To manage your Shopping ads effectively, you have two main options: hire a Google Shopping consultant or adopt a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach.
There are some benefits and drawbacks to both, and I’ll be listing some of these here in this article. What’s important is that you find the approach that’s best for your business and aligns with your goals and budgets.
In this blog post, we will explore the key factors to consider when choosing between a Google Shopping consultant and a DIY approach.
1. Expertise and Experience
When you hire a Google Shopping consultant, you benefit from working with a Google Ads expert who specializes in optimizing product listings and maximizing campaign performance. The consultant should have experience working with similar businesses and you should check reviews and case studies to see examples of previous work.
And they should have in-depth knowledge of Google Shopping best practices, feed optimization techniques, and bidding strategies by staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends, so they can drive better results for your campaigns.
Adopting a DIY approach means taking on the full management of your Shopping campaigns with your own experience and expertise. While it gives you full control over all your campaigns, it requires a significant amount of time and effort to gain expertise and experience.
You’ll need to keep up with the latest Google Ads trends and take some training and courses to bring yourself up to a good standard to manage them effectively.
This approach may be suitable for businesses with the resources and willingness to invest in self-learning.
2. Time and Resource Considerations
Hiring a Google Shopping consultant means you can save valuable time to work on your business. That’s because setting up and managing Shopping campaigns takes a lot of time and resources and if you’re not able to commit to this, then you should consider hiring.
A Google Shopping consultant is also intricately familiar with Google Merchant Canter and Google Ads accounts. So, they can efficiently handle tasks such as feed optimization, bid management and performance analysis.
And you can focus on other aspects of your business, while a Shopping expert can focus on managing your campaigns.
If you prefer the DIY approach to managing your Shopping campaigns, you’ll need to allocate a significant amount of time to this. So, you’ll need to learn the platforms, how to setup product feeds, manage bids and analyze campaign performance.
This option may be best for smaller businesses with limited budgets and enough time to invest in acquiring the knowledge to manage their own campaigns.
3. Performance Optimization
A benefit of hiring a Google Shopping expert is you gain access to their expertise in optimizing your campaigns for maximum performance. They will identify areas for improvement, refine product feeds, optimize bid strategies and conduct competitor analysis to help you stay ahead of the competition.
With their knowledge and experience, consultants can help you achieve higher click-through rates, and improved return on ad spend (ROAS).
If you manage the Google Shopping campaigns in-house, this will require constant monitoring, testing and optimization. So, you’ll need to analyze performance metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, quality scores and many others. And you’ll have to regularly update ads, keywords, and search terms.
While a DIY approach gives you full control over optimization, it requires a continuous learning process to stay updated with the latest optimization techniques.
4. Cost Consideration
Hiring a Google Shopping consultant involves a financial investment. So, you’ll pay a fee for such services as feed creation, campaign set up, campaign management, conversion rate optimization and so on. And the amount you pay depends on their expertise, experience and the number of campaigns running.
The hourly rate of a Google Shopping consultant depends on their expertise and experience. This starts from about $30 per hour for less experienced freelancers to over $200 per hour for the most experienced and agencies.
Managing Shopping campaigns on your own can be cost-effective in terms of not having to pay a consultant’s fees. However, you have to consider the opportunity cost of spending time learning the system.
There may be a learning curve for you and potential mistakes that could impact the campaign’s performance and cost you more in the long run.
Conclusion
Choosing to hire a Google Shopping consultant or follow the DIY approach is something you should review carefully when thinking about maximizing your ad campaigns.
A Google Shopping consultant will bring a lot of expertise but will cost a lot too. So, you should think about this carefully.
If you’d like to learn more about Shopping campaigns and how I can help, contact me today to discuss.
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