Leveraging Google Base and Your AdWords Account

Gerard Tollefsen - July 15, 2010

If you are running a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign with Google AdWords and you sell products through your website, incorporating Google Base in your marketing mix is a wise decision.  For one thing, Google does not charge a fee to submit your products and the visitors you attract from your Google Base listings within the organic search results are not based on a PPC model, in other words, free traffic!  When doing a search on Google, you can easily see the Google Base listings, also known as “Shopping Results”, within the organic search results in the middle of the page.

However, when you have active AdWords and Google Base accounts, the advantage of synching your accounts is that within the Sponsored Links section, you have the opportunity to have an image associated with your PPC ad (see screenshot below).  This can provide an excellent competitive advantage by “pushing down” all other ads on the right hand side of the search results page to accommodate your product image.  Unlike the Google Base “shopping results” within the natural listings, you do pay for clicks since it is technically your PPC ad, but your cost-per-click (CPC) rates are not any higher than a regular text ad.  You get the benefit of added real estate on the page for your sponsored ad, providing more information about your product and showing an image, all without having to pay additional CPC rates.

It is important to set up an optimized feed within the Google Base account and provide as much detail as possible about your products.  Simply supplying the minimum information needed to participate in the Google Base program will not ensure your PPC ads are accompanied by information from your Google Base feed.  Google has a list of required “attributes” for the minimum information required for a data feed to be approved.  In addition, there are “recommended” and “optional” attributes that can enhance and optimize your feed.  To give your PPC ads the best chance to display your Google Base product information (specifically an image and price) you should create a data feed that incorporates all of the required and recommended attributes.  Do not stop there, however, and also include as many of the optional product attributes as you can so your Google Base data feed is fully optimized.