How to Advertise your Products on Google for Free During COVID-19

How to Advertise your Products on Google for Free During COVID-19

People are shopping online more than ever, and shipping providers around the world are still operating. If you can safely package and ship products – or deliver services virtually – your business can survive, and even thrive!

To help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google is giving away $340 million in free Google Ads credits to small businesses that have used their platform since the beginning of 2019. You can redeem the credits any time through the end of 2020 and use them for all types of ads – search, display, YouTube, and Google shopping.

What you business should do

To take full advantage of your ads, connect creatively with customers dealing with COVID-19 fallout. What problems are they facing that you can solve?

·         People are stuck in the hours. Does your product combat boredom, or keep them mentally or physically engaged?

·         Many are looking after their kids all day, every day. Do you offer educational activities or entertainment?

·         Some have lost jobs. Can you help them make money online or provide training to help them prepare for the future?

·         Others are working from home for the first time. Can you make this transition easier?

·         Most have more stress, more uncertainty, and less patience. How can you be a support for them?

Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list! Step back and really think about what your customers are experiencing, you can come up with ways to help them get through this time. (Hint: start by thinking about the challenges you are experiencing!) Three strategies to consider:

1. Develop new products, services or customer care methods

You may need to find way to keep customers engaged remotely or replace products that have lost demand with items that are more relevant. Or you may want to make your customer relations more personal and high-touch – more phone calls, live chats, webinars, and social media interactions.

The key is to continue reaching out and engaging with customers and leads. Meet their needs, whether by upgraded customer service, new products, new services, or all of the above.

2. Leverage WooCommerce extensions to maximize Google’s free ad credits

Google’s gift of $340 million in ad credits can go a long way towards staying in front of customers. Despite the need for physical distance, you don’t have to be socially distant! You do want to be there for customers and communicate that you’re ready to partner with them to  get through the crisis, but you don’t want to  create the impression that you’re trying to exploit the crisis for profit.

Your free ad credits can help! Create a special landing page with coronavirus-related products and offers and use Google Ads to send people to that page. Or use search ads to boost those products to the top of search results when someone’s looking for them.

WooCommerce also offers several extensions to help you use Google Ads and Google Shopping more effectively without investing too much time:

1.       Google Ads for WooCommerce helps you efficiently market your products on Google, Google Shopping, YouTube, the Display Network, and Gmail. Run ad campaigns without having to manage all the technical details or manually input product information. The extension syncs your marketing with your inventory and automatically updates your ads as you make changes.

2.       Google Product Feed helps specifically with Google Shopping by syncing your WooCommerce inventory with your Google Shopping account. You’ve likely seen Google Shopping appear above text search results. They tend to get more clicks than purely text-based ads, but usually cost less per click. This extension allows you to create a real-time feed to supply product information to Google Merchant Center, a prerequisite for setting up Product Ads.

Google Shopping takes a bit more work to set up and manage but has the potential to be very powerful for your business.

3. Change your offers

Updating your offers are one of the best moves your business can make during the coronavirus pandemic. This is the perfect time for special markdowns, limited-time deals, free shipping, free gifts, and other creative, money-saving offers. Add new products to existing ones and create special ‘stay at home’ bundles. Partner with other businesses and work together to reach a broader customer base. A board-game a seller could partner with an online dessert company to create a family game night package.

The the motivation here isn’t just to stay in business – though that’s certainly a priority – but to show people that you’re with them. You understand the hardships they’re facing, because you’re facing them too, and your business wants to help. The reality is, when your customers succeed, your business succeeds. So make it easier for them to do so, and they’ll remember you long after the current crisis ends.

Stay motivated, stay strong, and get creative. With the help of WooCommerce, your local community, and the free ad credits from Google, your business can weather this storm and come out stronger on the other side.