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Why your business must use Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

Google Shopping is a great tool for consumers, which means that online retailers can also benefit. This is achieved through a platform that works like paid search, where your product is immediately placed in front of the consumer. With this, you can boost sales and brand awareness.

Regardless of the product, nearly every consumer first turns to the internet to find what they are looking for. More specifically, they use Google and increasing number of consumers is now using the Google Shopping function. The value of this is that it pools together a variety of products from different sources, enabling the consumer to easily make comparisons and quickly find what they are looking for without having to visit several websites. Once they have found the product, they can follow the link to the business website and make a purchase.

The value of this for the customer is clear, so online retailers need to capitalise on this if they are to succeed and stay ahead of the competition. In an ideal world, when a consumer searches for a product that you provide, your result will be the first that the consumer sees. When you have this level of visibility, it can have a tremendous impact on sales, brand awareness and reputation.

Google is fully aware of this and has taken steps to help businesses in all industries to succeed. This is with the release of a product in 2012 – Product Listing Ads (PLAs). This works very much like paid search; in that you can bid for the chance to be displayed and if your ad is clicked, you pay for it. Unlike paid search, PLAs show a picture of the product and the price. This is crucial and will determine whether or not the user visits your website for the product.

What makes it beneficial is its incredibly fast and effective way to get your brand noticed, and to direct traffic to your website. It is particularly valuable for new, unknown or small retailers, as it drastically improves your visibility and enables you to compete with much larger brands.

With this in mind, it is also a great tool if you do not have high rankings in paid search or organic listings. It can take months and months of hard work to appear on the first results page through search engine optimisation (SEO), whereas PLAs only appear on the first page. This means that your products are immediately placed in front of the customer and they are, consequently, much more likely to buy them and visit your website. Not only will you get the sale, but you may also obtain a regular customer who has just discovered your brand.

When these campaigns are run by specialists, it can allow any sized brand to compete with their biggest competitors and get noticed. This is why any online retailer should be using PLAs to reach their target audience.

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