Google Shopping for Car Dealers

If you’ve ever searched on Google for specific products, you’re likely to have seen Google Shopping Ads (also known as “Product Listing Ads”) at the top of the page.

They look something like this:

For dealers and dealer groups who also sell commodity items such as spares, alloys, bike/roof racks, there are a number of benefits to running Google Shopping campaigns.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, with Google Shopping you get pictures.

In terms of grabbing the attention of an audience, visual content tends to be far more compelling than just text content alone. Within the search results page, the shopping ads are also the only imagery, which again focusses the attention of your viewing audience.

Better Click-Through-Rate

One of the reasons for this is that people browsing for specific products tend to be further along the buying process. They often know exactly what they are looking for. Click through rates are also aided significantly by images which show the product clearly.
Reduced Cost Per Click

Google Shopping campaigns typically have much lower ‘average cost per click’ than standard search campaigns.

Mobile Visibility

With more searches conducted on mobiles and tablets than on traditional desktop or laptop PCs, it’s important for dealers to consider a mobile visibility strategy. Whilst traditional PPC search campaigns will still show above the organic search results on a mobile device, they are invariably limited to only two ads, which makes the competition for these ‘premium’ positions unviable for most dealers. That’s where Google Shopping Ads come into their own, appearing at the top of mobile searches in a carousel showing the first 15 results.

Automatically updated

Once you’ve set up an automated product feed, your Google Shopping campaign will update the inventory every night, ensuring that you’re not showing ads for products that you no longer sell or which are out of stock

Final thought

Whilst Google Shopping is a great option for dealerships that sell retail products, there are some careful considerations to make before embarking down the PLA route.

Depending on how many products you want to show for, the set-up time can be lengthy.
Google shopping ads don’t work by keyword, they require a comprehensive description of the product in a feed, which Google will then compare against a search result for relevancy. With this in mind, descriptions need to thorough, rather than ‘salesy’.
Be price conscious. Whilst Google Shopping isn’t directly a ‘price comparison’ site, the product price must be displayed along with the image and product title. Where multiple ads are shown for the same product, invariably the cost-conscious customer will be attracted to the cheaper option.