5 Tips For Success With Google Product Listing Ads (PLA’s)

Advertisers area taking advantage of (and realizing revenue from) Product Listing Ads at an astounding clip. VONT clients are no exception. We launched PLA’s with a client while Google was still beta testing the feature, and here are 5 things we learned along the way:

1. Think strategically about the product feed content

The product feed, which is managed through the Google Merchant Center, contains all the important and relevant information about the products you sell. The attributes contained in the product feed are used to help Google decide which ads (products) to match for which queries, and the details in the feed can be pulled into the Product Listing Ad itself (PLAs are search ads that include product images and prices). For example, be sure to include the most important keywords in the product titles.

2. Be granular in your campaign setup

Sure, Google makes it easy to launch a Product Listing Ad campaign by offering an auto-target option. You can link your merchant center feed to AdWords and press go, however if you want to succeed and optimize the best performing products, take the extra time during set up and create an ad group for each product.

This graph represents our client’s steep revenue growth following a strategic feed set up, and optimized ad group set up

3. Ad negative keywords

Even though the Product Listing Ads don’t display based on the traditional keyword paradigm, you can use negative keywords to better control which product ads show for which keywords. Run search query reports and enact negative keywords to prevent your products from showing on inappropriate or mismatched queries.

4. Include special offers

You can’t write specific ad copy for PLA’s, but you can include a special offer. If you have one, use it.

5. Opt in to the Google Trusted Store program and include reviews

The extra check-mark logo included with your ads when you participate in these trusted programs allow you to stand out from your competitors.


About VONT Performance Digital Marketing

At VONT we believe that change is the only constant in the digital world – and that excites us. When tools and environments are constantly changing, new opportunities to help our clients achieve success are constantly arising. Each new advertising technology, social platform, or design approach allows us to improve on the results we achieve for our clients.

We believe in this idea of continual fine-tuning so much that we named our company VONT, which means to achieve exponential improvement in incremental steps. It is our core belief, and the reason why we are not simply a web design company or simply a digital advertising agency, but rather a long-term, single source partner providing a comprehensive array of web development and digital marketing capabilities.

In short, we’re here so that our clients achieve success in the ever-changing digital world. If you’d like to learn more about VONT and the work we’ve done with our client partners, visit our Work page. Or, if you have a question, contact us. We’ll get right back to you!

Written By

The VONT Team