Google Shopping is indeed an indispensable opportunity for e-merchants to promote their products online. This service is developed by Google and offered free of charge to satisfy both web store owners and their customers. It enables e-shoppers to pinpoint and compare any goods they are looking for on the Internet. Online businesses can upload their product feeds to Google Shopping database to let customers find their products in a quick yet efficient way. Before doing so, all you need is to sign up and create a free Google Merchant Account.
Google Shopping: Explained
Google Shopping is governed by two solutions: Google Merchant Center and Google AdWords. The Merchant Center is the place where you can literally keep and update all your product range information. The product data is arranged and stored in a format usable by other Google services, AdWords, for instance.
In Google AdWords you have a possibility to plan and deploy your online shopping campaigns, adjust your budget, set bids, measure KPIs and analyze metrics.
Product Listings ads supported by Google Shopping are quite different from conventional text ads. While traditional ad means are concerned primarily on picking the right keywords, Google tools go way further, orchestrating your bids, customer search results, website content and other things to help you zero in only on the right target audience.
In a nutshell, Google Shopping is focused on three main aspects:
Feed generation. It includes management of your product data as well as arranging the other information, essential for successful business online – pricing, product tech specs and merchandise imagery. Product or data feed is a file containing a list of your web store SKUs with attributes and other details. This file is usually uploaded to Google Merchant Center to be used by Google when it comes to showcasing to your prospective customers the advantageous features of your goods. This is the best way to display and advertize your product range online. Moreover, your website visitors have an opportunity to compare various shopping items and their characteristics to choose a variant that fits them best.
Bidding. You can make various bids to set up an effective sales strategy. The costs are totally dependant on many factors, but mostly on geolocation, time of the day and area and target audience coverage.
Performance benchmarking. Google Shopping allows you to monitor the overall online business performance and customize the shopping campaigns (bids adjustment, setting time for demonstrating ads, keywords, etc.) on the go.
Aligning your Magento 2 platform with Google Shopping
Magento 2 has been gaining more and more popularity in recent years among web store owners. According to the stats provided by SimilarTech, this e-Commerce platform is utilized primarily to augment shopping processes. To learn more about Magento 2 advantageous features, please, refer to our recent article.
Most online merchants glean benefits from combining Google Shopping capabilities, especially Product Listings Ads, with their Magento 2 based eCommerce store. However, it is highly recommendable to get some specifically developed Magento 2 extensions installed to your platform to enjoy the full scope of Google Shopping functionality.
So here we have singled out several Magento 2 software solutions that are widely acknowledged by online retailers and can help you out with seamless Google Shopping integration.
1. Simple Google Shopping by Wyomind
This extension provides you with a smooth and quick exporting procedure of your web store product data from Magento 2 platform into your Google Merchant Account. It also allows you to link your account in Google Merchant Center with all the product catalogs to ensure timely and seamless data feed upload and sync functionality.
Main features are the following:
- All your SKU information is included into data feeds
- Data feeds with multiple language and currency options are available
- The out-of-the-box sample XML pattern
- Timely warning notifications
- Quick attribute search function
- Data feed preview and grammar correction to avoid typos
- Product filtering in compliance with set of attributes
- Extended OR/AND filter options
- Intuitive data feed update schedule
- Easy-to-use monitoring of data feed generation
Amasty extension for Magento 2 based eCommerce stores allows you to create data feed files with full product information on the go and upload them into Google Shopping database. Multiple feed generation function together with automated and manual modes are available to increase your brand exposure among prospects.
The key features are:
- Quick feed template generation process
- Enhanced mapping
- Pricing format adjustment
- Various product sorts support
- Multiple feed format compatibility
- Manifold feed generation
- Smooth category attributes management
- User-friendly URL generation
Megawares ensures that this extension helps you skyrocket your online sales and drive more traffic to your web store. Due to its enhanced feed creation functionality you can easily generate custom product feeds not only for Google Shopping, but also for a number of other popular services.
The main advantageous features are:
- Product feed customization in compliance with your online business needs
- Currency and pricing formats converting
- Handy time schedule for data feed generation and distribution
- Easy product attributes modification and update
- Automatic and manual feed generation modes
- Unlimited feed distribution support
- Intuitive data feed upload configuration
- Seamless formatting capability with online shopping services like Google shopping, NextTag.com, Bing.com, Buy.com, Amazon Product Ads, NewEgg.com and many others.
4. Google Shopping Feed by Magmodules
Magmodules extension guarantees you easy-to-manage Google Shopping campaign creation. It assist in smooth transferring your product data from Magento 2 based eCommerce platform into many shopping services. You can greatly save your time on lead generation and product information management. The vendor provides a flawless data feed export with on-the-go options to change and add product information at any time you need.
The key features are:
- Easy filter configuration for product data export
- Complete compatibility with the latest Google Shopping version
- All Magento product types support
- Precise filtering by price, product availability, category, etc.
- Automated URL generation
- Smart Identifier Exist attribute
- Well-structured data feed creation
- Automated scheduled update
- No API or XML savviness required
Mageplaza released its Product Feed extension for Magento web stores that lets you update all the product data to multiple shopping engines and marketplaces. This extension is specifically great at syncing merchandize information between a Magento-based platform and Google Shopping. The vendor provides quick and intuitive installation procedure and helps you optimize the data feed management with a number of out-of-the-box templates.
Its most essential features are:
- Multiple data feed support
- New template creation
- Easy feed customization
- CSV, XML, TXT feed file formats support
- Manifold product types compatibility
- Customizable pricing settings
- Google Analytics support
- User-friendly interface
- Life-time upgrade guarantee
- Multiple language and store support
Should you require tried and tested expertise for integrating any extension you like with your Magento-based web store, feel free to contact us and we will surely help your online business out.