In beta since October, Google Shopping campaigns—a new and improved way to manage Product Listing Ads (PLAs)—are now available to all online merchants. The new Shopping campaigns give you more product information, ways to organize products, and more in AdWords. More information is always better, so that’s definitely a good thing. Google’s new setup has an updated overall structure and a number of other changes.

Updated Structure, You Say?

Basically, Google Shopping Campaigns are just a new way to structure PLAs in AdWords. Using a layered ad system, the new structure is designed to increase product visibility. In a nutshell, it starts with a large “All Products” layer at the top, broken down into a smaller “Product Category” layer, and, finally, a smaller-still “Product Sub Category” layer. Kind of like this, but fancier and with product photos and such:

ALL PRODUCTS

PRODUCT CATEGORY

PRODUCT SUB CATEGORY

Other Changes, You Say?

The first thing to note here is that existing PLAs do overlap with the new Shopping campaigns, but there’s no way to migrate your data from one to the other. This means you’ll need to start over with the new setup, so that’s just great. Beyond that, there are some significant, and some not-as-significant, changes from Google’s old PLA structure and the new Shopping Campaigns. For example, significantly, the structure of the old PLAs was based on data feed labels with ad group flexibility; the new PLAs’ structure is based on data feed labels with product groups based on layers. Less significantly, the old PLAs used Ad Groups; the new PLAs use Product Groups (just a minor shift of the overall layout). The beta version added a number of updated tools and seller-friendly functionalities, including bulk bid changes and the ability to put product names next to product IDs. All this info is available through AdWords. API support and bid simulators are additional features which will soon be available, Google has said.

So, Change is Good, Right?

Well…maybe? As usual, Google can’t leave well enough alone, so enjoy getting your new Shopping campaign set up and working just the way you want it to. You should have just enough time to get everything squared away before they create another, newer, better (?) version.