Are you interested in selling products online? Have products designed and ready to sell? Well, Google Ads is a good way to get started advertising your products. If you don’t have products to sell you can also use this platform to advertise your architecture firm. The platform has been around for a long time now and one of the core places people go to the shop and sell items. To accelerate your business you will have a competitive advantage if you understand how to use Google ads.

Multiple options and channels

Although Google’s search engine and adwords have been a prominent aspect of its business model it has expanded its offerings. Some of the additional channels or offerings include ads with Google Shopping and YouTube ads. Before jumping into paid advertisement strategies it is critical to evaluate the margins on your products and the necessary expenses to advertise on different platforms.

The first step is to take your product and evaluate your total base cost and include shipping costs and taxes if they apply. Then factor in your needed profit margins. The remainder is the amount of money you have available for advertisements. Since advertising on the internet has been for some time now it is more competitive and expensive than it used to be. The higher costs need to be considered thoughtfully to make a profit.

Google Ads examples with budgetary numbers

Here is an example of how to evaluate marketing budget per product. This first example would apply closely to Google Shopping ads.

• Anticipated product retail price $50
• Product base cost $25 (includes all materials and manufacturing costs)
• Transaction fees 3%
  • $50 – $25 – $1.50 = $23.50 remainder

Now take the remaining revenue and calculate the estimated clicks and website visits to generate a sale.

• 50 clicks per sale, each click costs $0.33
• $16.50 cost from Google Shopping for each sale.

Factor this into your base revenue and the remainder is a $7 profit. This works out to a 14% profit. Is this enough profit to justify selling the product? Keep in mind you may have other expenses as well like returns etc.

Let’s look at another example of Google ads on YouTube and other Google surfaces.

• Anticipated product retail price $50
• Product base cost $25 (includes all materials and manufacturing costs)
• Transaction fees 3%
  • $50 – $25 – $1.50 = $23.50 remainder

• 150 clicks per sale, each click costs $0.19
• $28.50 cost from Google ads for each sale.

At this rate, you would be losing $5 per sale. Not a good situation, unless your product has a high returning customer base. Return sales can make this up, but they are hard to obtain.

The difference between demand capture and demand generation

Generally speaking, there are two types of online advertising. Demand capture and demand generation. Demand generation is when a product isn’t well known by any user group. But there is an opportunity for a user group to be developed over time. Something new that hasn’t been seen before usually needs to take this approach. It may be difficult to calculate the return on ads spent because the sales for each dollar deployed on advertising may not directly correlate to sales.

Demand capture works the opposite. When there is already clear demand for a product in the marketplace there are already active buyers. The goal in turn is to utilize ads that attract those buyers to your site and purchase your products.

There are advantages to both methods. Consider how they affect your business and respective products. Demand capture is more straightforward because you know the customers already exist for the product you are trying to sell. There may be a limit to the size of your prospective market with this method. With demand generation, there may not be as many direct competitors and you may have an opportunity to grow a passionate userbase.

Getting started with Google ads

There are two platforms you will need to setup to start using Google for ads.

• Google Merchant Center
  • Platform to upload product information
    • Upload product information directly in “all products”
    • Upload product information via “feeds” and Google spreadsheets
• Google Ads
  • Platform to create ads in three campaign options
    • Search campaigns (text ads within Google search)
    • Display campaigns (ads on YouTube and mobile apps)
    • Shopping campaigns (ads within Google shopping)

Here is a link to the Google how-to for linking a Merchant Center account with Google Ads. – Google’s instructions to link accounts.

Once you have your products imported to Google Merchant Center it is time to evaluate which types of ads you are going to use. Here is a breakdown of the demand types for each type of ad on Google.

• Search campaign
  • Demand capture
    • Someone is searching for an answer or a service. “Architects in Seattle Washington?”
• Display campaigns
  • Demand generation
    • A YouTube user may not be watching to buy something, but they may be open to learning about a new brand.
• Shopping campaigns
  • Demand capture
    • Someone is directly trying to find products on Google shopping. They know what they are looking for and are ready to buy. In theory, there should be higher conversions with this system because they can see your product photo and price before they even click on your product link.

Using the Google platform for advertisements can be a little overwhelming at first because there are some nuances to publish and list products. But once it is set up it is pretty straightforward. Keep in mind to run the revenue calculations before you start spending a lot of money on ads. Because you can quickly spend way more money than intended on Google if you are not careful. Double-check your daily ad spend limits to help prevent overspending.

Google photo by Rajeshwar Bachu on Unsplash