Google Shopping Holiday Season Preparations
Learn how to prepare and manage your campaigns to make the most of Google Shopping during the retail holiday shopping season.
To jumpstart your efforts, check out this video by the Google Shopping Team on top holiday trends informing you where to focus your efforts to make and keep your shopping campaigns competitive.
A key theme to consider this holiday shopping season is that:
“Shoppers today are more informed, purposeful, and more prepared than ever before.”
Consider this:
- Digital Advertising will influence nearly 70% of all holiday transactions [1]
- Over $100B predicted in commerce via smartphones this year [2]
- Overall shopping traffic on Google approaching 50% year over year growth [3]
So as you can see, there are lots of reasons to start planning your holiday sales strategy early to ensure you are getting the most out of Google Shopping this holiday season.
The checklist below will help with Google Shopping holiday preparations.
Google Shopping Holiday Preparation Checklist
To help readers get the most out of Google Shopping this Holiday Season, we have included the following holiday preparation checklist (as covered in the video above).
October
- Review your & your team’s Merchant Center email notification settings
- Review/fix feed errors in Merchant Center
- Confirm local feeds have the amount of products you expect to be able to advertise
- Ensure Google My Business is updated for any new store openings/closings etc.
- Finalize Store Pickup / Merchant Hosted Implementations (where applicable)
- Check the Opportunities tab within Merchant Center for feed and campaign opportunities
- Set-up your Merchant Promotions & Sale attributes
- Implement AIUs or ‘Take Latest” within AFM
- Create 90-day RLSA lists
- Create Top Products & Catch-all Campaigns
November/December
- Consider providing more frequent feed updates and adjust for high velocity items
- Monitor suspensions warnings
- Monitor your budgets to make sure you stay online
- Bid competitively to show on top and benefit from higher conversion rates
- Use Absolute Top Impression Share to monitor how competitive you are in the shopping auction
- Black Friday and Dec 21st (Online Shipping Cut-off) -ensure your LIA bids and budgets are prepared for the local surge during those days
Want Help Getting the Most Out of Google Shopping this Holiday Season?
References
- https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consumer-business/us-cb-navigating-the-new-digital-divide-v2-051315.pdf
- https://www.emarketer.com/Report/US-Holiday-Shopping-Preview-2017-Recapping-2016-Looking-Ahead-This-Season/2001992
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3_8qkoRGpQ&t=162s
Rick Noel is an experienced digital marketer enabling businesses and organizations to grow through the Internet, while maximizing marketing ROI (Return On Investment). Rick is the CEO and Co-Founder of eBiz ROI, Inc., a full-service digital marketing agency located in Ballston Lake, NY.
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