If you’re an eCommerce B2C business you should be using all capacity to take advantage of the current growing demand of the online market. There’s no doubt that consumer buying culture has changed with new social standards amid the current pandemic. Demand for less human contact and more convenience and accessibility is sure to continue to increase moving consumers to browse more online. Despite the country functioning at level 1 and being envied across the world, the new Covid strains are alerting Kiwi’s again to take caution of crowded areas like events and malls as much as possible.
Positioning yourself in the online market to supply to any obvious or potential demand will require a bit of research and industry knowledge. This could be the growing demand for “NZ made” or “NZ Operated” as Kiwi’s have been urged to support local businesses.
On the other hand, if your core product line is mainly international brands you will likely fulfill the demand for Kiwi’s who would usually buy international brands while travelling overseas. It was estimated that about 100,000 - 110,000 NZ residents were traveling mid-March 2020 pre-lockdown. Now post lock-down, Kiwi’s demand to travel overseas remains while the ability to stay stunted. With the extra cash not spent on plane tickets, consumers will be wanting to buy international goods from the comfort of their own homes.
Google holds 95.2% of search engine market share in New Zealand, so utilising Google Ads to push your online store only makes sense. During lockdown we saw huge spikes for search topics like “online shopping” and “delivery”.
Researching current search trends can give you some insight as to what your target market is searching for with intent whether it’s “best place to buy dog food online” or “office supplies delivery”. Use the Google Trends Tool and your Keyword Planner in Google Ads to research terms relevant to your business.Using this information, accommodate keywords and ad copy used in your search campaigns to capture your target market.
Google’s Smart Shopping ads use machine learning to show the most relevant products from your product feed across the Google Network including the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, YouTube, and Gmail. A key aspect of a smart shopping campaign is that it requires a set target return on ad spend (ROAS). Google’s machine learning uses this target to optimise the ads to show to those most likely to convert for the campaign to meet ROAS.
For efficient budget utilisation we would usually advise to pause product groups within the product feed that don’t perform as well as others. However, to take advantage of current online demand we would advise the opposite and instead enable your whole product feed available. Consumers are developing new behaviours and may be searching for products online that they would usually buy in store. This will also allow more options for Google to choose from when considering which products to show in display.
Similarly to adding extensions to your search campaigns, you can add programmes to your smart shopping ads in Merchant Center. Programmes include enabling customer reviews or product ratings to show on your ads and dynamic remarketing which displays abandoned products orders to the user across Google Display Partners.
For a step-by-step guide on getting started with Google Shopping, read Ben’s in depth guide.
Once your campaign has been set up, continue to evaluate its performance and don’t be afraid to grow your budget for smart shopping if the campaign is meeting your target ROAS. Although there are strengths and weaknesses of shopping ads, we’ve found success with smart shopping campaigns at Insight Online so we highly recommend trialling it if you fit the criteria.
If you have any questions about positioning your eCommerce business or any other Google Ads Services, don’t hesitate to contact us!
