With one out of three paid clicks on the SERP going to the shopping ads, ecommerce advertisers know that they can’t miss the prime digital shelf that shopping campaigns provide.
Whether you’re launching your first shopping campaign or managing shopping campaigns for a client, it can be daunting to know whether you’re doing a good job. Many advertisers may be surprised to discover that their Shopping campaigns perform differently and may have different click-through rates, costs, and conversion rates from their search campaigns. So how should you expect Shopping ads to perform in your industry?
We dug into our data to find out, and we’re proud to share our clients’ shopping campaign benchmarks across Google Ads (and Bing Ads, too!), including:
- Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) in shopping by industry, for both Google Ads and Bing Ads
- Average Cost per Click (CPC) in shopping by industry, for both Google Ads and Bing Ads
- Average Conversion Rate (CVR) in shopping by industry, for both Google Ads and Bing Ads
- Average Cost per Action (CPA) in shopping by industry, for both Google Ads and Bing Ads
- Average Monthly Budget for shopping by industry, for both Google Ads and Bing Ads
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You’ll find averages across these metrics for shopping campaigns in sixteen common ecommerce industries: Medical Supplies, Health & Beauty, Child & Infant Care, Pet Care, Clothing & Apparel, Food & Alcohol, Home & Garden, HVAC & Climate Control, Automotive Supplies, Travel & Luggage, Entertainment & Events, Educational Supplies, Computers & Technology, Office & Business Needs, Arts & Music, and Chemical & Industrial.
If you’re advertising on search or social, you also may be interested in seeing similar benchmarks for:
Average shopping ads click-through rate (CTR) by industry
They say that automotive ads are the only TV ads where you’re guaranteed to see the product. The industry is driven by visual appeal (see what I did there) and we can see the visual nature of Google Shopping ads help automotive marketers out on the SERP—automotive supplies have the highest CTR in the group, averaging 1.2%. Other industries with high CTR for shopping ads include HVAC & Climate Control and Travel & Luggage.
Industries that traditionally value functionality over visual design, such as Technology and Office & Business Needs, often have the poorest CTRs in their shopping ads. Whenever possible, avoid low-resolution, stock, or manufacturer’s photos in your shopping ads. It’s tough to stand out on a crowded SERP using the same ad as your competitors!
In nearly all industries, Bing Shopping ads have a significantly higher CTR, with most industries exceeding 1% CTR. Bing Shopping ads have a 45% higher CTR than Google Shopping ads on average. This is similar to the difference we see between Google and Bing search benchmarks.
The average shopping click-through rate (CTR) across all industries is 0.86% for Google Ads and 1.25% for Bing Ads.
Average Shopping Click-Through Rate (CTR)
| Industry | Average Shopping CTR on Google Ads | Average Shopping CTR on Bing Ads |
| Medical Supplies | 0.87% | 1.35% |
| Health & Beauty | 0.74% | 1.48% |
| Child & Infant Care | 0.71% | 2.02% |
| Pet Care | 0.68% | 1.63% |
| Clothing & Apparel | 0.76% | 1.05% |
| Food & Alcohol | 0.91% | 1.04% |
| Home & Garden | 0.90% | 1.40% |
| HVAC & Climate Control | 1.12% | 1.39% |
| Automotive Supplies | 1.20% | 1.29% |
| Travel & Luggage | 0.99% | 1.45% |
| Entertainment & Events | 0.92% | 1.40% |
| Educational Supplies | 0.94% | 0.84% |
| Computers & Technology | 0.55% | 1.21% |
| Office & Business Needs | 0.65% | 0.94% |
| Art & Music | 0.76% | 0.87% |
| Chemical & Industrial | 0.89% | 1.45% |
Average shopping ads cost per click (CPC) by industry
Search advertisers will be relieved to see that shopping ads have significantly lower costs per click than their search keywords. Whereas the most expensive keywords on Google can exceed $50 per click, nearly every click on shopping campaigns is well below a dollar! The most expensive industry on Google Shopping is Office & Business needs, where clicks average only $1.09.
Raising a kid may be one of the most expensive things you’ll do (or so I’m told), but shopping ad clicks in the child & infant care industry are the cheapest—averaging 36 cents on Google Ads and only 11 cents on Bing Ads.
We typically see that Bing Ads have cheaper CPCs than Google Ads—and that generally holds true for Google Shopping ads, as well. Bing Shopping ads have about a 30% cheaper CPC than Google Shopping ads. However, some industries have relatively expensive shopping CPCs on Bing, such as Office & Business Needs, Art & Music, and Health & Beauty, which all cost well over $1 per click in Bing Shopping.
The average shopping cost per click (CPC) across all industries is $0.66 for Google Ads and $0.46 for Bing Ads.
Average Shopping Cost Per Click (CPC)
| Industry | Average Shopping CPC on Google Ads | Average Shopping CPC on Bing Ads |
| Medical Supplies | $0.63 | $0.31 |
| Health & Beauty | $0.87 | $1.26 |
| Child & Infant Care | $0.36 | $0.11 |
| Pet Care | $0.82 | $0.25 |
| Clothing & Apparel | $0.69 | $0.83 |
| Food & Alcohol | $0.42 | $0.43 |
| Home & Garden | $0.58 | $0.52 |
| HVAC & Climate Control | $0.47 | $0.60 |
| Automotive Supplies | $0.56 | $0.23 |
| Travel & Luggage | $0.40 | $0.31 |
| Entertainment & Events | $0.48 | $0.30 |
| Educational Supplies | $0.83 | $0.80 |
| Computers & Technology | $0.89 | $0.43 |
| Office & Business Needs | $1.09 | $5.81 |
| Art & Music | $0.34 | $3.39 |
| Chemical & Industrial | $0.66 | $0.75 |
Average shopping ads conversion rates (CVR) by industry
Shopping ads are unique from search ads in that they’ll always show you a picture and price of the product. For cheaper and competitively priced products, that’s a blessing! For other “experience goods” or luxury items, it may not be. We consequently see that relatively low-priced items like Clothing & Apparel have higher conversion rates than Chemical & Industrial goods in shopping campaigns.
Of course, all advertisers can benefit from using audience targeting, such as shopping remarketing lists, customer match for shopping, and In-Market Audiences within their shopping campaigns to reach more qualified searchers and increase their conversion rate. Additionally, shopping advertisers can convert more users by leveraging some unique features such as Google Merchant Promotions and Google’s “Buy on Google” feature.
Nearly a third of the U.S. uses both Google and Bing, but they use each search engine differently. It’s not uncommon for people to use Bing at work, where it’s often the default search engine on their Windows-powered desktop computer. We see that this makes Bing Shopping excel in many B2B segments like Office & Business Needs as well as Computers & Technology.
The average shopping conversion rate (CVR) across all industries is 1.91% for Google Ads and 1.74% for Bing Ads.
Average Shopping Conversion Rate (CVR)
| Industry | Average Shopping CVR on Google Ads | Average Shopping CVR on Bing Ads |
| Medical Supplies | 2.94% | 2.18% |
| Health & Beauty | 2.78% | 7.17% |
| Child & Infant Care | 2.20% | 2.11% |
| Pet Care | 1.07% | 1.57% |
| Clothing & Apparel | 2.70% | 0.67% |
| Food & Alcohol | 2.16% | 0.76% |
| Home & Garden | 1.31% | 1.91% |
| HVAC & Climate Control | 3.30% | 3.50% |
| Automotive Supplies | 1.29% | 1.35% |
| Travel & Luggage | 2.07% | 1.99% |
| Entertainment & Events | 1.98% | 2.16% |
| Educational Supplies | 1.88% | 1.48% |
| Computers & Technology | 2.20% | 4.48% |
| Office & Business Needs | 2.45% | 15.19% |
| Art & Music | 1.77% | 1.00% |
| Chemical & Industrial | 0.83% | 1.26% |
Average shopping ads cost per action (CPA) by industry
CPA can vary drastically from client to client and from industry to industry, depending on their goals and profit margins. Any advertiser that sells a very high priced good and gets more profit from each sale is usually more willing to pay more to attract more sales and have a higher CPA.
With that in mind, we see industries with generally lower priced goods, such as Child & Infant Care, Pet Care, and Entertainment aim for the lowest CPAs as well. More expensive products like Computers, Business Needs, and Industrial Goods generally have more tolerance for higher CPAs.
In line with its lower CPCs, Bing Ads generally boasts cheaper conversions as well.
The average shopping cost per action (CPA) across all industries is $38.87 for Google Ads and $23.05 for Bing Ads.
Average Shopping Cost Per Action (CPA)
| Industry | Average Shopping CPA on Google Ads | Average Shopping CPA on Bing Ads |
| Medical Supplies | $19.23 | $18.66 |
| Health & Beauty | $35.89 | $27.72 |
| Child & Infant Care | $49.36 | $9.87 |
| Pet Care | $26.01 | $12.95 |
| Clothing & Apparel | $19.29 | $21.40 |
| Food & Alcohol | $35.80 | $48.69 |
| Home & Garden | $58.00 | $34.87 |
| HVAC & Climate Control | $7.28 | $17.26 |
| Automotive Supplies | $54.76 | $33.98 |
| Travel & Luggage | $36.34 | $29.15 |
| Entertainment & Events | $17.51 | $16.26 |
| Educational Supplies | $30.67 | $46.70 |
| Computers & Technology | $75.92 | $42.82 |
| Office & Business Needs | $68.55 | $45.96 |
| Art & Music | $19.03 | $34.50 |
| Chemical & Industrial | $91.21 | $31.62 |
Average monthly budget for shopping ads by industry
If you’re just starting out with shopping campaigns in Google or Bing, you might reasonably want to know how much budget to put aside for your new campaign. Large and small advertisers rely on shopping campaigns every day, from Amazon to small businesses. Given that the average cost per click on Google Shopping is 66 cents, you can still expect to get some good traffic for as low as $10 a day.
If you’re looking to get more out of your shopping campaigns, you’ve got plenty of room to scale your success! The largest industries for shopping campaigns on Google are Health & Beauty and Computers & Finance. Some industries like Education and Travel may find that much more of their traffic will come from search text ads instead.
It might surprise some advertisers to see that Bing Ads makes up such a significant share of the shopping market. Although Bing makes up a third of the U.S. desktop search market, Bing attracts a larger share of shoppers’ attentions. Outside of the SERP, Bing also powers Amazon’s Alexa devices and places shopping ads across the web on sites such as OfferUp, which reach over 15 million users a month.
The average shopping monthly budget across all industries is $770.41 for Google Ads and $392.53 for Bing Ads.
Average Shopping Monthly Budget
| Industry | Average Shopping Monthly Budget on Google Ads | Average Shopping Monthly Budget on Bing Ads |
| Medical Supplies | $423.37 | $680.11 |
| Health & Beauty | $1,815.12 | $1,390.46 |
| Child & Infant Care | $381.46 | $133.46 |
| Pet Care | $384.73 | $112.80 |
| Clothing & Apparel | $801.74 | $261.14 |
| Food & Alcohol | $1,065.09 | $476.47 |
| Home & Garden | $864.87 | $797.30 |
| HVAC & Climate Control | $1,116.21 | $1,416.21 |
| Automotive Supplies | $988.34 | $1,184.79 |
| Travel & Luggage | $273.35 | $134.80 |
| Entertainment & Events | $770.41 | $1,393.81 |
| Educational Supplies | $296.43 | $120.15 |
| Computers & Technology | $1,473.32 | $980.11 |
| Office & Business Needs | $835.77 | $2,272.84 |
| Art & Music | $421.02 | $775.25 |
| Chemical & Industrial | $638.66 | $325.21 |
What does it all mean?
If you find yourself on the lower end of these numbers, that just means there’s plenty of room for improvement! Countless advertisers find out the hard way that being successful with shopping ads requires different tools and tactics than their search campaigns. Being successful with shopping requires a great Google Merchant Center Feed, a solid Google Shopping Campaign structure, and ongoing maintenance with bids and negative keywords.
You may also be interested in:
Data sources
This report is based on a sample of 671 US-based WordStream client accounts in all verticals were advertising on Google Ads and Bing Ads Shopping networks between August 2018 and February 2019. Each industry includes at minimum 30 unique active clients. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.
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