How to Improve Google Shopping ROAS with Priority Bidding

​​Congratulations! You’ve gotten by the robust a part of Google Shopping: getting your account and your purchasing feed working. But are you getting essentially the most out of your campaigns?

Today, we’re going to present you a Google Shopping marketing campaign construction that may allow you to to get the very best return in your advert spend. It’s referred to as the precedence bidding construction.

It’s a bit concerned however I’m going to stroll you thru it. We’ll cowl:

  • How the precedence bidding construction maximizes your ROAS
  • Everything you want to know to implement it in your account
  • Additional bidding, subdivision, and key phrase ideas to get your finest outcomes but.

So in order for you to save on spend with out sacrificing development, learn on!

What is the precedence bidding marketing campaign construction?

To perceive this construction, you’ll first want to know that while you create a Google Shopping marketing campaign, there’s a precedence setting characteristic. All campaigns default to “low,” however you possibly can set campaigns to medium or excessive.

google shopping ad setup: priority settings tab

Normally, when you have a number of campaigns (all on the default “low” precedence) that would all enter the public sale for a similar search, Google will simply select the very best bidding marketing campaign. But by setting completely different priorities, you possibly can have Google select campaigns no matter bids.

Why use the precedence bidding construction?

Let’s say that you simply’re a clothes firm and Levi’s 311 Skinny Jeans is considered one of your merchandise.

  • You’ll need to seize customers who merely search “jeans” as it will increase your model consciousness and seize top-of-funnel site visitors.
  • But you’ll additionally need to seize customers who search “levi’s jeans” since these searchers will likely be extra probably to convert.
  • And you’ll undoubtedly need to seize customers who search “levi’s 311 skinny jeans.”

However, the amount and high quality of site visitors for every of these phrases goes to be completely different. You’ll need to preserve your bids low for these excessive site visitors generic product searches so that you’re not capturing too many low-converting clicks. And you’ll need to preserve your bids excessive for these particular phrases which have excessive buy intent.

The precedence bidding construction permits you to do that, making it so that you simply solely have excessive spend on clicks that herald a excessive return.

How the Google Shopping precedence bidding construction works

With the precedence bidding construction, you’ll have your campaigns break up out so you possibly can increase and decrease your bids in accordance to search intent.

Here’s what it seems to be like.

google shopping priority bidding campaign structure

So, again to our denims instance, you’ll have three campaigns:

  • Campaign A: This marketing campaign negates model and model+fashion key phrases to solely seize generic searches (like “jeans”), leading to a low-risk, “wide net” performance. Your bids are low and the precedence is about to excessive.
  • Campaign B: This marketing campaign negates model+fashion key phrases to solely seize branded searches (like “levi jeans”) and also you set common bids so you possibly can bid competitively and entice this extra certified site visitors. Priority is about to medium.
  • Campaign C: Because of marketing campaign A and B’s negatives, this marketing campaign will solely seize spot-on searchers which might be prepared to convert. Your bids are excessive and precedence is about to low.

Now, since you’ve assigned completely different destructive key phrases, bids, and precedence settings to every marketing campaign, Google will know to enter the suitable bidding marketing campaign for every sort of search intent—stopping wasted spend on low-value clicks.

Speaking of wasted spend, determine much more methods to maximize your funds utilizing our Free Google Ads Performance Grader.

Bidding methods for the Shopping precedence construction

Unlike Search and Display, there isn’t any key phrase or group bidding obtainable, so Google Shopping finest practices are a bit completely different.

However, the great thing about the precedence construction is that it guides you on how try to be adjusting your bids. And, these are the three bidding methods that you simply’ll need to alter:

1. Manual bidding

If you’re simply dipping your toes into Shopping, guide bidding is a secure guess. Tried and true, guide bidding permits you to dictate how a lot you’re keen to spend per click on—on this case for merchandise of a particular product group.

google shopping ads average CPC

Check your CPC towards Google Shopping advertisements benchmarks right here. 

You’ll have full management over your bids, however after all, relying on the dimensions of your Shopping account, you’ll have to carve out time to tediously handle bids.

2. Maximize clicks

Maximize clicks is nice for Shopping as a result of it focuses on that finish objective of driving site visitors to your ecommerce web site. In comparability to guide bidding, maximize clicks has the choice to layer on a max CPC bid restrict on the marketing campaign stage—which helps preserve the automated technique a bit extra in management whereas saving you time on particular person bids.

The possibility to set a bid cap is a sport changer for Shopping campaigns on max clicks, as a result of Google’s algorithm is solely targeted on pulling in as many clicks as potential inside your funds—even when it implies that the price of a click on that leads to a conversion is unusually excessive.

If you need to leverage max clicks in your Shopping marketing campaign, the trick is to set a max CPC bid, however set one life like to the place your present CPC is at.

maximize clicks bidding option in google shopping ads

Image source

While you might not be in a position to alter particular person bids, you possibly can nonetheless make precedence bidding work on Max clicks by tweaking your Max CPC bid in accordance to every marketing campaign precedence.

3. Target ROAS

I saved the very best for final! Target return on advert spend (or tROAS) is without doubt one of the most typical Shopping bid methods as a result of it focuses on a well-liked Shopping metric: ROAS.

ROAS is considerably extra related to Shopping than CPC as a result of it takes into consideration the worth of a purchase order, fairly than simply the trail to the acquisition itself. For instance, you can have a low CPA due to a excessive conversion charge in relation to your CPC, but when all these purchases are beneath $5 you’re almost definitely not pulling in a wholesome return.

Similar to setting a max click on bid cap, you’ll need to set a goal ROAS in a wholesome spot above the place your present ROAS lies, but additionally the place your priorities lie.

target ROAS option in google ads

For tROAS and precedence bidding, you want to take into consideration how the algorithm bids in accordance to your goal. When the goal is larger, it should bid decrease to maximize your return (due to this fact, making use of to your excessive precedence/low bid marketing campaign) and vice versa.

Product subdivisions with the Google Shopping precedence construction

You’ll discover that every of the campaigns within the precedence construction subdivides by product sort. Think of subdividing as a chance to bid extra particularly on teams of merchandise in your stock primarily based on precedence and attraction.

Start by figuring out which merchandise in your stock are an important or that might drive essentially the most income. From there, you possibly can start subdividing by product type inside every marketing campaign to set a better bid with your precedence objects and a decrease bid with your decrease margin merchandise.

product subdivision example for google shopping priority bidding structure

Negative key phrase ideas for Google Shopping precedence bidding

We know that, since Google Shopping depends on product attributes over key phrases, a destructive key phrase record could make or break your purchasing marketing campaign. A thought-out destructive key phrase record will assist direct your Shopping searches to the right precedence campaigns on the completely different phases of your funnel.

As we lined earlier, you need to funnel your product-specific phrases down to the excessive intent, backside marketing campaign by negating these phrases out of the top-of-funnel marketing campaign.

negative keyword list tab in google ads dashboard

Your Google Shopping destructive key phrases might additionally differ by your targets and particular scenario. For instance, there could also be some competitor model names that you simply don’t need to present for as a result of these auctions are costlier and will trigger you to have a decrease click-through charge.

Negating out your individual model identify is one other widespread observe within the priority-based Shopping construction. This is as a result of individuals who seek for you particularly could also be repeat customers or have a excessive chance of changing—that are price a excessive bid.

example negative keyword list for google shopping priority bidding structure

Image source

And one of the best ways to discover destructive key phrases is thru the search phrases report. While it doesn’t give us the whole full image anymore, you possibly can nonetheless get an thought of the kinds of searches you’re displaying for and whether or not your SERP outcomes are too broad or too slender.

Get your [Shopping] priorities straight!

As now you can see, the priority-based Google Shopping marketing campaign construction permits you to inform Google the place you need your beneficial bids to go. With the flexibility to increase and decrease your bids in accordance to the stage of funnel every marketing campaign is focusing on, you possibly can keep away from losing spend on irrelevant clicks and maximize your ROAS.

Want to understand how your Google Shopping prices examine to business averages? Check out our Google Shopping benchmarks!

So, are you going to check out a priority-based bidding in your Google Shopping advertisements technique? Let us know within the feedback!