To help brands and retailers of all sizes build stronger digital businesses, Retail Council of Canada and Google Canada have partnered to help answer your questions by leveraging Google’s insights and information.
Every week, brands and retailers are invited ask Google questions. Answers will be published weekly in RCC’s Retail This Week newsletter. Ask a question
Google Answers
Yes there is! It is a type of campaign that can be found within Google Ads called Local Campaigns. They are designed to help businesses provide their potential customers the information that they need to decide when and how to visit their stores. Local Campaigns streamline the process for you, making it easy to promote your stores across Google’s largest properties including the Google Search, Maps, YouTube, and the Google Display Network. Just add a few lines of text, a budget, some assets, and the rest is optimized to help customers find you. It uses your Google My Business information and only shows to people who are most likely to visit your store. It can be a great way to show people that are you open for instore visits. More information can be found here.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
We have rolled out many new features with Google My Business, which is the free product you can use to show information about your business when someone searches for it on Google. Specifically, you can add a post to share more details and timely updates about your business such as: information about temporary closures or reduced hours, precautions you’re taking and what products are available or whether customers can expect delays. You can also let your customers know how they can shop your store by adding options like pickup, delivery, curbside pickup, or in-store shopping. More information can be found here.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Yes! With the native integration between Google Analytics and Google Ads you can create audiences based off of customer behaviour on your own website. For example, you can create a remarketing list for customers that came to your website and added a product to cart or looked at 5 different pages on your website before leaving. These are one of the most powerful audience types you can use since it utilizes a high intent-to-purchase signal! These lists can then be added to any of your campaigns including search, display and video.
To create these audience segments, check out this support page for step by step instructions.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
COVID-19 has made shoppers concerned for their health and feeling stressed about shopping in-store. We recently commissioned a survey with Ipsos that revealed that 30% of Canadians are nervous about shopping in-store and 45% of Canadians feel more stressed about the in-store experience than shopping online.
And not only has the hesitation around in-store shopping accelerated online purchases, but also other behaviours within the omnichannel shopping journey. The same survey revealed that more people are looking online first to research and plan their buy – even just last week, I checked to make sure that my size was available before going to the store to try on a new pair of running shoes. These insights show how important it is to not only have a strong Ecommerce presence, but an omnichannel strategy.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
A positive operating cash flow is what’s going to lead your business through the rest of the year. With that said, there are ways to increase your relevance to the end user like using more relevant ad copy and activating helpful extensions (e.g. phone numbers, locations, sitelinks, etc.).
In addition, one of the key levers to help with your profitability would be to bid towards an ROI, or what we call Target ROAS. This will ensure that over a period of time, your marketing efforts will hit and maintain that efficiency even over periods of uncertainty. The link I shared can help you get set up.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
While schools are reopening, parents still have concerns around shopping in physical locations, which will greatly accelerate online spend for the upcoming back to school season. In fact, 78% of Canadian parents say they expect to purchase at least some of their supplies online, vs. only 16% in 2019. Based on this, you should ensure your online presence and your ads strategy is optimized to capture this shift in demand. For more insights, tips and access to Google experts, make sure you check out the next webinar in our Grow with Google: Retail Recovery series, “Get Ready for Back to School”.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Great question! We’ve learned that improving your load time by 0.1s can lead to an increase in conversion rate and average order value. You can read more of that here. To action these insights, Google has a free tool called Test My Site. Simply enter your URL and get recommendations on how to improve your mobile site speed, customer experience, and more.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Check out Skillshop for free e-learning courses on products like Google Ads (including Shopping), Google My Business, Google Analytics, Waze Ads and more. Learn at your own pace and get Google product certified here: https://skillshop.withgoogle.com/
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Google Trends (https://trends.google.com) can help you discover popular terms, rising queries within your own topics, interest by region, and related topics.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Hi there and thanks for your question.
Sorry to hear about your SEO specialist. Whether you decide to hire a new SEO specialist or use an automated SEO service, it’s a big decision that can at best improve your site and save time or at worst risk damage to your site and reputation. Here is a link to a guide on how to evaluate a new potential SEO provider. In addition, site owners like yourself can make simple changes (link here), that will help improve site experience.
Best of luck!
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Great question and certainly very relevant right now across the country. Updating your hours and store status in your Google My Business account ensures your customers know important details like if you’re open, what hours are, if you’re doing curbside pick up etc. Follow this to make updates especially if your business has been impacted by COVID.
Thanks for your question,
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Hi there!
While there must be a lot of considerations to prepare for, my advice is to ensure you are communicating changes with your customers. I would suggest updating your Business Profile on Google to reflect your phase of reopening. You may consider removing temporary closures, updating store hours, and using delivery options to highlight curbside pickup, deliver or in-store shopping. Check out our checklist here. And if you’re an advertiser, you should think about adapting your Google Ads strategy to ensure your business can be (re)discovered. Our full retail reopening checklist for advertisers can be found here.
Good luck with your reopening!
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Sorry to hear about the currency conversion issues you’re experiencing. These types of errors are addressed on a case by case basis, luckily we have a support chat/email team that can work directly with you to fix the issue here. Also, additional information on how to set up pricing and currency in Google Merchant Centre can be found here.
All the best for your business!
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Congratulations on adding e-commerce capability to your business, that’s very exciting! You can simplify your campaign management, maximize your conversion value, and expand your reach with Smart Shopping campaigns. This campaign subtype combines Standard Shopping and display remarketing campaigns, and uses automated bidding and ad placement to promote your products and business across networks. Here’s a guide on how to get started in your Google Ads account.
Best of luck on your business.
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada
Market Finder is a free tool by Google that can help your business expand globally! Discover the best markets for your business, resources to help prepare for international operations, and customer insights to fuel your marketing decisions. Try it here: https://marketfinder.thinkwithgoogle.com
LMK if you have any questions. Thanks!
Eric Morris
Managing Director, Head of Retail, Google Canada