How to increase conversions by 379% on Google Shopping

The PPC team at StubGroup Advertising loves using DataFeedWatch because of success stories like the following.

In late August 2015, we onboarded an online novelty retailer as a client. They were already running Google Search and Shopping campaigns.

This was exciting, because it would give us the chance to compare their Google AdWords performance pre-StubGroup to their performance post-StubGroup. We would get to prove to the client how our PPC skills and tools like DataFeedWatch would positively impact their bottom line.

Client Started With a Very Simple Feed

The client sells t-shirts, mugs, bobble-heads, bumper stickers, and other novelty items through their website.

When they came to us in 2015, the client’s Google Shopping campaign used data from a simple product feed uploaded manually into Google Merchant Center. The feed was basic — just enough to meet Google’s requirements, except for the several hundred products that were disapproved because of missing information.

Created a New Feed Using DataFeedWatch 

We pulled the product data from the client’s BigCommerce store into DataFeedWatch and built a new feed from the ground up.

Our goal was to give Google as much product information as possible. The better quality data you give Google, the more they like your products — and the better chance you have at a competitive edge.

In addition to mapping all of the required information, we used DataFeedWatch to add bonus fields such as:

• Gender
• Age Group
• Color
• Product Type

Fixed Disapproved Products

The next problem to fix was the hundreds products that were automatically disapproved in Google Merchant Center.

Disapproved products is a problem because:

1. The products can’t be advertised
2. Google doesn’t like seeing disapproved products in Merchant Center, and will sometimes suspend the account if there are too many disapprovals

Most of the disapproved items were disapproved because they were missing information that Google required. We fixed that by using custom rules in DataFeedWatch to add the missing information, or tell Google when the information legitimately didn’t exist (e.g. products that do not need unique identifiers).

Increased Conversions by 379% Year-Over-Year

Using the fresh, expanded feed from DataFeedWatch as our foundation, we dug into the Google Shopping campaign structure and looked for opportunities to increase clicks from the top-converting products.

In August 2015, the client had 2,429 clicks from Google Shopping. 

In August 2016, the client had 10,505 clicks from Google Shopping. 

That’s a 333% increase in click volume year-over-year.

Better yet, conversions increased by 379%.

Many factors contributed to the significant increase in performance, including market trends, changes to budget, and optimizations to the campaigns.

That said, DataFeedWatch played a critical role in our success by allowing us to advertise as many of the client’s products as possible and format the data in a highly optimized way.

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