

that EXP explaining here how the report

looks it's a shame this isn't available

to everyone why why Google why isn't

this just available to everyone why is

it only limited to CSS people spending

over 100k okay I I get the 100K thing

maybe they use M like uh manual reps um

rep like dedicated reps to manually put

this together so they only want to focus

on higher spend advertisers but why is

it only for CSS advertisers why isn't

this just just for all shopping

advertisers at the end of the day if we

all have better data feed s Google makes

more money so why don't they just

provide this to everyone spending over a

certain amount of money I don't know

Google so there you have it the merchant

Excellence report and what we can learn

from what's in that report to make us

better and more profitable e-commerce

advertisers when it comes to shopping

ads and performance Max by the way if

you really want to master and dominate

performance Max campaigns for your

e-commerce store you're going to want to

check out this video here which is my

top 10 tips for performance Max op

optimizations that you can run today to

get more profit and higher return on ad

spend for your campaigns see you on the

next one