So, you’ve made it this far. The shop is up. You’ve added products. You’ve made some room in your bank account for the Spreadshirt commission. But then a few days later disappointment sets in. No one has found their way to your shop, except for the Google bot (and he didn’t even buy anything on the way out!). Visitors is what you need. But how?
Of course, shops can be marketed with your blog, website, social media or with some offline advertising efforts. Those things could take time if you’re starting from scratch. Talking to strangers on the street is a possibility. You could even try hypnosis.
But a simpler way is to buy customers. The most important tool to do this is still Google Adwords. But, how can you do that with a shop?
First thing’s first. Open an account on Google Adwords (Germans get a startup voucher here, couldn’t find this in the US but you can try signing up to get a voucher sent to you). Once your account is set up you can directly start a new campaign where you can think up and enter in keywords. Starting up, I really recommend only going for keywords with an “Exact Match“. This keeps the amount of users within limits and will keep you from spending your whole budget in one day. You will also ensure that you are attracting visitors who are relevant for your shop.
The next step is to write compelling ad text. You want to write copy which inspires lots of people to click, but doesn’t mislead them. The text should, of course, reflect what you have to offer in your shop. Sometimes it helps to add a price (“Shirts from £12.90) and another USP (unique selling proposition) like “Ready to ship in 48 hours” or “Wide range of shirts”. You can always grab some tips and inspiration from looking at what your competition is writing in their ads.
Another really important factor is where your visitors will land. Let’s say you have a website built around your shop, you can send your visitors there or directly to your shop. A good tip is to test both options to find which one converts more visitors to sales.
Google only shows one ad per domain. So, if you don’t have your own domain for your shop (i.e. you use the URL “yourshop.spreadshirt.co.uk”), you will have the problem that you are directly competing with Spreadshirt. The ad with the highest bid and Quality Score will be shown. Those who don’t have their own domain will need very specific keywords which Spreadshirt doesn’t bid on. Or, you’ll have to pay a lot more per click.
In order to optimize your campaign, it’s important that your Adwords account is informed how many orders you got per keyword/ad. To do this, click on “Reporting and Tools” and then on “Conversions”. There you can set up a new “Action” which you can name “Orders”. Under “Tracking Purpose”, you have to select “Purchase/Sale” and set the “Page security level” to https. Adwords will then show you a tracking code which you can put in your checkout. But, since Spreadshirt does this for you, all you have to do is copy the “conversions_ID” and “conversion_label” and enter them in your user area on Spreadshirt (under Shops -> Marketing -> Affiliate Programs“). Next to the Google logo, enter the “conversion_ID” for the Merchant ID and “conversion_label” for the Program ID. Then Spreadshirt will inform Google about orders in your shop and you’re ready to go!
If you want to improve your account and your ROI (return on investment), I’ve got a few tips up my sleeve in Part 2 of this series. But, I can say one thing: success only comes if you have a good shop which in the best case scenario speaks to a (very) specific target group or niche.
If you have any questions or would like to share your own experiences with Adwords, let me know in the comments!
Happy Selling,
Torge
The post Adwords: May Traffic Rain upon You! (Part 1) appeared first on The US Spreadshirt Blog.