Google Shopping is crucial to retailers. But, it’s already a competitive landscape, and that’s only increasingly the case. Enter Google Smart Shopping — Google’s automated solution to running a successful online shopping campaign. This has brought even more retailers to the platform, and enabled easy access to common listing and advertising best practices.
But, Smart Shopping is not a one-stop solution. You still need expertise and augmented analytics capabilities. To understand why, consider the following:
In order to truly maximise your Google Shopping performance, you need more than just a Smart Shopping campaign —and that’s where both third-party platforms and agencies come into play. In reality, the real and relevant question is: ‘Do I support my Smart Shopping campaign with an in-house platform, or an agency?’. Here, we are going to explore the pros and cons of both, so that you are equipped with the information you need to thrive.
A crucial limitation of Google Smart Shopping is that the automation only utilises data that is native to Google. And so, the Smart automations are only informed by a small portion of your retail ecosystem. Very broadly, an in-house platform will pool your data points across the entire retail journey — from depot to delivery.
An in-house platform will give you an informed overview of your entire retail performance. Meaning that broadly, it will afford you control, visibility and insight to maximise your digital marketing performance and provide transparency across Google Shopping.
You still have to do things! Unlike an agency, you cannot just onboard the platform and ignore it until it pops up with insights and actions. You need to migrate your data, set strategic goals, digest the insights pulled from analysis and more. All of this requires expertise that you may not have in-house.
Broadly speaking, everyone will benefit from a platform that can supplement Smart Shopping. Together, this delivers simple insights and straightforward workflows that can enable a competitive advantage. However, if you’re going to take this approach without agency support, executing your strategy will still come down to you, and you need to make sure that you have the resources, time and expertise to run that operation in-house.
While the introduction of Smart Shopping has made campaign set-up more simple — an agency can support your campaigns to reduce the limitations of Smart Shopping. In general, by partnering with an agency you can almost sign up and forget about the campaigns, leaving the management and optimisation leg work to your chosen agency. This all sounds great, but working with an agency can also provoke unwanted internal hand wringing. But specifically, let’s look at the pros and cons —
The most obvious advantage of utilising an agency is the lack of leg work your internal team will need to do to set up and manage your campaign(s) in the first place. But let’s dig deeper.
As with everything, while there are benefits to using an agency, there are downfalls too. We’ve named a few below to help you work out what’s right for you.
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Any business that doesn’t have the resources at their disposal to set up and manage an in-house platform will benefit from an agency. However, it’s critical that your agency of choice is able to deliver the kind of solution you need. Realistically, that likely comes down to the tools they deploy, and how you can work with them to provide access to the critical business data you have and then need to deliver the right solution.
In reality, using an agency and an in-house platform aren’t mutually exclusive. There’s a secret third option that we will explore now.
The way we see it, the choice between whether or not to have an in-house platform vs. an agency is misleading. You need to utilise a platform in any case — the choice is whether or not you run that platform in-house, or if you partner with an agency that will run the platform for you.
First, those who have the resources to set up a platform in-house, from a capital, expertise and time perspective, will likely do so. But, not every retailer is in this position, we see the decision journey between an in-house or outsourced platform as follows —
In both cases, in-house or agency, you need a sophisticated platform that can support your Google Smart Shopping campaign. Whether or not you outsource is completely determined by what you need, and your current capacity for platform management.
Both platforms run in-house, and those run by agencies are valid solutions to the limitations presented by Google Smart Shopping. Whichever way works best for you, depending on your in-house capabilities, the platform you (or your agency) chooses is the next vital decision.
Upp AI is an intelligent performance platform that is trusted by digital marketers to help your Google Shopping campaign thrive. The powerful Upp platform blends data from across your business, Google Shopping & the wider market to provide you with the insights, intelligence and brawn required to win. Without increasing your Google Shopping budget Upp can:
So, now you know how to deploy a platform in a way that’s right for you, you need to decide which platform is right for you. Come speak to us and get your free audit! We’re confident that our platform can drive your retail business onwards and upp-wards!