Today’s shoppers are researching and searching for products in more ways than ever before, across multiple platforms and devices. And every day, hundreds of millions of them use Google to search for the products they want and need. This creates a lot of opportunities to get discovered by potential customers—but to get the results you want, it’s important to get in front of the right customers at the right time.
That’s where Smart Shopping campaigns come in. They’re designed to help you reach shoppers at the ideal moment: when they’re searching for products like yours on Google. Shopify’s Google channel makes it incredibly easy to set up and run these campaigns right from your Shopify admin, so you can save time while driving more traffic, boosting sales, and growing your business. Using the Google channel can be a game changer for your marketing strategy—like it has been for businesses including Pono Woodworks, The Ollie World, and Xena Workwear.Why run a Smart Shopping campaign with the Google channel?
Smart Shopping campaigns are a terrific marketing tool that builds on top of your existing organic and paid strategy. Running a campaign with the Google channel empowers your business to:
- Reach shoppers across Google. In a global retail survey, 75% of shoppers said they used a Google product to help with their shopping.* Smart Shopping campaigns tap into this massive audience potential by putting your products in front of shoppers across Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, and the web. You’re able to reach new customers and also remarket to those who have previously purchased from or interacted with your store.
- Let Google’s smart technology do the work. Smart Shopping campaigns use Google’s machine learning to optimize your ads and automatically show your products to those who are more likely to buy and spend more. Just sync your product feed (more on that below), set your daily budget, and let Google do the heavy lifting to get the best performance and conversion value out of your campaigns.
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Set your budget and track performance from your Shopify admin. Whether you’re new to using Google Ads or a seasoned pro, Smart Shopping campaigns are simple to set up and run. After installing Shopify’s Google channel, you can easily connect your store to Google Merchant Center and Google Ads account directly from your Shopify admin. This allows your product feed to sync automatically, so your products can appear across Google.
Once you’ve got your products connected, you can launch a Smart Shopping campaign and track your traffic and sales, right from your marketing admin. And when you set up a Smart Shopping campaign, your products will also appear in free listings to help you drive incremental traffic and reach even more shoppers at no additional cost to you.
As busy business owners, these Shopify merchants were looking to grow their stores without devoting a ton of time to setting up, monitoring, analyzing, and adjusting marketing campaigns. Using the Google channel was the perfect solution, allowing each merchant to easily launch campaigns and leverage Google’s smart technology to save time, while achieving impressive results.
Success story: Pono Woodworks
Brett Gontarek of Pono Woodworks started his Shopify store to bring his sustainable wood products online and reach customers across the world. While his experience was in woodworking, not marketing, he knew that Google was where people go when they’re looking for new products. So to get his products discovered by shoppers across Google, he installed Shopify’s Google channel and created a Smart Shopping campaign—and it didn’t take long for him to see results.
Because Google handled the heavy lifting, Brett didn’t need to spend time manually setting up and managing campaigns. This allowed him to focus his efforts on improving the product pages for his most popular accessories, which led to his sales redoubling.
For every dollar Brett spent on his ads, he was getting $12 back in sales—a 1,200% return on investment. His online sales quickly grew by 106%, with sales from the Google channel accounting for a third of his business.
“I figured I could afford the cost of a latte a day to try it out. And it was worth it. The results of those first campaigns were mind blowing.” —Brett Gontarek, Owner, Pono Woodworks
Success story: The Ollie World
The baby-product market is full of noise, and Hindi Zeidman, founder and CEO of The Ollie World, needed a way to cut through it. After creating the Ollie Swaddle, she knew she had to get it into the hands of tired caregivers who could benefit from the helpful sleep product.
To help their small business stand out among the big players in their industry, Hindi and her team turned to Shopify’s Google channel and launched their first Smart Shopping campaign. To their delight, they attracted over 4,000 new customers and saw a 28x return on ad spend in six months—all without having to manually tend to the campaign.
“The great thing about Smart Shopping campaigns is that they really run themselves. They allow us to just sit back and make sure all the products are achieving a good return.” —David Poppell, Ads Manager, The Ollie World
Success story: Xena Workwear
As a maker of safety boots and other professional personal protective equipment for women, the team at Xena Workwear faced two challenges from the start: they needed to find and reach a niche audience, and they needed a way to demonstrate both the style and practicality of their products.
Xena CMO Eugene Furman knew that Shopping campaigns provided a highly visual shopping experience, using product images to catch the attention of shoppers. He decided to use Shopify’s Google channel to help sync and manage his product feed. In a few clicks, he was ready to log in to his Google Ads account and set up Shopping campaigns.The results were impressive: more than 90% of the shoppers the campaign drew to the Xena Workwear site were new customers, and the campaign delivered up to 8x return on advertising spend (ROAS).
“I loved that the setup process was so simple…If you have a special product that has a really unique look to it, the returns on Shopping campaigns are just phenomenal.” —Eugene Furman, CMO, Xena Workwear
Get started with a Smart Shopping campaign
Smart Shopping campaigns are a powerful way to reach more relevant customers and make your marketing dollars go further. Because Google helps you find ways to improve your ads over time and get better results, you can spend your time and energy focusing on what’s most important—running your business. For more information about launching your Smart Shopping campaign in Shopify, visit the following article and install Shopify’s Google channel.
New to Google advertising? Create a new Google Ads account with the Google channel and we’ll match your ad spend up to $150 USD for the first 30 days.