Experimenting With Google Shopping Product Images
A 69% increase in CTR by testing lifestyle images on Google Shopping
+69%
CTR
We asked our LinkedIn followers what they thought the impact would be of changing Google Shopping product images from product photos to lifestyle images.
Here’s what they thought:
We view the team at Seed not as an agency but as part of our company. To our pleasant surprise, Seed have delivered the results that they had committed to, but exceeded them.
Simon Trennary
Sales & Marketing Manager at About Roofing
Product images play a vital role in influencing Click-Through-Rates (CTR) in Google Shopping, as they are often the deciding factor for searchers when considering whether to click on a Shopping ad.
Traditionally, product images have been on plain backgrounds, which allows for clarity and simplicity in showcasing the product. However, we wanted to explore the potential impact of using lifestyle images and their impact on the CTR of Case Furniture’s Google Shopping ads.
Objective:
The primary objective of this experiment was to determine if replacing plain background product images with lifestyle images could positively impact the CTR for Case Furniture’s Google Shopping ads.
We hypothesised that showcasing products in real-life settings would provide a more relatable and visually appealing presentation, which may increase potential customers clicking on the ads.
Method
To test this, we created a supplemental feed in Google Merchant Centre that replaced the plain background image with our lifestyle image. This method was an easy way of quickly implementing this test without making permanent changes to the feed.
We monitored the performance of these ads, comparing the CTR of the experiment group (lifestyle images) against a control group (plain background images).
Results
The results of our experiment were highly encouraging. We observed a significant increase in CTR for the ads featuring lifestyle images almost immediately after launching the test. CTR increased from 0.58% to 0.98% during this period, representing a 69% improvement.
Moving forward
Although this was a successful experiment we believe that this is something worthy of testing first on other accounts and not something to go straight in with. We’ve seen that in some industries product images on white backgrounds perform better than lifestyle images so this isn’t a universal optimisation approach.
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