Google Shopping Ads vs. Amazon Sponsored Products (INFOGRAPHIC)

In this blog, we’ll analyze two ad types, Google Shopping Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products, point out their similarities and differences, and show you how to use them successfully. The eCommerce websites continually change and develop with the same goal–to achieve smooth and user-friendly navigation for customers during the purchase process. 

They focus on how easy it is for buyers to make a purchasing decision, collect important product information, compare with other products, pick a product variation, add to cart, finalize the checkout, and wait for product delivery. Web analytics and tracking systems immensely help capture what users are doing and how they interact with website elements. 

Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities, and according to Statista estimates, global e-retail revenues will grow to $6.54 trillion in 2022. Google Shopping Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products are ideal for showcasing products with rich product information formats, attracting and engaging customers, and increasing sales. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has increased online shopping since people spend significant time at home and have more time and needs to purchase products online.

The following infographic shows some of the online shopping habits and statistics. 

How we behave, what we see as relevant, and what is easy for us to use and navigate through are the reasons behind new ad formats, including Google Shopping Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products.

What are Google Shopping Ads?

Google Shopping Ads are visual search ads that include product information such as product image, price, and merchant name. They are shown to people already searching online for products like yours. 

• Product Image - Having a product image in an ad is crucial because we like to see the product and be sure if something is worth considering. When we make purchasing decisions, we want to feel good about it without reconsideration and avoid feeling guilty, which is the primary emotional behavior when deciding to make an online purchase. 

• Name - When we search for something, we have an image in our minds and associate a particular name. If the ad contains the product’s exact name, we are sure that what we found is what we seek. 

• Price - With Google Shopping Ads, you get to show the price, an essential element for online buyers. How much we’re willing to pay for the product depends on our needs, urgency, personal affinities, and what we consider reasonable. Communicating a competitive and acceptable price attracts the user to complete the purchase.

• User Ratings - We want social proof to help us in our final decision, so we like to see what previous buyers said about the item. The ads showing the review scores help us understand how they were satisfied with the product. 

To advertise your products on Google with Shopping Ads, you’ll need to create   Shopping Campaigns. These campaigns allow you to manage, organize, and optimize your ads. 

What are Amazon Sponsored Products?

Amazon Sponsored Products are a type of product-based ad on Amazon. Similar to Google Shopping Ads, these ads also show rich product details, including product image, name, price, store name, user ratings, and additional information. With Amazon Sponsored Products, you can reach high-intent shoppers actively looking for products similar to yours. 

These ads appear in shopping results and on product pages, helping customers discover and buy your products on Amazon. With automatically generated ad creative and automatic targeting, they present an excellent choice for advertising beginners. 

You can easily create and launch campaigns and also set your budget, bids, and targeting. 

Which ads are more effective?

Both Amazon and Google are aware of how important it is to show these ads in search result pages in ways that will guide the user to your product page to initiate the purchase. User experience is crucial in webshops, and having many obstacles will bounce the users out. Amazon offers a solution that is equal for all sellers, while the webshop is up to you and your developers. You need to create a path that will lead to purchase.

With Amazon Sponsored Products, your ads will perform great if you show products with relevant and compelling headlines, at reasonable prices, and with high review scores. Keep in mind that customers think about all the elements that will create positive emotion and trigger a purchasing decision. If your product is well optimized and has all the features that customers need, your ads will drive highly converting traffic. 

On the other hand, when you are using Google Shopping Ads, you will send the traffic to your webshop. So you must be sure that you are leading customers to the right product page that is optimized, with all relevant information, and showing an acceptable product price. The navigation to the final purchase step should also be easy to avoid a customer drop-off before purchasing. 

There is one big difference–people are more ready to buy when they are on Amazon since the purchase intent is more present within Amazon than Google. Amazon offers more items in one place and some easier product comparison through the search result page. Still, the customers are exploring both platforms. They have the habit of exploring more through Google search, which could bring you some traffic related to users who are not ready to buy yet.

Your ad’s success depends on product category, quality, reviews, price, shipping, etc. From this point, we can say that your ad will be successful in generating relevant traffic, while the conversion rate will depend directly on other factors.

Both ad types are doing an outstanding job in providing customers with the necessary information and generating traffic. Google Shopping Ads can provide high ROAS just as Sponsored Products on Amazon.

What systems are behind these ads?

The keywords trigger both Amazon Sponsored Products and Google Shopping Ads. 

• Google engine offers a smart system targeting that is more than just keywords. With Smart Shopping Campaigns, you will be sure that your ads are shown to the most relevant users searching for your products. Machine learning has high precision in targeting users when they have great purchase intent, and from these campaigns, you can expect a high ROAS. 

• On Amazon, you have to optimize the targets and bids to refine the results and maximize the sales.

However, if you use both platforms for your eCommerce business, run Google Shopping Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products to bring more sales. 

You’ll have the opportunity to improve your product’s visibility, traffic and scale the sales.

The final thoughts

If you have an eCommerce business with a large-scale strategy, using all the channels for reaching out to your customers, this ad format will bring you many sales on both platforms. We are not comparing Google Shopping Ads and Amazon Sponsored Products as different or competitive. These ads are a tool that will get you the results.

Use them smartly in scaling your business, include them within the strategy and budget planning, and optimize them as much as you can regarding the possibilities that those two platforms offer. As mentioned before, the main difference is the surrounding where these ads are shown. The results are great on both platforms.

Remember that your customers are using all ways to reach their goal–find what they want and purchase at the most reasonable price. Your primary goal is to be there when people search for a product like yours and consider buying, thanks to the most popular types of ads. 

At Sellers Alley, we have a team of PPC specialists ready to get your business on the one-way street to eCommerce success with Google and Amazon advertising. 

If you want to improve your marketing results and increase sales, start by booking a Google or Amazon audit today. Best of all, our audits are free! 

 About the author 

Stevan is a PPC and Analytics specialist, with almost 4 years of experience in digital marketing, covering PPC, Analytics data analysis & implementation and SEO. Google and Amazon advertising certified. Loves to share his knowledge with younger colleagues.