Dec 26, 2022
How to Install Google Tag Manager on Shopify
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is one of the most useful tools for marketers. However, Shopify has no built-in integration for GTM, and you often need a guide to set it up. In this article, we’ll talk about how to add GTM to your store on Shopify. Also, how to link Shopify and Google Universal Analytics, and how to pass product value. Contents How to Install Google Tag Manager on Shopify Why Use Google Tag Manager for Shopify How to Set Up Google Tag Manager in Shopify Enable Enhanced eCommerce Reporting and Tracking Values to Google Universal Analytics Conclusion FAQ How to Install Google Tag Manager on Shopify Below, we’ll talk about why you should install GTM on Shopify at all, how to do it, and how to set up eCommerce without using GTM. Why Use Google Tag Manager for Shopify Google Tag Manager allows us to manage all of our marketing and tracking tags from one place, quickly set up and test performance. Without using GTM, marketers need developers to set up tags. For example: you need to add a Google Ads, UET Tag, Twitter Pixel tag, or Google Analytics 4 global tracking code to all pages; a form submission event, which will be triggered after the form has been submitted correctly; you need to install third-party codes that integrate with Shopify only through the site code or through paid apps. All of this can be done quickly in GTM in a matter of minutes. HYPERGROW YOUR E-COMMERCE BUSINESS WITH GOOGLE ADS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal How to Set Up Google Tag Manager in Shopify Method 1: Adding GTM to a Shopify Theme It may seem complicated, but after we’ll walk you through the steps, you can easily add Google Tag Manager to your Shopify store. Just follow the instructions below. Step 1: Copy the GTM Container Code Sign up for Google Tag Manager if you are not already registered. After logging into your account, go to the container and click on your GTM code at the top of the screen and copy the code from the section. Step 2: Insert the GTM Code Into Your Shopify Theme Files To do this, you’ll need to log in with your Shopify admin username. Themes > Actions (next to your theme name) > Edit Code Then copy the code from GTM in the section and add it to the theme of the site. The GTM code will now appear on every page of your store, except for the checkout and thank you pages. Step 3: Add GTM Code to the Checkout Page Follow these steps to find the order processing section. Settings > Checkout > Order status page, and then paste the GTM code there. GTM will now work on your store pages, as well as the thank you page. But the code won’t work in the checkout stages (when the user enters their credit card and address information), the code will work on the order completion page. Step 4: Check If GTM Works Through the “Google Tag Assistant Legacy” browser extension. Via GTM interface Method 2: Adding GTM Through Apps Apps help you set up more detailed tracking: product displays, events of adding to cart, actions with search in the list, checkout process, removal from cart, user ID and many others. If you’re only using Google Ads as your advertising channel, it’s worth noting that you can set up data tracking throughout your funnel without using paid apps. I’ll cover this in the section “Enable Enhanced eCommerce Reporting and Tracking Values to Google Universal Analytics”. Below are apps that will allow you to integrate your store with Google Tag Manager, Google Universal Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, Klaviyo, Snapchat and others. 1. Easy Tag — GTM & Data Layer Rating: 4.9 Integrations: Google Tag Manager, Google Universal Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, Klaviyo, Snapchat and 40+ more digital marketing channels. Price: $149/one-time charge Get more information here. 2. Elevar Conversion Tracking Rating: 4.5 Integrations: Google Universal Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, Google Ads, GA4, ReCharge & Carthook and 40+ more digital marketing channels. Price: $50/month Get more information here. Despite the wide functionality, the price is lower than other popular applications. This application is suitable for those who are going to test their store in a short period of time. 3. Analyzify Rating: 5 Integrations: Google Tag Manager, Google Universal Analytics 4, Facebook Pixel, Google Ads, Google Data Studio, Pinterest Pixel, Microsoft Ads, Tiktok, Pinterest, Clarity. Price: $749/one-time charge Get more information here. The price of this application is several times higher than the other two, and the number of integrations is limited. But the advantage of this application is that Analyzify specialists will customize it for you. Enable Enhanced eCommerce Reporting and Tracking Values to Google Universal Analytics You don’t need to install GTM on your site to enable eCommerce and set up a Google Universal Analytics value tracking. To install it, you need to enable eCommerce in Shopify settings and add the Google Universal Analytics code. 1. Advanced eCommerce should be enabled in the Google Universal Analytics account itself at the view level. At the property level of Google Universal Analytics, under “Property Settings”, copy “Tracking ID” at once. 2. Enable eCommerce in Shopify settings. After a while, you will begin to receive data on events. You can see them under “Behaviour” > “Events” > “Top Events” > select the “Ecommerce” category. With this data, you can create goals that you will track and send to Google ads. You will also start to get data on the value of conversions after the transactions. This can be observed under “Conversions” > “E-commerce” > “Overview”. Conclusion As you probably figured out, installing GTM on Shopify is pretty easy. You can choose whether to install GTM manually or with a paid program. If you still have questions about installing Google Tag Manager on Shopify and setting up eCommerce, feel free to contact our team. You can also read our other articles: The Importance Of Correct Conversion Tracking For eCommerce Projects How to Set Up Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing in Shopify 5 Must-Have Shopify Apps That We Use To Scale Ecommerce Sales At Lira FAQ How to install Google Universal Analytics on Shopify?First, create a Google account if you don’t have one. Next step is to make an Analytics account. Next, enable Google Analytics on your Shopify store and turn on ecommerce tracking (either basic or enhanced). To get help with the last two steps, contact our team. Is Google Tag Manager free to use?Yes, you can use this tag management system for free. How do I disable Google Tag Manager on Shopify?To disable it, you need to remove the GTM code in the Theme settings. There is also another option. You can delete the container in the GTM settings. In this case, the code of the container will remain in the site code and will not function. Why are Shopify products not approved by Google?The solution to this problem depends on the particular case. For example, merchants selling unique products (not dropshipping) often forget to mark the products as custom. Another reason for disapproved items — their images cannot be crawled by Google. But there are many other issues causing this problem. Contact us for a free consultation. Is Google Tag Manager going away?The popularity of this tool is growing, and there are new GTM resources — both free and paid — appearing all the time. ARTICLE BYVadim Turinov Performance Marketing Specialist working with PPC. I love working with customers from all over the world and solving problems I’ve never faced before. When not working, I read up on marketing to develop my skills. NEED TO SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITH GOOGLE ADS? WE ARE HERE TO HELP! Let's talk!
Read moreDec 9, 2022
Google Performance Max Shopping vs Standard Shopping Campaign
Google Shopping is a service from Google that allows users to search, compare and buy products from various sellers who have paid Google to advertise their items online. In this article, we’ll have a look at shopping campaigns and detail important differences between Performance Max and a Standard Shopping campaign. Contents How Does Google Shopping Work What Is a Standard Shopping Campaign? What Is Performance Max? What Tasks Does Performance Max Do? Performance Max Standard (Without Product Feed) Performance Max for eCommerce (Shopping Only) Differences Between Google Performance Max Shopping and Standard Shopping Campaign Conclusion FAQ How Does Google Shopping Work Imagine you want to buy a 4k TV. The easiest way to do this is to go to Google and type the keyword “4k TV” into the search box. Google generates search engine results pages (SERPs) filled with listings of 4k TVs with relevant information such as images, descriptions, prices, and brand names. I would like to note that in addition to the block with product cards, text ads will also be shown. Here is how it looks in product listings ads: Google Search Ads: Google Shopping tab: What Is a Standard Shopping Campaign? This is the campaign required to create Product Shopping ads. Product Shopping ads let you include an image, title, price, and your store or business name inside your ads, without the need for you to create unique ads for each product you sell. The key points you should know about the Standard Shopping Campaign: More time-consuming setup. Requires manual testing of ads (image and text combinations). Full control over every aspect of your campaign, but it takes more time to manage the ad campaign. You can disable online placements. You can manage location targeting. You can add negative keywords. You can add multiple landing pages to test ads. Shows only in search results and in the shopping section. GET 10 RECOMMENDATIONS TO BOOST SALES We will conduct a free PPC audit of your eCommerce brand and prepare at least 10 recommendations to increase your online sales Get Free Proposal What Is Performance Max? Performance Max (PM) is the type of automated campaign that works to achieve goals, pay for results and find customers wherever they are located. Performance Max has replaced Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. The main feature of PM campaigns is that they allow you to search for customers at all placements. The algorithm selects the placements itself. Ads can appear in search, networks, recommendations, Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps, and Discover. Placements cannot be excluded. A campaign with maximum effectiveness is available for four targets: Sales, Leads, Website traffic, Local store visits and promotions. What Tasks Does Performance Max Do? It covers more types of campaigns: PM campaigns use many different advertising formats. So, PM can be useful to you If you are going to promote your offer across multiple channels in different formats. This is full automation. Increase the number of conversions and the value of conversions. The smart algorithm automatically optimizes budget and channel rates to maximize conversions in real-time, across all placements. Machine learning models help predict more accurately which ads, audiences and ad object combinations will yield the best results. Receiving detailed information about the work of an automatic campaign. The advertiser can monitor how well the automatic campaign is performing. Information is displayed in the “Overview” section and “Insights”. Performance Max Standard (Without Product Feed) PMax is a versatile and flexible tool. Moreover, it is suitable for most businesses. Often advertisers do not have a Merchant Center product feed, but PMax can work without it, this is not a critical factor. If you don’t have an online shop, check out our article “Google Performance Max Guide” to learn about Performance Max running without feed. Performance Max for eCommerce (Shopping Only) The main advantage is that the system will take data on products and their prices directly from the product feed. The steps for setting up a campaign are the same as for Performance Max without feeds. The main difference is only in the connection of the data feed. To learn more, check out these available materials from Google: Create a Google Merchant Center account: Requirements for data feed Once you have linked your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts, you can create Performance Max Google Shopping. The differences appear when you set up the item group. Here the advertiser can set up item groups. That is, select the products whose images will be used in ads. To do this, click on the sign of the pen in the section “Listing groups”: Then we define the parameter by which we want to select goods. You can select by category, brand, item ID, condition, product type, channel, custom label: Next, we set up audience signals and extensions as we described in the “Google Performance Max Guide” article, and launch the campaign. Differences Between Google Performance Max Shopping and Standard Shopping Campaign The main difference between Performance Max and Standard Shopping Campaign is certainly in automation and simplicity of settings. Below we have prepared a comparison table that clearly shows the key differences between the campaign types. Quick and easy setup Full automation Shows on all placements Automatic tests of ads Plenty of landing pages Detailed reports of search queries Disable search partners Accurate targeting by audience Add negative keywords Performance Max Shopping + + + + – – – – + Standard Shopping – – – – + + + + + You will ask WHAT? How do I add negative keywords in Performance Max if there isn’t even such a section? Nice bonus for those who have read to the end. This is a hidden feature, but can be accessed. You can ask our team for help. You can find many examples that will tell you about the effectiveness of Performance Max, such as how it raises revenue by 40% or ROAS by 45%. Examples from Google: Performance Max campaigns New features to grow your business with Performance Max But do not forget that Performance Max is not a panacea and not all projects will show its effectiveness. It is worth conducting tests, and only by running different variants of Performance Max can you achieve success. So we can say that Performance Max is needed as a tool for scaling, moreover, with a quick startup. The disadvantage is obvious, and this is a limitation due to automation, which does not allow you to influence the advertising campaign in all aspects. Performance Max is like a black box. So you have to choose: control and transparency vs. ease of management and coverage. Conclusion Both Performance Max and Google Standard Shopping Campaign have their pros and cons, so choose what works best for your advertising campaign, line of business and marketing strategy. If you still have questions about the differences in shopping campaigns, or which type of shopping campaign to choose, don’t hesitate to contact our team. FAQ What are the pros and cons of PPC automation?Pros: Automation saves much of your time and money. With fast data analysis, errors are identified and corrected more quickly. Automation of routine tasks (e.g. keyword research) lets you focus on more important areas of your business. Cons: Automation is a black box, and this lack of transparency leaves you without valuable insights that would help you optimize your ad campaign. How to create Google Shopping Ads?There are 3 main steps: The first thing to do is sign up for a Merchant Center account. Create a shopping feed. Link your Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts. After completing the last step, you can start creating and launching Google Shopping Ads. Can you add negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns?Yes, you can do that, but there is a special condition for accessing this feature. You need to be a Google Partner to add negative keywords. Contact our team for a free consultation. What’s the difference between Smart Shopping and Performance Max?PM completely replaced Google Smart Shopping in autumn 2022. PM campaigns give your advertisements more visibility by covering Google Maps and Discover platforms. Foundational features remain the same. Is Performance Max worth it?PM is the best choice for those advertisers who have limited resources for optimizing various channels. Also, it’s an opportunity to unlock new customer segments. So, we can conclude that PM is really worth it and if managed properly, brings positive sales growth and improves ROAS performance. ARTICLE BYVadim Turinov Performance Marketing Specialist working with PPC. I love working with customers from all over the world and solving problems I’ve never faced before. When not working, I read up on marketing to develop my skills. NEED TO SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITH GOOGLE ADS? WE ARE HERE TO HELP! Let's talk!
Read moreDec 7, 2022
16 Best Places to Sell Your Product Online in 2023 + 3 Bonuses to Scale Your Online Sales
Over the past few years, we have seen the rapid growth of e-commerce. In 2020, only 17.8% of sales were made from online purchases. We expect that this number will reach 20.8% in 2023. Once you decide to sell your product online, you may be overwhelmed by the number of platforms and their features. How to choose the right one? In this article, we will take a look at the best places to sell your offerings online and learn the advantages and disadvantages of each option. Let’s get started! Contents Online Marketplaces to Sell Online Amazon Walmart Marketplace Target Plus eBay Etsy Bonanza Facebook Marketplace Instagram Shopping Craigslist Best eCommerce Platforms and Websites Shopify WooCommerce BigCommerce Squarespace Wix Weebly Ecwid Bonus: 3 E-commerce Options Not Everyone Knows About Google Free Listings Buy on Google Microsoft Ads Free Product Listings Conclusion Online Marketplaces to Sell Online Amazon Everybody knows Amazon. It’s the world’s largest online retailer where shoppers can find everything they want. Amazon retailers automatically gain credibility and trust in the eyes of customers. Pros ➕ Every day a huge number of users visit the platform to shop. Such a massive customer base makes Amazon a perfect place for online selling. Amazon will do everything for you. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) helps business owners sell their products by providing storage, packaging and shipping assistance. Consumers trust Amazon. Investor’s survey revealed that the marketplace ranks first with a Trust Index score of 71.5 percent. The opportunity to ship to over 100 countries worldwide allows sellers to expand globally. Thanks to the platform’s functionality, it’s easy for merchants to manage pricing, shipping rules, product catalogue, rates and inventory. Cons ➖ Huge competition is the main obstacle for new businesses. To be successful, you need to stand out from the crowd and create an outstanding strategy. You may want to collaborate with an Amazon marketing company. There is no integration with shopping cart systems. Merchants who sell on different channels need to take care of managing orders and keeping their stock status up to date. Check out the video on how to create a seller account on Amazon: Pricing Plans Referral fees Fulfilment fees Storage fees Start from $0.99 / item sold Referral fees vary by category. Start from $0.30 per item sold FBA fulfilment fees start from $2.47 per unit Start from $0.48 per cubic foot Amazon offers several optional programs, so there may be additional selling expenses for merchants. Considering all the above, Amazon deserves to remain the best e-commerce platform in 2023. But it may not be a good choice for beginners unless they sell unique or niche items. In this case, competition is not high and merchants have a chance to succeed. If you already have an online store on Amazon, scale your business with our Amazon PPC Management. Start selling on Amazon here HYPERGROW YOUR E-COMMERCE BUSINESS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal Walmart Marketplace Walmart Marketplace is one of the options for those who are searching for the best e-commerce platform 2023. Thousands of merchants offer different items on the platform including household necessities, electronics, toys and games and much more. Pros ➕ Competition on Walmart Marketplace is not as high as on Amazon, making the platform more appropriate for beginners. You have an opportunity to create your own return policy since sellers manage customer service and fulfilment themselves. Walmart doesn’t have any inventory limitations. Sellers with a large product assortment and inventory for all of their SKUs can especially benefit from this feature. Walmart sellers are only required to pay a referral fee that depends on the product category. It doesn’t charge merchants monthly unlike other marketplaces (e.g. Amazon or Shopify). This helps you measure how effective selling on Walmart can be for your brand. Shoppers can pay both with major credit cards and using alternative payment methods including AmEx Pay, Chase Pay, PayPal and Visa Cash. This decreases the shopping cart abandonment rate. Cons ➖ It takes time from applying to become a seller to go live. The process can last a month or longer. Not so many shoppers visit Walmart, so selling on this marketplace alone might be not enough for sellers. Referral fees are inconsistent and sellers are charged from 6 to 20 per cent commission. Pricing Plans Referral fees Listing – Fees vary by category. The lowest one is 6% (for personal computers) – Walmart’s slogan “Save Money. Live Better” represents the company’s aim to offer affordable prices on quality goods. The marketplace is doing everything to be the best in the industry and has some good features for sellers. Start selling on Walmart here Target Plus Target Plus differs from the platforms mentioned above. It selects the brands that can list their goods on the marketplace. But the company is planning to accept partner applications in future. Pros ➕ Being a seller on such a recognizable platform with a solid reputation will make your brand more popular and bring new customers. Online merchants shouldn’t put all eggs in one basket. Target Plus can become one of the platforms where you sell your products. The invite-only marketplace also means that the competition on it is not as high as on other platforms. Partners have a chance to easily increase their sales. Target Plus provides its partners with such benefits as in-store returns handling and a customizable storefront. You can get an invitation to become a seller on Target Plus if you increase your brand exposure and improve your performance on other e-commerce platforms. Cons ➖ It’s an invite-only program. For now, sellers don’t have the opportunity to join the marketplace without an invitation. Sellers have to ship their products themselves since there is no fulfilment service on Target Plus. Merchants should have a physical presence in the US. Orders can be shipped only within the country. Pricing Plans Referral fees Listing – Referral fees start from 5% – By carefully selecting third-party partners, Target Plus does everything to maintain high-quality product offerings. Check out the information here eBay eBay allows its merchants to sell their products and services worldwide. Every seller on the platform has a feedback score that shows how reliable and trusted the member is. Pros ➕ The platform is known to be a popular and trusted marketplace. It’s quite easy and fast to become a seller. Just create your store on the web portal and start adding products. Selling on eBay allows you to reach a large audience. You will always find interested clients no matter what your niche is. You can sell not only new but also used items. Using the auction feature, you can sell your items for higher prices. All you need to do is to set a starting price. Cons ➖ eBay charges commission fees that depend on the size of your business. There are several professional plans so that you can choose the one that best meets your needs. Having more than 180 million active users, eBay is a marketplace with high competition. Sellers cannot migrate their data from eBay to another platform. Pricing Store subscription Insertion fees Final value fees Start from $4.95 / month (billed annually) Every month, sellers get up to 250 zero insertion fee listings, or more (depends on the type of subscription) It’s a percentage of the total amount of the sale, plus $0.30 per order eBay has been one of the most popular places for online trade for a long time. In 2021, the customer satisfaction score with eBay was 76 out of 100 index points. Start selling on eBay here Etsy Etsy is the best choice for merchants that sell vintage and handmade items. If you are one of them, you may consider the platform as one of your priorities. Pros ➕ Etsy is very easy to set up and maintain even for sellers with basic or even low-tech skills. The marketplace gives you an opportunity to offer your items to a wide range of potential customers. Etsy charges sellers low fees for listed items. You will pay only $0.20 for each one. The next pro of Etsy is that it provides sellers with an established payment system. Etsy puts much effort into supporting merchants and educating them. Moreover, the huge Etsy community is always there to give you advice. Cons ➖ Platforms with huge audiences also have lots of sellers offering their items. The same goes for Etsy. One of the main issues that merchants face is price dumping. This is done to be competitive, but such practice may ruin businesses. There are not many themes to choose from. Pricing Subscription Transaction fees Listing There is an option for sellers in good standing (Etsy Plus), the fee is $10 per month 6.5% of the price sellers display for each listing plus the amount they charge for delivery and gift wrapping 0.20 USD for each item There are also additional fees that depend on a seller’s situation and country. Etsy is especially loved by those who create handmade items. What is more, new sellers get the trust of potential buyers immediately since Etsy is a well-known and reliable brand. Start selling on Etsy here Bonanza Simplicity and transparency are the features that come to mind when talking about Bonanza. Merchants selling toys, design items, jewelry, cosmetics and handcrafted items find this platform the perfect place for their products. Pros ➕ Quick setup. The platform is very seller-centric — it aims to be as simple as possible for merchants. It’s possible to import listings from eBay, Etsy, and other shops. Free customer support. Bonanza offers easy-to-use tools that help online sellers develop their stores — Seller Stats Dashboard and the Customer Marketing Tool. Cons ➖ Bonanza is not as popular as other marketplaces (e.g. Amazon or eBay), so not many shoppers are aware of it. Complex pricing system. Pricing Membership Transaction fees Final Value Fee Starts from $25 per month (billed annually) $0.25 per transaction (only for sellers without membership subscription) Starts from $0.50 Learn more about fees on the Bonanza Pricing page. Bonanza is considered to be a niche platform that is gaining popularity day by day. If you offer unique objects, you may want to start selling there. Start selling on Bonanza here Facebook Marketplace Facebook is not only a social network. It also has a marketplace feature that allows you to sell and purchase items in your community. Pros ➕ A small fee. Easy to use. You don’t need a technical background to start selling on the platform. Facebook has a huge audience using this social network every day. You have a chance to reach this audience. Facebook provides transparency. Sellers and buyers can see profiles of each other which builds more trust. The search results are based on location. Cons ➖ Facebook doesn’t provide any guarantees for buyers. No warehouse. Sellers arrange the process of shipping on their own. Risk of being scammed. Pricing Membership Selling fee Listing fee – 5% per shipment. For shipments of $8.00 or less sellers pay $0.40. $0 Start selling on Facebook here Instagram Shopping Social media nowadays is not only a place for entertainment and chatting with friends. Instagram has become a platform for showcasing your products and generating relevant leads. Pros ➕ Creating an IG shop is a fast and simple process. Convenient shopping experience as users don’t leave the app. Opportunity to promote your products with the help of influencers. Sellers can interact with users by posting different content (posts, stories, etc.), which will lead to more engagement and sales. Hashtag function that allows categorising products. Cons ➖ High level of competition. If you post content from a business account, you become less visible to your followers since Instagram’s algorithm prioritizes posts from regular users. Pricing Membership Selling fee Listing fee – 5% per shipment. For shipments of $8.00 or less sellers pay $0.40. $0 Instagram Shopping is a great way to turn your followers into customers. But you shouldn’t forget to regularly share useful and relevant content with your audience so that it stays engaged. Start selling on Instagram here Craigslist On craigslist, you can sell both physical and digital products. Pros ➕ Craigslist has a large user base. Sellers don’t have to pay for listing or selling items. Fees are charged only for some categories. This platform is a good choice if you want to sell to customers in your area. Cons ➖ Craigslist is quite an old website so it may not be very convenient to use. The platform is not as popular as its competitors, especially for young users. Pricing Craigslist doesn’t charge for postings except for some categories. Fees start from $3. Check the full list of paid postings here. Start selling on Craigslist here Best eCommerce Platforms and Websites Shopify Shopify is known as an ideal online selling platform for small businesses. It is also an e-commerce content management system (CMS). The CMS makes it easy to create and edit content even if your technical skills are not excellent. Shopify is the best option if you are new to establishing an online business. Affordable price and usability make the platform a good choice for both B2B and B2C. Pros ➕ The best option for beginners. Everything you may need while creating your online store is built into the platform. B2B functionalities available. Shopify design tools and a variety of customizable themes allow you to create amazing designs for your online store. With multiple payment options, it is possible to sell your product to anyone around the world. 24/7 technical support. If you have a problem, you can communicate with the support team via live chat, email or hotline. Cons ➖ Shopify content management system is great when you are getting started, but it’s not flexible enough. The platform doesn’t support email hosting. You need to use a third-party email hosting extension. Migration to another platform may be a challenge as sellers risk losing saved data. To avoid this, you should export your website as a CSV. Check out the video on how to get started with Shopify: Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Start from $1 per month (for 3 months) No transaction fees for stores using Shopify Payments. For those who use a third-party payment provider, there will be additional fees of 2%, 1% or 0.5% – The platform provides novice merchants with everything they need to successfully run their businesses. If you already have a Shopify store, scale your business with our eCommerce PPC Management. Start selling on Shopify here WooCommerce According to Colorlib, there are more than 800 million websites using WordPress as of 2022. WordPress is considered to be the best CMS for e-commerce. One of the WordPress plugins — WooCommerce — is created for users who want to launch an online store. Pros ➕ It’s free to install and use. There is no need to be a technical expert to create a professional-looking online store. Responsive capabilities of WordPress themes allow you to optimize a site’s performance on different devices. You can increase your site’s SEO potential by adding meta tags to titles, posts and images and using free plugins and extensions. Security is one of the benefits that users can enjoy. It’s regularly updated with security patches. Moreover, the experts monitor the platform all the time. Cons ➖ WooCommerce is a plugin which means you can’t use it on sites that WordPress doesn’t host. Another con that follows from the fact that this is a plugin is that WooCommerce is not as advanced as other e-commerce platforms. It doesn’t support multiple storefronts as well as languages and currencies. Pricing Web hosting Domain name Transaction fees Starts from ~ $7 monthly $15 per year Depend on sales volume WooCommerce is a plugin that turns your WordPress site into an e-commerce store and allows you to sell online. All you need to do is to install the plugin and follow the setup instructions. All the benefits listed above make it a popular choice for small businesses. Check out the information here BigCommerce BigCommerce provides a cloud-based solution for selling digital and physical products online. Since it uses a SaaS model, you don’t need any other software to download. BigCommerce works on a subscription-based model with four pricing plans. The Standard plan is $29.95 per month. Pros ➕ The platform is suitable both for small and big businesses. Many features available as standard allow you to save money since there is no need to buy third-party apps. Sellers enjoy the opportunity to create an almost limitless number of product variants. BigCommerce SEO features are also worth mentioning. You can customize your title tags, meta-descriptions and URLs. Online and offline payment methods are available. The platform also doesn’t charge transaction fees. Cons ➖ BigCommerce doesn’t provide multilingual tools. You can get this feature only using a third-party app. There are no email marketing tools. Sellers note that some options and settings are unintuitive on their location. Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Special transaction fee rates from PayPal Start from $29.95 per month 0% – For Standard plan, the fee is 2.59% + $0.49 per transaction BigCommerce is one of the leading cloud e-commerce platforms. Considering the number of built-in features, the platform is quite easy to manage. Start selling on BigCommerce here Squarespace Squarespace is a user-friendly e-commerce platform. It’s the best choice for those whose first priority is a great design. Pros ➕ Quick and easy setup. No need for coding skills thanks to the drag-and-drop editor, which simplifies a site build process for you. Squarespace is known as one of the best builders in terms of design. It has a wide range of professional looking templates. You can connect your site with social media profiles (Instagram, Facebook and others), so users can buy your goods without leaving the application. 24/7 customer support via chat or email. Cons ➖ No free plan. However, Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial. No offline payment options for customers. Merchants are allowed to sell only in one currency. Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Basic plan starts from $27 monthly (billed annually) 0% for Commerce Basic and Commerce Advanced plans – Squarespace provides you with numerous features and tools to create an amazing online store and grow your e-commerce business. Start selling on Squarespace here Wix It’s an easy-to-use no-code website builder that offers high-quality templates to create beautiful online stores. On Wix, you can sell both physical and digital goods (e.g. eBooks, audio files). Pros ➕ Setup is really quick, which is important for sellers willing to start as soon as possible. Intuitive and easy to use for beginners. Wix offers plenty of customization options. The platform provides merchants with advanced e-commerce solutions. For example, abandoned cart recovery feature, which aims to convert abandoned carts into sales. Wix allows sellers to create multilingual sites for different countries. Cons ➖ Not the best option for stores with a large inventory since the storage is limited to 50 GB. Unlimited storage costs $59 per month. Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Basic plan starts from $27 paid monthly The fee depends on the payment method and region. For example, for debit or credit card payments in the USA it’s 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 USD – Being a convenient e-commerce platform, Wix is ideal for launching small online stores. Start selling on Wix here Weebly Weebly is a great platform for small businesses on a budget. Pros ➕ Building an online store on Weebly doesn’t require programming skills. Affordable price of the Pro plan. Unlimited storage. Cons ➖ Limited number of templates in comparison with the competitors. The platform is not very SEO friendly. Lack of multi-channel integration. Weebly doesn’t allow online retailers to sell on social media or marketplaces. Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Start from $12 per month (billed annually) For those who are on the Pro plan, the transaction fee is 3%. There is no fee for the Business plan – Start selling on Weebly here Ecwid Ecwid is a SaaS product. Ecwid was acquired by ecommerce Lightspeed and currently powers around 950,000 online stores. You don’t need to create a new site. Using HTML, you add Ecwid’s code to your site, and after that you have a fully functional e-commerce store. Pros ➕ Free plan available. Very user-friendly. Everything is clear and straightforward. Integration with most platforms. A wide range of customization options for your products. It’s GDPR compliant. Cons ➖ Free plan is not good from SEO point of view. To have your product pages rank better, you need to switch to a paid plan. Only premium subscribers can enjoy phone support. Pricing Plans Transaction fees Listing Start from $0 (for up to 10 products) 0% – Ecwid is a perfect choice for small businesses. If you already have a website or blog, you may want to use this solution to start selling your products. As your business grows, you can upgrade your plan and get more features to grow your online store. Start selling on Ecwid here Bonus: 3 E-commerce Options Not Everyone Knows About The Lira Agency team has gained a lot of experience working with e-commerce. We have noticed that not all businessmen know about such services as Google Free Listings, Buy On Google and Microsoft Free Listings. Let’s have a look at each of them. Google Free Listings The program has become a turning point for e-commerce sellers since it allowed them to increase the discoverability of the products organically. Pros ➕ Getting started with Free Listings is pretty easy. It’s one of the ways to significantly boost your customer reach. You can list your products on Google Shopping for free. If you have a Google Merchant Center product feed, Google will display your products on Google Search, Google’s Shopping tab, Google Images and YouTube. Shopping ads are eye-catching. This is what leads to more clicks and higher conversion rates. Cons ➖ There is no guarantee that your product listings will appear on Google’s network. It depends on the quality of your product data and also on what users are searching for. By using Google Free Listings, you can reach new shoppers with no cost. Sign up here Related article AnalyticsE-commercePPC A guide to Google Free ListingsWhat Is It and Why Google Free Listings is a feature by Google that allows you to display Shopping ads on Google Shopping for free. The program is free, which is the biggest advantage. As a merchant, you pay nothing for participation and traffic. Google Free Listings is... Read More July 8, 2022 by Xenia Volokitina 161 Buy on Google If you want to sell your products directly on Google, then you should consider trying Buy on Google checkout experience. Pros ➕ Zero Google comission. Your customers will enjoy a convenient buying journey, which will increase the credibility of your brand. Google provides sellers with insights detailing product competitiveness against other merchants. Cons ➖ It is available for US merchants only. The program allows sellers to reach a broader audience and boost sales even if they don’t have a website. However, today not all merchants can implement it in their selling strategy. Get started with Buy on Google here Microsoft Ads Free Product Listings Organic product listings are also available in the Bing Shopping Tab. Pros ➕ It’s an opportunity to show your product offers for free on the Bing Shopping Tab. You can attract a large number of customers which will lead to conversion rates increase. If you’re already a Microsoft customer, then you don’t need to take any action to participate. Cons ➖ Product Listings aren’t available in all countries. Promote your products and reach broader audiences with our Microsoft Shopping Management. Start with Microsoft Advertising here Related article E-commerceMicrosoft Ads (Bing Ads) Microsoft Ads (Bing) Free Product Listings: What Is It & Why You Must Have It If you are planning to launch a Shopping Campaign on Microsoft Ads for your Online Store, you should know about another useful feature that you may use for free. This is Microsoft Free Product Listings. Thanks to this you can display ads with products for free. The base... Read More July 18, 2022 by Xenia Volokitina 145 Conclusion We have looked at 19 places where you can sell your products. We advise you to think carefully about which platform or service to choose and which will benefit your business the most. If you want us to help you with the setup, feel free to contact us. ARTICLE BYViktoria Arsenteva Marketing Specialist and Content Writer at Lira Agency. I enjoy creating valuable and informative content for our clients and visitors. I spend my free time reading books on marketing and psychology. NEED TO SCALE YOUR E-COMMERCE BUSINESS? WE ARE HERE TO HELP! Let's talk!
Read moreDec 1, 2022
How to Set Up Microsoft Shopping Campaigns (Bing Shopping Ads) for E-Commerce Store on Shopify
Microsoft Shopping Ads (Bing Ads) can become an effective way to promote eCommerce projects and attract leads in addition to Google Shopping campaigns. Microsoft Shopping campaigns are available in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and many other countries. You can find the full list of countries on this page — What is Microsoft Merchant Center? In this article, we will give you a step-by-step guide on how to set up Microsoft Shopping campaigns. Contents: What is the Microsoft Shopping Campaign Add your store to Microsoft Merchant Center Create a product feed on Shopify Upload your feed to the Microsoft Merchant Center Set Up Microsoft Shopping Campaigns Set Up Standard Microsoft Shopping Campaigns What Is a Microsoft Smart Shopping Campaign? What’s the Difference Between Bing Smart Shopping & Standard Shopping Campaign? Where Are Smart Shopping Ads Showing? Set Up Microsoft Smart Shopping Campaigns (Bing Smart Shopping Ads) Conclusion FAQ What Is a Microsoft Shopping Campaign? Microsoft Shopping Ads are similar to Google Ads. The ad contains an image, ad copy, price, and additional information about the seller (rating, etc). These ads visually stand out from regular search ads and organic search results. So the users can make a decision about a purchase before they visit your website. Here’s what a Shopping ad campaign looks like on Bing: Yahoo: and AOL: HYPERGROW YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal Add Your Store to Microsoft Merchant Center Select the Tools section on the main page in the upper right corner and select the Merchant Center: Select Create Store: Specify the store name, select confirmation via the UET tag or Webmaster Tools, select or enter the store URL and enable automatic verification of the SSL certificate (if your URL contains https): You must have at least 50 events recorded by the tag or the tag itself must be launched on the site within the last 30 days to confirm a store via a UET tag. In this case, the store confirmation can take up to 48 hours. If the UET tag has just been created and has not accumulated enough data to create a store, you can confirm it with Bing Webmaster Tools http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster Log into Webmaster Tools with your existing Microsoft Ads account. In the Profile section, fill the information About Me, Contact Preference, and Alert Preference. In My Sites section, enter the store URL and click Add. Add information about your website. Complete one of the proposed verification options and click Verify. The dashboard will be available once the URL is verified. Create a Product Feed on Shopify To create a product feed in Shopify, install and configure the Feed For Google Shopping app in your Shopify account: The decision to choose this app was based on our experience with different applications. It is the best in terms of cost and functionality ratio. In addition to Microsoft Ads, this application is also useful for Google Merchant and Facebook Shopping Ads. You can use any other suitable app. You can also import a product feed from the Google Merchant Center. Upload Your Feed to the Microsoft Merchant Center Go to the Feed For Google Shopping app, then to the Integrations section, and link the account in the app to your Microsoft Ads account: The feed will be uploaded to your Microsoft Merchant account and will be updated automatically: If you are importing a feed from Google Merchant, go to Import -> New import and follow the instructions. Set Up Microsoft Shopping Campaigns You have two options for Shopping Campaigns on Microsoft Ads: Standard Shopping Campaign, Smart Shopping Campaign. The first type of campaign will give you more control. The Smart Shopping Campaign will give you the chance to maximize the return by using automated bidding and targeting on Microsoft Search Network. Set Up Standard Microsoft Shopping Campaigns Go to the Campaigns page, click Create campaign: Choose the goal for the campaign: Sell products from your catalog Select campaign subtype: Standard Shopping Choose the kind of ads you want to run — Search Ads or Audience Ads Set a campaign name, budget, bid strategy, check advanced settings. Set a high priority for your Microsoft Shopping campaign, select your store, which products you will advertise (all or filtered) Set the region and other necessary settings, and Save the campaign. If you decided to advertise all products, you must divide them into product groups. Enable flexible bid management for each group based on information about the margin or ROAS. As a result, the advertising budget will be managed efficiently. To divide products into groups, select an ad group, go to the Product groups section and click on the arrow next to All products button. Select the parameter to divide the products. Then mark the categories you want and save: We divided products by Category, Product type. Other parameters are available, for example, Brand, a manually created parameter (Custom label), and others. Each category can be subdivided up to 7 times: Set up different bid strategies for different products (based on their margin or ROAS). After collecting statistics, you can use the automatic Target ROAS strategy: What Is a Microsoft Smart Shopping Campaign? The Microsoft Smart Shopping campaign is a more automated way to reach your goals with Bing Shopping campaigns. The campaign is now available to launch in most countries, where the Merchant Center is also available (you can find a list here). What's the Difference Between Bing Smart Shopping & Standard Shopping Campaign? Creating a smart shopping campaign takes less time than a standard shopping campaign. Just like creating a standard shopping campaign, you will need to have the Microsoft Merchant Center and Product feed. Be sure to update the feed at least once every 30 days. The Smart Shopping campaign, unlike a regular campaign, uses only automatic bid strategies. You won’t be able to run it on strategies with manual bidding. In particular, in a smart campaign, you can use: the Maximum Conversions strategy (with or without the target CPA setting), the Maximum Value strategy (with or without the target ROAS setting). By automatically assigning bids based on multiple factors in real time, a smart campaign will show your product ads at the right time to the right users, allowing you to increase sales and increase ROAS. Using real-time bidding algorithms, Microsoft can optimise your conversions while keeping costs under control. Since the auto strategies available in the campaign focus only on conversions, the system will not let you create a Smart Shopping campaign unless you have a UET tag set up and conversions tracked. In this case, you’ll get this warning when you try to create a Smart campaign: Where Are Smart Shopping Ads Showing? When you create a Standard Shopping campaign, you can choose where you want your ads to appear — on Search or on the Microsoft Audience Network. If you choose a Smart Shopping campaign, the system doesn’t allow you to select placements. The Smart Shopping campaign ads will show in search and in the relevant sections. On the search page before the search results: In the Shopping tab: To the right of the search box: Set Up Microsoft Smart Shopping Campaigns (Bing Smart Shopping Ads) Follow the same steps to create a campaign, but select the Smart Shopping campaign subtype. Then set the same settings as for the Standard campaign. An important point here: you may use only the automatic strategies in a Smart Campaign. Choose the campaign strategy: optimized for the maximum number of conversions, optimized for maximum value. Now review the shopping settings. Select your store, which products you will advertise, choose the correct country, enable local inventory ads if you have a local retail store. For the next step, find the country of your targeting, choose other settings if necessary and save the campaign. Related article E-commerceMicrosoft Ads (Bing Ads)PPCShopify How to Set Up Microsoft Ads (Bing) Dynamic Remarketing on Shopify Intro Dynamic remarketing on Microsoft Ads is an effective tool for promoting an online store. However, setting up all the necessary parameters for dynamic remarketing isn’t easy and requires some less obvious additional settings. Our article... Read More June 30, 2022 by Xenia Volokitina 84 Conclusion Microsoft Shopping campaigns setup is similar to the Google Ads setup: Create a store in Microsoft Merchant Center Generate and upload a product feed Set up a Microsoft Standard or Smart Shopping campaign Divide products into categories Switch the campaign to an automatic strategy (or start from an automatic strategy with Smart Shopping campaign) By setting up Microsoft Shopping ads, you can get more sales in addition to Google Shopping campaigns. We hope you found this article interesting and helpful. You can audit and optimize your ad campaigns yourself or order our services. If you have questions or want to share your experience on the topic, share it in comments, or use a contact form to send your question. FAQ Is Bing Shopping free?It’s not free for advertisers — they pay when a potential customer clicks on the ad. However, there is a free option — Microsoft Ads Free Product Listings. It allows sellers to display product ads for free. For more information, check out our article Microsoft Ads (Bing) Free Product Listings: What Is It & Why You Must Have It. Which is better: Bing Ads or Google Ads?The choice of the PPC platform depends on the particular business. Microsoft Ads is a great addition to existing Google Ads campaigns that can help reach more specific audiences. What is the best ad platform to run?Advertisers can be overwhelmed by the number of ad platforms. Unfortunately, there is no ideal platform that would be a perfect match for every business — you should take into account so many details! Where to begin? Contact our PPC specialists for a free consultation. What are the disadvantages of Bing?This search engine is less popular than Google, so advertisers cannot reach large audiences. But it is also an advantage as it makes advertising more affordable. The average cost of an ad is lower than on Google. Moreover, Bing’s audience has its own characteristics and differs from Google audience. So you need to have a good understanding of who your product’s target audience is, to understand if Bing is an effective platform for you. Who uses Bing?A typical user of Bing is older than 35 years old, married and has children. On average, Bing’s audience is older than Google’s. ARTICLE BYXenia Volokitina Performance Marketing Specialist working with PPC since 2016. Specializes in Google & Microsoft paid traffic for eCommerce & B2B projects. In love with analysis. When not launching effective PPC campaigns, she is reading about the latest eCommerce and data tracking trends. NEED TO SCALE YOUR BUSINESS WITH MICROSOFT ADS? WE ARE HERE TO HELP! Let's talk!
Read moreOct 31, 2022
Google Ads and Google Analytics Attribution Models Guide
This article describes Google Ads and Google Analytics attribution models in detail. After reading you will be able to choose the right attribution model for your advertising strategy and determine which channels or ads result in sales, are worth investing your budget in, and which channels can be dropped altogether. An attribution model is a principle of distributing conversions, transactions, and their monetary value between their sources. Contents Google Ads Attribution Models Data-driven Attribution Benefits Principles of Data-driven Attribution Google Analytics Attribution Models How to Choose an Attribution Model At this point, we can track a huge amount of data after a user clicks on a Google ad. The data is recorded through the gclid tag that’s added automatically to the ad link, for example: gclid=Cj0KCQjwnP-ZBhDiARIsAH3FSRcr0LrJXWrRtROUQt9sqMH4Qc0zDN1f_cMaK69FTsIzIM69QxpgCSgaAvXpEALw_wcB The gclid tag is generated automatically after the ad is clicked on. It sends data to the system, such as the search query, date of the click, data about the ad that was clicked, etc. The information received through the gclid tag will be stored in your browser’s cookie. Before making a conversion (call, form submission, purchase, and so on), the user can go a long way before that. The user may go from one ad to another, looking for a good deal. Eventually, when the user makes a conversion, the established tracking tag processes the cookie and sends it to the advertising account. Google Ads Attribution Models Let’s have a look at the attribution options available in your Google Ads account when setting up conversions. Last Click: Assigns all the value for the conversion to the last ad and the corresponding keyword that was clicked. First Click: Assigns all the value for the conversion to the first ad and the corresponding keyword that was clicked. Linear: Distributes the conversion value per conversion evenly among all ad interactions along the way. Time Decay: Assigns more value to advertising actions that occurred closer in time to the conversion. The click value doubles every week. Position-based: Assigns 40% of the value to the first and the last click, with the remaining 20% distributed among the remaining clicks. Data-driven: Allocates value per conversion based on the data already collected. It’s different from other models and uses collected data to calculate the actual value of each interaction on the conversion path. Data-driven attribution is used by default for most actions-conversions. Let’s break down the “Data-driven” attribution model, because it is the most universal. At the moment, this attribution is available for most advertising accounts, including new ones. You can check the availability of this attribution by clicking on the “Switch to DDA” tab in your Google Ads settings: Data-driven Attribution Benefits Provides information on which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns play the most important role in achieving your business goals. Distributes value at a specific point in the customer journey. Optimizes bids based on account performance data. This attribution model is the most versatile and fits most business models. Principles of Data-driven Attribution In Google Ads this attribution model follows two principles: The system develops models of conversion probabilities for all transition paths It uses data on users who have or have not made a conversion. The system analyzes this data and evaluates how likely a user will make a conversion at a specific point on the path. An attribution algorithm based on the data evaluates each Google ad shown. The result is a model that shows how likely a user is to make a conversion at each waypoint for a given sequence. The system assigns values to all methods of interaction with users The data-driven attribution algorithm takes into account the sequence in which each mode of user interaction is present and assigns a different coefficient for all transition stages. For example, one model is created for the case where a display of a media ad precedes a Google Search ad, and if they are in reverse order, a different model is used. These principles also allow you to connect a “Data-driven” attribution model for new accounts without accumulated data. Here’s a great example from Google: birthday attribution Source: ThinkWithGoogle Who made the birthday party a success? Source: ThinkWithGoogle When was the birthday party planned? Source: ThinkWithGoogle Time lag. Source: ThinkWithGoogle Note Data-driven attribution is not the ultimate cure-all. If you think the last click is the most valuable for your business, then use “Last click,” and so on. Google Analytics Attribution Models Have a look at the attribution options available in the Google Analytics account when analyzing data. Last Interaction: The latter source is assigned the conversion and all its value. Last Non-Direct Click: The last source is assigned the conversion and all its value, but if it was a direct link to the site, the value is assigned to the source before it. Last Google Ads Click: The last source from Google Ads is assigned a conversion and all its value. First Interaction: The first source is assigned the conversion and all its value. Linear: Distribution of conversions among all sources equally. Time Decay: Assigns more value to actions that occurred closer in time to the conversion. The click value doubles every week. Position Based: Assigns 40% of the value to the first and last click, and the remaining 20% is distributed among the other clicks on the path. Note You may have noticed that in the attribution models listed above, there is no “Data-driven” model. At the moment, you cannot select this attribution model in your Google Analytics account. It is only available for analysis in the paid version of GA-360 analytics. So if you have a “Data-driven” attribution model enabled at the conversion level in your Google Ads account, then the comparative analysis of Google Ads account data and Google Analytics data may differ, and you should keep this in mind. How to Choose an Attribution Model What are the differences and common mistakes when comparing Google Ads and Google Analytics attribution models? The main difference is in the data displayed in the accounts. A Google Ads account only receives data related to advertising traffic (single-channel system). A Google Analytics account receives data from different channels (multi-channel system). In Google Analytics, the default attribution model is the Last Non-Direct Click. Therefore, there is a “Model Comparison Tool” in your Google Analytics account, which allows you to compare different attribution models. If you don’t see any attribution models in your Google Analytics account, you can enable them yourself and create custom models (by moving the slider to the right): The most common mistake is an inaccurate evaluation of the advertising channel due to the initially chosen attribution model. We have already described above how to compare attribution models. For example, when analyzing ads with an attribution model based on the last click, you can find out that some campaigns don’t bring conversions (at the bottom of the funnel) compared to the other ad campaigns, and make the wrong decision — you disable these campaigns. But they could have played a very important role at the top of the funnel. In this case, all the other campaigns would stop getting the necessary targeted traffic, and their performance might worsen. Ideally, you need to test different attribution models and see what’s right for your business. Testing attribution models usually takes a lot of time, and you don’t always have it. That’s why we recommend using the “data-driven” attribution model. If you already have conversion data in your Google Ads account, there is an opportunity to apply tools to pick up an attribution model. Go to the “Attribution” tab in settings: The first is an attribution modeling tool. It allows you to compare two different attribution models (and compare other attribution models with “Data-driven”): The second tool is the main paths before the conversion. Here you can see how users interact with ads before converting: Conclusion Choosing the correct attribution model is an important step for properly analyzing your advertising channels. It allows you to interpret the results correctly and make effective strategic decisions. If you still have questions about attribution models, which model to choose, don’t hesitate to contact our team. Looking for help with Google Ads or Google Analytics? Talk to us! Our dedicated experts will perform a 100% free audit and propose a solution. Get in Touch ARTICLE BYVadim Turinov Performance Marketing Specialist working with PPC. I love working with customers from all over the world and solving problems I’ve never faced before. When not working, I read up on marketing and to develop my skills.
Read moreOct 7, 2022
10 Effective Types of Google Ads for Real Estate
Our agency has a lot of experience running Google Ads for Real Estate. We’ve worked with Real Estate agents, brokers, and agencies, successfully delivering sales and leads. In this article, we’ll share our experience, thoughts, and examples of effective types of Google Real Estate advertising. Google Search Ads Search Ads are universal and often prove useful for Real Estate. They lack the visuals and the richness of banner ads but provide all the necessary information. Users who are actively searching for a product can get familiar with your offer through Search Ads. It’s crucial here that: An ad is strictly relevant to a user’s search query, contains a keyword in headline and a straightforward and accurate description of your offer and its benefits. An ad covers as many details and important information as possible. It has to be thorough and include all available headlines and descriptions, as well as all the extensions. When a user wants to purchase real estate, he or she goes to Google to look for suitable options. They enter various keywords and start clicking on websites to get acquainted with the offers. Depending on the strategy you use, Google will show your ads in a certain way to help you reach your goal. In our opinion, the best and most effective solution is to teach your search advertising campaigns to bring in as many conversions as possible. By following this goal, Google will show your search ads in a way that will bring as many potentially converting audiences to your site as possible. Are you looking for quality Real Estate Google Ads management? We can do the work for you: launch ad campaigns, write compelling ad copies and deliver leads straight to your website. Get in touch with us and receive a free audit and a proposal. Get in Touch Don’t forget that in order to find the relevant keywords for your Real Estate business, you’ll need to perform keyword research. Here’s how you can do it: How To Make Keyword Research for Real Estate PPC On Google Ads Google Local Search Ads The best results are usually delivered by ads with the place/city/country specified. Local Search ads are great because they appeal directly to customers in the selected locations, thus increasing the chance of a conversion. It’s very important for Real Estate businesses, as their offers are almost always tied to specific locations. Moreover, local ads can be less competitive and become an easy way to stand out for lesser costs per click. Google Search Brand Ads Users often search the name of your brand or your competitors’ brands. We strongly recommend setting up campaigns with your competitors’ brand keywords. If you’ve been on the market for some time already and users know your brand, you absolutely must use brand campaigns. They’ll help customers who know you and who are loyal to your brand find you quickly and easily. As for brand campaigns with your competitor keywords, you can use them right away, when you’re just starting out and nobody knows you. Such ads bring additional traffic and conversions from users who are comparing offers on the market at the moment. But there are two important things to consider: Don’t ever use the names of your competitors in ad copies. Use them only in keywords. It’s good practice to use your brand name and key benefits in ads that target your competitors’ brand names. Remember, you don’t need to deceive users and pass for your competitors but you need to persuade and let everybody know that your offer is better than your competitors’. Google Search Local Ads in Other Languages If you are going to advertise in your local country and English is not the native language for you, you should use English keywords and ads along with the native language ads. Some people who are looking for property in your local country may do that in English as well. If you set up an English ad campaign, you will be able to reach an additional audience. If you’re looking for international Real Estate advertising, there are certain things to consider. Read more in our blog post: International Real Estate Advertising. Google Search Remarketing Ads Buying a property is an important and very expensive decision. In Real Estate, a user can decide and analyze the market for a very long time. Therefore, in this niche, it is extremely important to maintain contact with the user who is not yet ready to make a decision. It is essential to remind them about your offer and your key benefits. So that when the client is ready to make a decision — he or she remembers you and you are close. Remarketing Ads are great for this, they follow your visitors and show them your ads. So for example, if a visitor clicks on your ad but doesn’t buy right away, Google Ads will continue showing them your ad, for the related keywords. Google Display Network Ads The key difference between media advertising and search is that users in search may be potentially more eager and willing to consider your offers. Whereas users in Google Display Network are more likely to be looking for Real Estate-related resources or minding their own business online when they see your ad. In this environment, it’s critical to be able to draw attention to yourself with bright and accurate creatives. GDN Brand Ads This type of advertising effectively promotes local Real Estate agencies and helps to increase brand awareness. GDN Ads GDN ads help to attract customers similar to those who had already made a purchase, even before the former started looking for information on Google. So if your customers are just looking to buy real estate and aren’t sure yet, there’s a great chance to interest them and convert them to leads. Also, GDN ads allow the client to remember your brand and thus increase brand awareness. If the client remembers you and likes your offer and your benefits, then at the moment of making a decision, he or she can immediately go to your site for purchase through a branded search campaign, which we mentioned above. GDN Remarketing Ads The goal of remarketing in Google Display Network is to bring back the audience that has already seen your site. It’s similar to Search Remarketing, but the ads show on Google Display Network. A relevant ad with the property your customer viewed can greatly help your advertising campaign. Banners with special offers (discounts, free services, consultations) show good results in marketing campaigns. It’s also a good practice in Real Estate to build communication differently depending on how long the client has been visiting your site. Was it recently? Give the customer a special offer, an offer that will keep them coming back. Has the user been on your site long? Remind them who you are and what your greatest strengths are. In addition, there are many other scenarios by which you can segment your website visitor audience and prepare different interaction scenarios for them. You can divide them: – by the specific pages they viewed, – by the number of pages or by session duration, – by the micro-conversions that they made on the site, – etc. GDN Video Ads Google Display Network allows you to run video ads. Our experience shows that users interact better with video ads format. Your offer can also be better presented in a video ad. YouTube Video Ads The most expensive of all the types of advertising described above is YouTube advertising. It’s also highly effective at the same time. You’ll need to create a YouTube channel and high-quality videos. But, the feedback and conversion of video ads are much better than the other types of ads. Feel free to contact our experts with any quesions. ARTICLE BYAlexander Alekseev Project Manager at Lira Agency. Working with PPC since 2019. Extensive experience in getting results in different niches. Loves interesting and complex projects.
Read moreSep 29, 2022
Google Performance Max Guide
A Performance Max campaign is one of the latest and the most automated types of ad campaigns in Google Ads. On the one hand, it’s “the future today” — an automated campaign in which you upload content for ads, and the ads themselves find the right audience and bring targeted users to you. But not everything is as simple as it may seem at first glance. In this article, we’ll explore what Performance Max campaigns are, how to launch them, and what’s important to consider. Contents What is a Performance Max Campaign? How to Launch a Performance Max Campaign? Setting Up a Performance Max Campaign Creating an Asset in Performance Max Audience Signals Creating Ads Pros & Cons of the Performance Max Campaign Pros Cons How Do You Know If the Performance Max Campaign Is Right for You? Performance Max Campaign VS Smart Shopping Conclusion FAQ What is a Performance Max Campaign? According to Google, a Performance Max campaign is a goal-based automated ad campaign in Google Ads. It allows advertisers to access all their Google Ads networks in a single place. The Performance Max campaign is available on YouTube, DGN, Search, Google Discover, Gmail, and Maps. HYPERGROW YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal How to Launch a Performance Max Campaign? To launch a Performance Max campaign, you’ll need: A link to your website (you have the option to use particular pages, more details on this below). Content for creating ads. Based on these data: The campaign will analyze the pages of your website and determine which audience, for which queries, and on what sites to run the advertising campaign, The campaign will create ads from your content for different sites and platforms. Structurally, the campaign has Assets inside and it is similar to the group structure in other types of campaigns. At the Asset level, you can separate ads — test different ad content, run special offers and USPs. Google has created a helpful video on launching Performance Max campaigns, check it out: What Is Important to Pay Attention to When Setting Up a Performance Max Campaign? Select the goals you want your campaign to be optimized for correctly. If your account does not have target tracking set up yet, then it’s not the right time for you to set up your PM campaign yet. You can read our article on why it’s important to track conversions. There you will also find tools to help you verify the accuracy of your website conversion tracking. If your conversions are tracked correctly, measure the number of conversions. The more conversions you have accumulated in your account, the more chances you have to successfully teach your Performance Max campaign. If the number of your conversions is not high enough, we recommend setting up additional micro-conversions and including them in your PM campaign optimization. Micro-conversions can contain actions on the website that is close to the goal conversion. For an online store, adding items to the shopping cart, or viewing a certain number of products or pages may be considered micro-conversions. For a lead generation business, you can also use a certain number of page views, copy and click on a phone number and email, etc. If you have enough data in Google Analytics, you can use a Smart Goal. Tick the box if you want to show your ads to new users only. Set a budget limit. Otherwise, you risk spending a lot in the learning phase of the campaign. But at the same time, don’t underestimate the budget. The ad campaign won’t have enough data to learn, and you won’t get results. If you know the cost of conversions, target a budget of at least 5xCPA per day. Make sure the geotargeting settings have the correct country/city, etc. Also, select the ads to be shown to people located or regularly visiting your target location. Because by default, Google uses the presence of interest: it shows ads not only to those who live in the target location but also to people from other locations, who are actively interested. If this setting does not fit your business — don’t use it. We highly recommend that you don’t run a PM campaign on every page of your website without limits. Some pages often do not make sense to use in advertising. On the other hand, Google highly discourages restricting the campaign to landing pages, because we still want to teach the campaign to be effective and to do that it needs a lot of data to learn. With all this in mind, we recommend enabling the URL in the expansion section, and also setting an exclusion rule for the pages it doesn’t make sense to train the campaign on. What Is Important to Pay Attention to When Creating an Asset? Audience Signals When you create an Asset, you can add an Audience signal. These are additional markers for the campaign that you use as a compass to tell the campaign which audiences you think the ads will be relevant for. These are by no means the audiences that the campaign will target for sure, but merely the recommendations for the campaign. Nevertheless, it is very important to use this tool in your Performance Max campaigns. You can use your different audiences. It’s also good practice to divide assets by audience meaning, for example, one for conversion audiences, one for the special custom audiences, one for social demographic audiences, etc. This division of assets for different audience signals will give you an additional opportunity to analyze the quality of the campaign and its elements. Creating Ads Creating an ad for a PM campaign is quick and easy enough. But there is a BUT. When you create an ad, you just need to upload the right number of headlines, descriptions, images, logos, and videos. Remember that you need to choose the elements of the ad so that with any combination, you will always get a relevant and consistent ad. Here’s what you need to create ads: Headline: 3—5 headlines, Long headline: 1—5 long headlines, Description: 2—5 descriptions, Images: at least 1 square and 1 landscape image, Logo: at least 1 square logo, more are optional, YouTube video: not required, up to 5 videos of 1 min 10 seconds each. We recommend using as many elements as possible. As for videos, we highly recommend that you add at least one video. If you don’t add a video, Google will create a video itself wherever possible. If you don’t have the resources to prepare video content, at least try to make it using special services (for example, Offeo). This leaves you with one more element you can influence when creating an automated ad campaign. When preparing your ad campaigns, pay attention to the Ad Strength Indicator. It is important to create your ads with the value of this indicator not less than Average. The higher the value of this indicator, the more relevant and diverse your ads will be. What Are the Pros & Cons of the Performance Max Campaign? Pros The campaign is fully automated and will save you time as a professional or a business owner. The campaign can produce results, provided some basic conditions are met (we’ll discuss them in detail in the next section). A PM campaign will get you access to all of Google’s sites within a single advertising campaign. Running one campaign on all sites at once will save you energy and resources if you want to reach as many ad sites as possible within Google. Cons Reports Right now, evaluating campaign effectiveness is the biggest and most troublesome area. It’s not about evaluating the effectiveness of an entire campaign, but about understanding which sites, ads, keywords, and audience signals bring you a converting audience. You can’t know that. All the current PM campaign reports are summarized at the level of impressions. But you’ll never know which particular ad brought you all the conversions. But let’s first take a closer look at the reports of a PM campaign. Insights In this section, you will find a little information about the keywords and audiences your ad campaign was shown for. It’s a fairly general level of data, but still more than nothing. This is what the search terms report looks like. This is what the audience report looks like. Placement Reports You can find the site report in the Reports section of the Campaigns page. Unfortunately, you can’t see any stats besides the number of impressions in the Placement report. As you can see, the report has a separate summary section for the websites owned by Google, and for the websites from the Google Display Network. You can’t get more details. With the reporting problems for PM campaigns comes another problem — lack of control. If you want to build your Google campaigns as accurately and clearly as possible — a PM campaign will not allow you to do so. Consider this when you decide whether to run a PM campaign or not. Resources PM campaigns have a relatively high entry threshold. You’ll need these three elements to successfully train a campaign: Conversions. Enough budget. Enough time for tests. Let’s go into more detail: Conversions. Before launching a PM campaign, conversion tracking must be set up correctly. The number of conversions should be sufficient to train the campaign. For complex businesses with long decision times and low potential reach, training a PM campaign will be more difficult. Budget. You will need money for the launch. It doesn’t make sense to run a PM campaign with a severely limited budget. By severely limited, I mean a situation where, for example, a lead in your niche costs $1000, and you run a campaign with a daily budget of $100. At best, your daily budget should be at least $1000, at least $5000/day is better. Time. Campaigns need time to test different targeting audiences and find the audience that converts. The more data goes through the campaign regularly, the faster this will happen. Google itself recommends testing a campaign for at least 6 weeks before deciding on its effectiveness. When PM campaigns are discussed, the issue of traffic cannibalization always comes up: when one campaign steals traffic from another. Logically we assume that an automated campaign would simply deprive of traffic the ordinary search and GDN campaigns running on the same audience. But as our colleagues at Google assure us, this does not happen with PM campaigns. And indeed, our personal experience, as well as the experience of our colleagues confirm this statement. So you shouldn’t stop your other campaigns when you launch a PM campaign. A PM campaign can nicely complement your already running campaigns without cannibalizing them. How Do You Know if the Performance Max Campaign Is Right for You? If you have everything we described in the previous chapter, the PM campaign is right for you. Feel free to run it and expect some amazing results. I want to elaborate even more on conversion tracking in this section. A PM campaign shows much better results when you track conversions across the entire sales funnel. If we’re talking about eCommerce, the typical funnel usually consists of: Visiting a website, Viewing a product card, Adding items to the shopping cart, Buying a product. Often it is logical to set up tracking each of these steps as a goal for eCommerce products right away. What about lead generation businesses? In this case, too, it will be more effective to build a tracking funnel. Analyze the mandatory steps on the site users should take, and build this sequence of interaction with users. You’ll need to track and set each action in the funnel as a conversion and as a goal. Such a funnel will allow you to put your PM campaign into an auto-strategy mode based on values. If you set a value for each goal in the funnel, you will be able to choose which conversions you need more and which less at the strategy level. For lead generation, the value can be calculated based on CPA and conversions; for eCommerce, it is often transferred automatically. You will be able to set the campaign objective: this or that action is the most valuable to me, let’s focus on it. The thing is, for all other auto-strategies, all conversions are equal. They don’t care which conversions lead to purchase (and are the most important to you) and which ones are just steps on the way to the main goal. When you set the value to conversions and switch the campaign to an auto-strategy mode by value — you’re telling the campaign which conversions are the most important. Performance Max Campaign VS Smart Shopping Campaign If you need to promote your online store and you were planning to set up a Smart Shopping campaign, then you no longer have a choice — you should understand the PM campaign and be ready to work with it. Also, if you already had a Smart Shopping campaign set up, Google planned to replace most Smart Shopping campaigns with PMs by September 2022. You’ll still have the option to run regular Shopping Campaigns, but in our experience, Smart Shopping Campaigns are much more effective than regular Shopping Campaigns. But again, Smart Shopping, as well as PM campaigns are good and effective if you have enough products, traffic, and budget. So for those advertisers who have already been actively and successfully using Smart Shopping Campaigns, expanding to PM will not be very difficult. These advertisers will get even more reach through additional Discovery & Maps sites within the PM campaign. Performance Max will replace Google Smart Shopping and Local campaigns. Related article E-commerceGoogle AdsPPC Google Performance Max Shopping vs Standard Shopping Campaign Google Shopping is a service from Google that allows users to search, compare and buy products from various sellers who have paid Google to advertise their items online. In this article, we’ll have a look at shopping campaigns and detail important... Read More December 9, 2022 by Vadim Turinov 41 Conclusion The PM campaign is the future in terms of automation, which Google continues to strive for. More and more of the routine work is being taken over by Google automation. The important elements of launching an effective automated campaign are coming forward, as they used to: Articulated goals: why you’re launching a campaign, and what you’re planning to get out of it, Transparent and complete tracking of targeted actions on the site. If you have questions about Performance Max or whether automation is right for your digital marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to contact our team. FAQ How long does it take for Performance Max to work?New or edited ads are being reviewed for up to 48 hours. After that, it takes 1-2 weeks for systems to start showing results. What assets are required for Performance Max?First, you need to decide how many and what asset groups to create. Each asset group should direct to a specific landing page. For example, if you sell shoes, you might want to create asset groups for different kinds of shoes you offer (sneakers, boots, high heels etc.). Each of them will be directed to the relevant landing page. Second, you need to have quality and relevant images and videos. They should reflect the topic the asset group focuses on. Adding video is optional, but highly recommended. As for ad copy, you have to add headlines (3), a long headline, and descriptions (2) — these are minimum requirements. You also need to add your Business Name. A call to action can be generated automatically. How do I remove an asset group from performance Max?To remove it, look at the lower left corner of the asset group. There you will see “Enabled” — click on it — and remove. How do you scale Performance Max?There are many ways to scale your PM campaigns: set clear goals and adjust them regularly, add audience signals, find the time when your ads work best, add more assets, etc. The strategy depends on the specific business and campaign. If you need help with Performance Max, contact us for a free consultation. What are the cons of Performance Max?This type of ad campaign is rather new, so we don’t have much data on it so far. Moreover, we are expecting frequent updates from Google. Another disadvantage is that we have less control over campaigns. ARTICLE BYXenia Volokitina Performance Marketing Specialist. Working with PPC since 2016. Specializes in Google & Microsoft paid traffic for eCommerce & B2B projects. In love with analysis. When not launching effective Ad campaigns, she is reading up on the latest in eCommerce and data tracking last trends.
Read moreSep 21, 2022
How to Set Up Google Ads Dynamic Remarketing in Shopify
Introduction In this article, we’re going to explore an advanced type of remarketing — dynamic remarketing — and how to set up Google Ads dynamic remarketing in Shopify. In general, remarketing is a type of ad technology that allows advertisers to “follow” visitors on other websites. For example, you’re selling ebook readers on your website. Once a visitor goes to your website and browses your product selection, you can transfer the data to Google Ads, and the system will generate automatic ads with your products to show them on other websites to your visitors. So once your visitor goes to another website that runs ads from Google Network to read an article about ebook readers, Google Ads will show them an ad with your products, and if they click on it, they will be taken back to your website. So let’s find out what dynamic remarketing is, how to set it up and how it can help you increase conversions and drive sales. Contents What Is Dynamic Remarketing Why You Need Dynamic Remarketing How to Set Up Dynamic Remarketing in Shopify Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Analytics Setting Up Data Transfer Using Google Ads Tag Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Merchant Center How to Determine the Product ID Type in Google Merchant Center FAQ What Is Dynamic Remarketing Dynamic remarketing is a more advanced type of advertising technology that allows an advertiser to show not just a selection of products or random products, but the exact ones the user viewed or added to the shopping cart. This greatly increases their chances to convert. Dynamic remarketing also allows automatic ad creation instead of manually creating ads for all the products a user might visit, thus saving a lot of time. HYPERGROW YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal Why You Need Dynamic Remarketing It’s a great technology that increases the chance of a sale by constantly reminding the visitor about yourself with the exact products they viewed. Multiple tests and cases show that dynamic remarketing is profitable. If you have an eCommerce store on Shopify, dynamic remarketing is your choice to target past visitors and abandoned shopping carts. Setting up dynamic remarketing requires a little patience and knowledge, and the latter we’re going to provide you with now. How to Set Up Dynamic Remarketing in Shopify Before setting up dynamic remarketing, make sure you have the following settings ready: Your Google Merchant Center account is linked to your Google Ads account. Google Analytics account is set up in Shopify. eCommerce is enabled in Shopify and in your Google Analytics account. Your Google Analytics account has the following parameters: ecomm_prodid, ecomm_pagetype, ecomm_totalvalue. Google Ads dynamic remarketing in Shopify requires additional settings: product IDs, page type, product cost. All data can be transferred using two methods: to Google Analytics directly or through Google Ads using a remarketing tag. You can use them both at once or separately, depending on your goals. To learn how to add GTM to Shopify, check out our article How to Install Google Tag Manager on Shopify where you will find 2 ways to do it. Warning! The following instruction requires code editing skills. If you don’t have any or don’t have much time to learn, our team is happy to help with setting up dynamic remarketing for your Shopify store. Get in Touch Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Analytics You’ll need an additional remarketing tag in your Shopify account to transfer data correctly. Here’s how to place it in your Shopify account. Select the section “Online Store” in the left menu. Go to “Themes” section (1). In the “Actions” drop-down menu (2), select code editing (3). In the “Snippets” folder, create a new snippet, and name it dynamic-remarketing.liquid. Then add the following code: {%- assign product-id = "variant-id" -%}{%- comment -%}The format of the product IDs in the feed. 3 accepted values "sku" (SKU of the variant e.g. aga-012), "variant-id" (variant ID e.g. 21283160948841), or "product-id_variant-id" (product ID underscore then variant ID e.g. 28541777444969_21283160948841).{%- endcomment -%} {%- assign product-id-prefix = "" -%}{%- comment -%}Prefix to product-id. Leave blank if there's no prefix. This is likely needed if product-id_variant-id is selected so 123456_789012 becomes shopify_AU_28541777444969_21283160948841.{%- endcomment -%} {%- assign price-decimal-fs = false -%}{%- comment -%}If the decimal separator is a full stop like in USD and AUD currencies, set to true. If it is a comma like in some European countries, set to false.{%- endcomment -%} {%- comment -%}Change dimension1, dimension2, and dimension3 on line 16 to match your custom dimension number in Google Analytics.{%- endcomment -%} {%- if template contains 'collection' or template contains 'search' or template contains 'product' or template contains 'cart' -%} UA-PROPERTY_ID"> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'UA-PROPERTY_ID', { 'send_page_view': false, 'custom_map': {'dimension1': 'ecomm_prodid', 'dimension2': 'ecomm_pagetype', 'dimension3': 'ecomm_totalvalue'} }); gtag('event', 'Dynamic Remarketing', { 'ecomm_pagetype': '{% if template contains 'collection' %}category{% elsif template contains 'search' %}searchresults{% elsif template contains 'product' %}product{% elsif template contains 'cart' %}cart{% endif %}' {%- if product-id == "product-id_variant-id" -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': {% if template contains 'product' -%} '{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ product.id }}_{{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.id }}' {%- elsif template contains 'collection' -%} [{% for item in collection.products limit:4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.id }}_{{ item.selected_or_first_available_variant.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'search' -%} [{% for item in search.results limit:4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.id }}_{{ item.selected_or_first_available_variant.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} [{%- for item in cart.items -%}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.product_id }}_{{ item.variant_id }}' {%- unless forloop.last -%}, {%- endunless -%} {%- endfor -%}] {%- endif -%} {%- elsif product-id == 'variant-id' -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': {% if template contains 'product' -%} '{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.id }}' {%- elsif template contains 'collection' -%} [{% for item in collection.products limit: 4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.variants.first.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'search' -%} [{% for item in search.results limit: 4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.variants.first.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} [{%- for item in cart.items -%}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.variant_id }}' {%- unless forloop.last -%}, {%- endunless -%} {%- endfor -%}] {%- endif -%} {%- elsif product-id == 'sku' -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': {% if template contains 'product' -%} '{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.sku }}' {%- elsif template contains 'collection' -%} [{% for item in collection.products limit: 4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.selected_or_first_available_variant.sku }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'search' -%} [{% for item in search.results limit: 4 %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.selected_or_first_available_variant.sku }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} [{%- for item in cart.items -%}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.sku }}' {%- unless forloop.last -%}, {%- endunless -%} {%- endfor -%}] {%- endif -%} {%- endif -%} {%- if price-decimal-fs == true -%} {%- if template contains 'product' -%} {%- assign product-price = product.price_min | money_without_currency | remove: ',' -%} {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} {%- assign product-price = cart.total_price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' -%} {%- endif -%} {%- else -%} {%- if template contains 'product' -%} {%- assign product-price = product.price_min | money_without_currency | remove: '.' | replace: ',', '.' -%} {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} {%- assign product-price = cart.total_price | money_without_currency | remove: '.' | replace: ',', '.' -%} {%- endif -%} {%- endif -%} {%- if template contains 'product' or template contains 'cart' -%} , 'ecomm_totalvalue': {% if template contains 'product' -%} {{ product-price -}} {%- elsif template contains 'cart' -%} {{ product-price -}} {%- endif -%} {%- endif -%}, 'non_interaction': true }); {%- endif %} Adjust the code to match your project: Replace UA-PROPERTY_ID with the Google Analytics counter ID. If the custom parameters in Google Analytics are in a different order, match the parameter number and its value for dimension1, dimension2, and dimension3. In the code above, the product ID type matches the type passed to Google Merchant Center using the DataFeedWatch app (more on matching IDs in Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Merchant Center section). If it doesn’t match in your case, set the appropriate value in line 2 of the code: {%- assign product-id = “product-id_variant-id” -%} The code above has the comment section about the product ID types. If you don’t know what type of product ID you need, check out the last section of this guide: Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Merchant Center. If you need to add a prefix before the product ID, specify it in the line {%- assign product-id-prefix = “” -%} (IE, US, AU, …). In this version of the code, the prefix is not used and the variable is empty. Save your changes. Next step, in the Themes section, find theme.liquid, open it and place the line {% include ‘dynamic-remarketing’ %} immediately after the opening tag. Save changes. Next, place an alternative version of the code in the Shopping Cart. Go to Settings (1) and select Checkout (2). Place the following alternative code in the Additional scripts: {%- assign product-id = "variant-id" -%}{%- comment -%}The format of the product IDs in the feed. 3 accepted values "sku" (SKU of the variant e.g. aga-012), "variant-id" (variant ID e.g. 21283160948841), or "product-id_variant-id" (product ID underscore then variant ID e.g. 28541777444969_21283160948841).{%- endcomment -%} {%- assign product-id-prefix = "" -%}{%- comment -%}Prefix to product-id. Leave blank if there's no prefix. This is likely needed if product-id_variant-id is selected so 123456_789012 becomes shopify_AU_28541777444969_21283160948841.{%- endcomment -%} {%- assign price-decimal-fs = false -%}{%- comment -%}If the decimal separator is a full stop like in USD and AUD currencies, set to true. If it is a comma like in some European countries, set to false.{%- endcomment -%} {%- comment -%}Change dimension1, dimension2, and dimension3 on line 15 to match your custom dimension number in Google Analytics.{%- endcomment -%} UA-PROPERTY_ID"> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'UA-PROPERTY_ID', { 'send_page_view': false, 'custom_map': {'dimension1': 'ecomm_prodid', 'dimension2': 'ecomm_pagetype', 'dimension3': 'ecomm_totalvalue'} }); gtag('event', 'Dynamic Remarketing', { 'ecomm_pagetype': 'purchase' {%- if product-id == "product-id_variant-id" -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': [{% for item in checkout.line_items %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.product_id }}_{{ item.variant_id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif product-id == 'variant-id' -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': [{% for item in checkout.line_items %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.variant_id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- elsif product-id == 'sku' -%} , 'ecomm_prodid': [{% for item in checkout.line_items %}'{{ product-id-prefix }}{{ item.sku }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}] {%- endif -%} , 'ecomm_totalvalue': {% if price-decimal-fs == true -%}{{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' }}{% else %}{{ checkout.total_price | money_without_currency | remove: '.' | replace: ',', '.' }}{%- endif -%} , 'non_interaction': true }); Repeat the steps for the code in Themes: replace the UA-PROPERTY_ID, arrange the user parameters in the correct order, select the desired value for the product-id. You can check if the parameters are transferred correctly using the Tag Assistant extension. If everything is fine, the custom values will be transferred to the Google Analytics tag: Setting Up Data Transfer Using Google Ads Tag Another way to set up data transfer for dynamic remarketing is to use a Google Ads tag. Place the following code in theme.liquid: AW-XXXXXXXXX"> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'AW-XXXXXXXXX'); var _data = {'send_to': 'AW-XXXXXXXXX', 'ecomm_pagetype':'other'}; {% if template contains 'cart' %} _data["ecomm_pagetype"] = 'cart'; _data["ecomm_prodid"] = [{% for item in cart.items %}'shopify_{{ shopify_store_country }}_{{ item.product.id }}_{{ item.variant.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}]; _data["ecomm_totalvalue"] = '{{ cart.total_price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' }}'; {% elsif template contains 'collection' %} var _prodid = [{% for item in collection.products limit:5 %}'shopify_{{ shopify_store_country }}_{{ item.id }}_{{ item.variants.first.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}]; _data["ecomm_pagetype"] = 'category'; _data["ecomm_category"] = '{{ collection.handle }}'; {% elsif template contains 'index' %} _data["ecomm_pagetype"] = 'home'; {% elsif template contains 'product' %} _data["ecomm_prodid"] = 'shopify_{{ shopify_store_country }}_{{ product.id }}_{{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.id }}'; _data["ecomm_pagetype"] = 'product'; _data["ecomm_totalvalue"] = '{{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' }}'; {% elsif template contains 'search' %} _data["ecomm_prodid"] = [{% for item in search.results limit:5 %}'shopify_{{ shopify_store_country }}_{{ item.id }}_{{ item.variants.first.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}]; _data["ecomm_pagetype"] = 'searchresults'; {% endif %} gtag('event', 'page_view', _data); Adjust the code: Replace ‘AW-XXXXXXXXX’ with Google Ads tag ID. According to the type of Product ID you need, set the desired value for the ecomm_prodid variable, and remove the rest. At the moment the value of ecomm_prodid is set to shopify_US_81191654332_1055121650148. If you need the whole value, don’t change anything, just enter the country code instead of {{ shopify_store_country }}. If you only need the numeric value 81191654332, leave the brackets between the second and third underscores of each selected code fragment and remove the rest. If you only need the numeric value 1055121650148, then leave only the brackets after the third underscore of each code fragment. Next, place the code for Google Ads in the Shopping cart: AW-XXXXXXXXX"> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'AW-XXXXXXXXX'); // Conversion gtag('event', 'conversion', { 'send_to': 'AW-XXXXXXXXX/{{ google_conversion_label }}', 'value': {{ checkout.subtotal_price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' }}, 'currency': '{{ shop.currency }}', 'transaction_id': '{{ order.order_number }}' }); // Remarketing gtag('event', 'page_view', { 'send_to': 'AW-XXXXXXXXX', 'ecomm_pagetype': 'purchase', 'ecomm_prodid' : [{% for item in order.line_items %}'shopify_{{ shopify_store_country }}_{{ item.product.id }}_{{ item.variant.id }}'{% unless forloop.last %}, {% endunless %}{% endfor %}], 'ecomm_totalvalue' : '{{ total_price | money_without_currency | remove: ',' }}' }); {% endif %} Adjust the code: Replace the value AW-XXXXXXXXX with the value of the Google Ads code. Replace the {{ google_conversion_label }} value with the Google Ads conversion value. According to the type of Product ID, set the value for the ecomm_prodid variable, and remove the rest. Now the ecomm_prodid value is shopify_US_81191654332_1055121650148. If you need the whole value, don’t change anything. If you only need the numeric value 81191654332, then leave the brackets between the second and third underscores of each selected code fragment and remove the rest. If you only need the numeric value 1055121650148, then leave only the brackets after the third underscore of each code fragment. Setting Up Data Transfer to Google Merchant Center When setting up Google Ads dynamic remarketing in Shopify, you can submit your data feed using several apps from Shopify App Store. If you need one feed for a small number of products targeting one country, then a free app should be enough. If you need different feeds for different countries, it’s better to use a paid DataFeedWatch app. The feed can be created in different ways, depending on the method of transferring the feed from Shopify to Merchant Center. If it’s a free Google Shopping app, the data is loaded via the API. If it is a DataFeedWatch feed, then the feed is loaded through the specified feed URL. How to Determine the Product ID Type in Google Merchant Center The type of the transferred Product ID will be different, depending on the app used. It’s important that the Product ID type stays the same for all systems. You can find out which type of Product ID is passed to Merchant Center. Go to All Products and look at the values in the Identifier column. How to find out what type of product ID this value corresponds to? The easiest way is to adjust the code for passing the product ID to Google Analytics or Google Ads. In Google Ads, you need to pass the value for the ecomm_prodid variable, specified in the default code. It looks like this: shopify_US_81191654332_1055121650148. In Google Analytics, you need to follow the instructions at the beginning of the code and set the product-id variable to “product-id_variant-id”. Go to your website and use Tag Assistant to check which IDs match the product ID in the Merchant Center. Adjust your Google Analytics or Google Ads code to match the type of product ID that’s being passed to your feed. Now that the data feeds are set up correctly, you’re ready to start creating dynamic remarketing campaigns. Notes The script for Google Ads dynamic remarketing in Shopify was obtained through www.digitaldarts.com.au. We’ve used it extensively in our work and it has proven to be very useful. The author has published a single script for dynamic ads remarketing for both Google Analytics and Google Ads. You are welcome to test it yourself: https://www.digitaldarts.com.au/google-shopping/merchant-center-programs Let us know in the comments which script you’ve used and how it worked for you. FAQ How to use Google Ads for Shopify?To start advertising your online store on Shopify, you need to set up a Google Merchant Center account and the correct product feed. Then you need to link your Merchant Center with your Google Ads account. After that, you can start creating ad campaigns. What is the difference between remarketing and dynamic remarketing?Dynamic remarketing is more personalized. It allows you to show the products and services that people have already viewed on the site. There is also an option to show discounts or special offers that increase the chances of converting leads into customers. How do you check if dynamic remarketing is working?Dynamic remarketing settings are correct if you have the dynamic product parameters tracking (product id, page type, total value). You can use Google Tag Assistant to check it. Also, these parameters should be successfully tracked in your Google Ads account. You can check if dynamic parameter values are being tracked in your Google Ads account here: Tools & Settings => Shared Library => Audience Manager => Your Data Sources. There you will be able to see statistics for eCommerce dynamic parameters. Can you add GTM to Shopify?Yes, there are 2 ways to add Google Tag Manager to an online store on Shopify — you can add GTM to a Shopify theme or use one of 3 apps (Easy Tag — GTM & Data Layer, Elevar Conversion Tracking, Analyzify). Read the detailed instructions on how to do it in our article How to Install Google Tag Manager on Shopify. Can you integrate Google reviews with Shopify?Reviews play a decisive role for buyers during online shopping. There are 2 ways to add Google reviews to your Shopify store. You can either use Tagembed Shopify App or integrate reviews without this tool. Check out our article How to Set Up Product Ratings Display on Google Ads or contact our team for help. What is UTM Shopify?UTM allows us to track the performance of marketing campaigns. The obtained data can be used later to optimize other campaigns. If you want to create a UTM link, you should use Google Analytics URL Builder. Contact our team for a consultation. ARTICLE BYXenia Volokitina Performance Marketing Specialist working with PPC since 2016. Specializes in Google & Microsoft paid traffic for eCommerce & B2B projects. In love with analysis. When not launching effective PPC campaigns, she is reading about the latest eCommerce and data tracking trends.
Read moreJul 22, 2022
How Fintech Startup Finom Expanded Into New Markets
Finom, a B2B financial service startup which provides online financial services for SMEs, freelancers and the self-employed in Europe, has a proven answer to that question. Finom partnered with Lira on digital marketing to test performance channels, including Google Ads. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Finom started as a global player from day one. After a successful launch of invoicing MVP in Italy, they started to expand rapidly into other European markets with other banking services. Their next target market was France, and then Germany, where they faced severe competition and thus a high cost of customer acquisition. The challenge was clear: how to obtain a fair share of such a mature market as the German one, yet stay profitable? Step 1. First Tests Based on the experience with the launch in Italy, we started German expansion with the following campaigns: Search, targeting banking service keywords [Geschäftskonto, girokonto für selbständige, bankkonto umsonst / Business account, current account for self-employed, bank account for free]. GDN, targeting custom Intent audience with the same keywords. GDN, targeting website visitors, excluding already onboarded clients. All the campaigns were divided into 2 buckets with different CPL targets: 1) targeting users that haven’t interacted with Finom at all; 2) ones that are familiar with the business (mainly by being on the website), but haven’t converted yet. With time we added more KWs to the second (remarketing) bucket, including those shown in Recommendations tab in Google Ads account. In the beginning, we tested broader (long-tail) KWs related to opening a bank account for a business, trying different variants. The most effective KWs turned out to be those containing ‘business account’ [Geschäftskonto]. Other resultive KWs were ones implying an intent to open one, e.g. ‘current account for self-employed’, ‘bank account for free’, ‘current account opening’, ‘account online banking’, etc. we didn’t use any competitor’s KW at first, but that changed at the scaling phase. Step 2. Optimizing Towards Onboarded Customers Being a banking service provider, Finom measures their success by onboarded clients — those that have passed all the verification steps and subscribed and now enjoy the online banking and invoicing services to the full. The first month of testing revealed a way too high CPL, roughly 3x of the target. Most dramatically, the conversion rate from a lead to an onboarded client was about 7% (it did go up to 40% later though). The margins were at risk and something had to be changed. To scale up effectively and increase low-funnel conversions, the goals for the campaigns and bidding strategies had to be changed from Sign-ups leads to Onboarded customers. This would help to hedge against poor quality leads and high CPA. It was vital to hit about 50 onboardings per month to make sure targetCPA bidding strategy would work effectively. After setting up low-funnel conversions in the Google Ads account, it took a couple of months to reach this threshold, accumulating historical data. Once the volume was there, the low-funnel conversions were set for bidding strategies as a primary goal. That was the first step towards scaling. Partnering With Google At this point we partnered with Google to hit the ambitious goal: increase the amount of onboarded customers by 10x from the German market, which still remained quite a challenge. GET YOUR BUSINESS HYPERGROWTHGrow Your MRR With Our PPC Management for SaaS & B2B Tech Companies Get Free Proposal Step 3. Scaling With Broad Match The idea behind using Broad Match was that there were lots of generic queries left untouched, so it would help to increase the keyword coverage. It would also save time on brainstorming and testing new keyword ideas for Search campaigns. The Recommendation tab in the Google Ads account was signaling (based on auction-based modeling) that there would be an uplift in traffic and leads from adopting Broad Match. “We had doubts regarding the quality of leads from broad match keywords, so we did an experiment first. But after we got quite good results, we adopted the approach. Now it helps us to scale.”Ivan SivokhinHead of Performance Marketing, Finom We held an A/B test through Experiments for 14 days. The traffic was split in 50:50 proportion. Campaign A had about 60 keywords in the broad match modifier, while Campaign B had the same keywords, but the top-6 of them (by clicks and CR) were moved to broad match. The CPA target and the bidding strategy (tCPA) remained the same. By the end of the test, Campaign B showed 37% more conversions, -28% in cost per conversion and +2pp in CR. Seeing such a positive result, we moved tested keywords to Broad Match permanently. Slowly, but surely more keywords were moved to Broad Match, allowing Finom to be on track with their ambitious target for the German market. By the end of the reporting period, it was clear that about 85% of the leads came from Broad Match KWs. Step 4. Competing With Competitors: Redefining USPs To move further, Finom had to step into the competitors’ domain. We added branded KWs of the most active direct competitors mixing them with intent queries, but this time Finom tailored creatives and landing pages. After researching the competitive landscape, Finom redefined offers and changed creatives and landing pages. They moved their focus from general propositions to their strengths or unique features that competitors didn’t have. Landing pages were re-designed in such a way that would make Finom stand out and seem more attractive than a given competitor — they contained comparison tables highlighting the differences between products. The first screen of the landing page in the Competitors campaign before: After: The approach paid off — Finom started to get conversions from the competitor KWs on a regular basis, sometimes at a lower CPL than from the hottest purely intent-based queries. Overall, the cost per onboarded customer decreased by more than 2x. Next Steps Now we test new approaches and new beta products, like value-based bidding and Performance Max campaigns. Key Takeaways Set up reliable measurements and collect data to take advantage of Google Ads optimization — protect yourself from bad leads; Don’t be afraid to be bold — test new approaches to make sure they work for you; There are lots of fish in the ocean — sometimes the ocean may surprise you! Meet The Project Team Aleksandr Akhmadyrshin Project manager, Lira Agency Xenia Volokitina Performance Marketing Specialist, Lira Agency Tigran Chakhoian Associate Account Strategist, Google Let’s Connect If you’d like us to run your ads, let’s book a meeting where we’d assess your current situation, and goals and carry out a free audit of your marketing efforts to make sure we can help. Get In Touch
Read moreJul 19, 2022
Increased the Income of the Online Store Sibereon by 10 Times
Client Sibereon is an online store with products of its own brand Nisus for camping, fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation. Market: the USA. The Challenge The client had good sales on Amazon and eBay before. During the next business development stage, they launched their own online store on the Shopify platform. For the first months, the store team was managing Google Ads on their own, but the sales volume was not satisfying. Then Sibereon contacted us. Key task: increase online store sales and increase ROAS (Return on Ad Spend). HYPERGROW YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS We’ll run ads for your store, and you’ll be profitable in 60 days. If you aren’t, then you’ll get the next month for free. Get Free Proposal The Results In 4 months, sales increased by 10 times, while the advertising investment return increased by 2.8 times. The Approach 1. Set Up Conversion Tracking One of the most damaging and common technical mistakes is misconfigured conversion tracking or its full ignorance. In our case, the settings were made, but incorrectly — the conversions were duplicated. If, for example, a sale was made, then Google Ads counted it as 2 sales. Firstly, it led to inaccurate reports and the fake impression of good results. Most importantly, auto-strategy advertising campaigns were optimized on distorted data, which also had a bad effect on the real result. So first of all, we set up the correct events and user data-tracking by integrating the site, Google Ads and Google Analytics. This allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of each advertising campaign — whether the desired indicators and goals are being achieved. We also began to see the correct return on investment (ROAS) and cost per conversion (CPA) to find out if we were making a profitable investment. But most importantly, by setting up the correct conversion tracking, we were able to launch ad campaigns using machine learning algorithms bringing the best results in online sales today. 2. Changed the Feed Transfer Method The next step is to check the feed — a file with full products’ data, which is sent to the advertising systems. The advertising effectiveness directly depends on the method of its creation, completeness of information, and frequency of updates. The client had the standard Shopify integration with the Merchant Center installed, which was good. But Shopify has many other feed creation and submission solutions with more advanced features. We switched to the Feed For Google Shopping app. This is an inexpensive but functional solution. Here are some benefits we have received: We got the opportunity to integrate several systems at once: Merchant Center, Facebook ads, Microsoft ads (Bing) The feed is transmitted automatically via API, you do not need to manually update it every time Well-suited for a wide range of products You can set product categories for transfer to Google You can edit product titles and descriptions right in the app (no more feed conversion rules). You can always roll back to the original value from Shopify with one click 3. Fixed Bugs in the Merchant Center and Made a Number of Improvements At the time of launch, 12% of all products were rejected. We eliminated all comments and went through moderation. We have connected the Free product listings, recently released from beta testing. As a result, this source began to bring up to 5% of campaign revenue. We connected the beta version of the “Buy on Google” sales system. We added an autonomous sales channel — the sale of goods is carried out on Google platforms without going to the website. Configured additional attributes in ads: product rating, seller rating, special offers (promotional code for a discount), displaying discounted prices (old price / new price). This increased the credibility of the products and the attractiveness of the ads among competitors and increased the CTR. Testimonial ads generate more credibility and attract attention with their striking appearance 4. Restarted Advertising Campaigns Before the campaigns were relaunched, there were many attempts to get better results. We have tried such types of channels as Google Search, Google Display, DSA, Standard Shopping campaign, Smart Shopping campaign — all in different combinations and targeting settings. At best all attempts led to expensive conversions, at worst — there were no conversions at all, just a waste of the budget. Preparing for the new launch, we focused on the Google Smart Shopping campaign. This time we changed the strategy — we created all the conditions for transferring high-quality data in the required volume to advertising machine learning algorithms. We calculated the average cost per conversion (CPA) and set a daily budget that allowed us to get 10 conversions per day. If translated into a formula, then it looks like this: Daily budget = 10 x CPA We also set ROAS based on the actual average and business goals. After the launch, it was important to track the results and gradually make adjustments to the settings, or eliminate errors. For example, at some point, the conversion tracking tag went off. Therefore, it is always important to keep your finger on the pulse. As a result, this campaign began to bring the highest sales volume among all advertising campaigns — 60-70%. In addition to the Google Smart Shopping campaign, we have set up other campaigns, including Facebook ads and Microsoft ads (Bing). In total, advertising sources of traffic began to bring up to 80% of the campaign revenue. Meet the team: Aleksandr Akhmadyrshin, project manager Xenia Volokitina, lead engineer Elena Romanova, engineer Accelerate your sales volume with thoughtful PPC management by Lira Get in Touch
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