International roll out of Google Product Listing Ads: an opportunity to grow your exports

Google announced on may 21 that paid Product Listing Ads would be rolled out internationally during June 2012. According to a recent post “Connect, Click and Convert Around the World with Google Shopping”, Google believes that this new model, built on Product Listing Ads, will ”help retailers of all sizes connect the right products with customers around the world, increase clicks to their sites, and convert more shoppers into buyers.”
Google Product Listing Ads have definitely changed the game of paid search. Product Listing Ads were introduced by Google in 2012 so as to deliver product specific ads containing an image.

The e-tailer has to load all its product inventory into a feed (a structured spreadsheet, with descriptive fields determined by Google, such as Price, URL, Description, Size, etc). He has to make sure that the feed is always up to date and upload it into Google Merchant Center. Once this is done, the e-tailer will have to link its Merchant Center account to AdWords. Subsequently, great product ads with images and prices included will be showed in search results.

Benefits of Adwords Product Listing Ads

• Higher Click-through-Rate: Suppose there are two ads.
1. A simple text ad saying ‘Brand X sunglasses at $40’, and
2. An ad with pictures of great looking Brand X sunglasses, and other details.
The ad with pictures usually gets noticed first. Therefore, the CTR of the ads automatically increase on using Product Listing Ads.

• More Qualified Leads: Product image and details directly on the search engine results page help viewers make informed purchase decisions; which thereby increases the chances of conversion.

• Broader Reach: Your company is able to appear in multiple locations on the search result page, as a text ad and in the Product Listing Ad section. Thus you have more chance of getting a click on the ad, and you sell more abroad.

• Standard CPC rates: With Product Listing Ads you’re charged only if someone clicks on your ad and lands on your website. You only pay when Google directs a customer to your store. Similar to all ad campaigns on Adwords, product listing ads run on CPC basis. You just need to set a minimum bidding amount and daily budget per country for each day.

International roll out

Currently, Product Listing Ads are available in Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S.A.

Requirements for Product Listings Ads campaigns at an international level
For all other countries, Google requires translated product listings. Google requires that the product price be displayed in the local currency on your product page, including all applicable taxes and charges except shipping, so a multilingual e-commerce website will be very useful for that purpose. Products must be shippable to the target country, so if you ship from a foreign country, you need to provide the shipping information applicable to customers in the target country and cover all custom charges.

Call Openvalley to launch your International Product Listing campaign and take advantage of this new opportunity to grow your business abroad.