This type of monitoring selects all product offers with prices from the Google Shopping (Merchant Center) search results. The advantages of this approach are that in this way you can:
- Create a list of competitors, who conduct an advertising campaign on Google and are actively involved in the sale of products. This list may include sites that are not in the search results. This will expand the list of competitive positions and allow you to quickly respond to new competitors.
- Gather actual prices from Google Ads. Knowing about the control over the RRP / MRP, competitors can set the recommended price on their website, but at the same time set discount prices in advertisements, luring buyers and engaging in unfair competition.
- Monitor prices for all countries where present Google Shopping. You can select specific countries for which you want to collect data.
- Save time is that you do not need to select competitors and keep their current list. The task is launched instantly and you do not have to wait until the rules for parsing a competitor's site are ready.
- Saving budget due to the fact that several positions of competitors are collected at a time. At the same time, if no competitors are found for the product item, then checks are not billed. A single balance of checks is used for common tasks and Google Ads.
- You can customize your monitoring schedule in the range from every hour check to 1 time per month or run tasks whenever you need, at any time.
Disadvantages
- Due to technical complexity, the cost of checking one item is higher and is equal to 10 regular checks. But this is compensated by the fact that several competitors are gathered in one check.
- Google rotates competitors for display and there is a dependence on competitors' budgets, therefore the list of available competitors can vary greatly from collection to collection and the same competitor may not be included in every data collection session.