Google recently announced that the Google Shopping tab would show unpaid product listings beneath the sponsored products. These listings are also eligible to show on Google Search, Google Images, Google Maps, and Google Lens. The opportunity for organic free impressions could prove valuable to marketers, but the tracking tools from Google are not yet very robust. The Google Merchant Center shows a simple line graph of unpaid clicks, but wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to get some data in Google Analytics? Now you can!
Here is a quick and easy method for tracking the performance of your unpaid and paid Google Shopping product listings using the same feed. This method will not disrupt the ad click tracking.
Step 1
Add a new field to the feed named [ads_redirect]. The [ads_redirect] field from Google allows for parallel tracking.
Step 2
Map the existing product URL to the [ads_redirect] field. Google will now default to use this URL for all paid PLAs.
Step 3
For the existing [link] field, append a UTM parameter to your URLs:
?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organicshopping
From within Google Analytics, you will be able to segment Google organic traffic by campaign, and you can see performance from “organicshopping.” You can name your campaign however you like at the end of the UTM parameter, and that is the name of the campaign that will show up in Google Analytics.
Pretty cool! As always, Feedonomics is here to help you with all your feed management needs. Be sure to follow our blog for more Google Shopping tips and eCommerce news.
Brian Roizen is the Cofounder and Chief Architect of Feedonomics, a full-service feed optimization platform that optimizes product data for hundreds of channels. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and eCommerce webinars, and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land and other industry-leading blogs. Brian graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
