Product images are everything if you want to be competitive in the advertising space. They’re often the first thing customers see driving clicks, engagement, and sales.

That’s where Google’s Product Studio comes in – a new tool that’s changing the game for businesses who want to up their visuals without the cost.

Understanding Google’s Product Studio

Google’s Product Studio is an AI-powered feature that helps businesses (especially smaller ones) create high-quality product imagery with ease. Integrated with Google’s Merchant Center, it allows merchants to easily create and customize product images, enhancing visibility and engagement. With background removal, color correction, and the ability to create lifestyle scenes it simplifies what used to be a time-consuming and expensive process.

Imagine swapping out boring plain backgrounds for lush tropical scenes or creating images that really show off your products – all with a few clicks.

Google Product Studio Key Features:

  • Advanced image editing capabilities.
  • Integration with Google Ads and other platforms.
  • Automation and AI-driven enhancements.
  • Ability to store and manage generated images.

Benefits for Marketers and Businesses:

  • Streamlined workflow.
  • Consistent and professional image quality.
  • Time and cost efficiency.
  • Enhanced online presence and engagement through tailored product imagery using generative AI.

The Importance of High-Quality Product Images in Advertising

For marketers, this is a big deal. High-quality product images are proven to increase click-through rates, ad performance, and customer trust.

But achieving these visuals hasn’t always been easy. Smaller businesses have struggled with the cost of photoshoots, the hassle of manually editing images, or just figuring out what type of visuals work best. Additionally, dealing with low-resolution images can be a significant challenge, as they often fail to attract buyer attention.

Google’s Product Studio solves these problems, making it easier than ever to produce customized professional imagery that matches your brand. This tool enhances product imagery by improving the quality of small or low-resolution images without the need for expensive photoshoots, allowing businesses to create high-quality images effortlessly.

Our Approach: Leveraging Product Studio to Enhance Product Images

At StubGroup we’ve been using Product Studio to help our clients transform their ad creatives. When we start working with a client we first assess their existing product images to see where we can improve. Product Studio integrates with the merchant’s product feed for seamless image management, making it easier to enhance and update product visuals.

Initial Assessment

Our process begins with taking a close look at the client’s existing product images. We assess what’s working, what isn’t, and where there’s room for improvement. Additionally, we evaluate the in store product inventory alongside online images to ensure a comprehensive approach to inventory management.

This step ensures we focus on the elements that will have the biggest impact, like improving lighting, cleaning up backgrounds, or making the images more engaging overall.

Working That Movie Magic

Once we find what’s holding them back, we get to work. You can upload the images directly into Google’s Product Studio—making it easy and fast to edit.

Using more than one image for each product can significantly increase both impressions and clicks, enhancing overall engagement.

We can clean up messy backgrounds, enhance colors, and even add shadow effects directly in Product Studio. Whether it’s for Google Shopping ads or seasonal promotions the images are designed to grab attention and drive results.

Using the Right Tools for the Job

  • Background Removal: We remove any distracting or outdated backgrounds to give the images a fresh, clean look.
  • Color Correction: Colors are adjusted to make the products pop while staying true to the brand.
  • Shadow Effects: Subtle shadow enhancements add depth, giving the images a polished, professional feel.
  • Refining and finalizing the images for ad creatives: Once the edits are complete, we refine the images to perfection, ensuring they meet both quality standards and the client’s branding guidelines. Every image is double-checked to ensure it’s ready for the next step—being used in ad campaigns.
    • Importance of Accurate Product Data: Accurate product data is crucial in the image editing process. It enhances visibility, performance tracking, and simplifies product feed management, especially when using tools like Merchant Center Next and Product Studio.

Integration with Ad Campaigns

The enhanced images aren’t just great to look at—they’re designed with purpose. We align the visuals with the client’s marketing goals, whether that’s increasing clicks, driving sales, or showcasing seasonal promotions. Every image serves a specific role in the overall strategy.

Merchants can easily access Product Studio through platforms like Merchant Center Next and the Google & YouTube app on Shopify, allowing them to create unique product imagery using generative AI without incurring additional costs.

Before and After: Transforming a Client’s Ad Creative

One of our favorite success stories is with a skincare brand specializing in perfume that came to us looking for help with their ad visuals. They wanted their products to stand out and resonate more with their audience, but their current images weren’t hitting the mark.

We used Product Studio to give their images a complete makeover.

Before Product Studio

The original images the client used had a few key issues:

  • Basic, uninspiring backgrounds that didn’t do the products justice.
  • Lighting inconsistencies made the products look less appealing.
  • A lack of professional polish hurt the credibility of their ads.
  • Low-resolution images that failed to capture the product details effectively.

These limitations meant their ads weren’t performing as well as they could have, with lower engagement and fewer clicks.

After Product Studio

With the help of Google’s Product Studio, we completely revamped their product visuals. Here’s what changed:

  • Contextual Backgrounds: Instead of plain, static backgrounds, we introduced lifestyle settings that made the products more relatable.
  • Enhanced Details: Better lighting and color adjustments helped bring the products to life.
  • Professional Finishing Touches: Small details like shadows and better framing added a polished, high-end feel to every image.
  • High Quality Images: Utilizing Product Studio, we created high-quality images that are unique and tailored, significantly enhancing the business’s online performance.

The Results and Impact

The results were immediate – click-through rates increased by 6.4% and sales by over 26%. And their new images gave their brand a premium, trustworthy look that set them apart from competitors.

With the global rollout of Product Studio, businesses worldwide can now benefit from these enhancements, making it easier to set up and manage their products online.

The results go beyond the numbers. Customers respond to professional and engaging visuals. Polished imagery builds trust, drives clicks, and can even increase the perceived value of your products.

They also made a distinct difference in standing out from competitor ads at auction time.

For our client, the new images drove sales and helped them connect with their audience.

They saw a noticeable uptick in purchases and an overall increase in the value of individual orders. Customers were buying more and remembering the brand, creating a ripple effect for long-term growth.

Tips for Maximizing Google’s Product Studio

A little strategy can go a long way when using Google’s Product Studio. It’s important to combine creative thinking with a data-driven approach to make the most of this powerful tool. Merchant Center Next integrates seamlessly with Product Studio, enabling businesses to create and manage high-quality product imagery and videos using generative AI, thus streamlining the process of listing and promoting products across Google. Here are some practical tips to get the best results:

Some Best Practices

  1. Plan Visuals Strategically: Your product images should do more than look good—they should tell a story. Start by aligning your visuals with seasonal trends, promotions, or upcoming product launches. For example, if you’re preparing for a holiday campaign, use Product Studio to create imagery that reflects festive colors or cozy lifestyle scenes. If launching a new product, focus on clean, high-impact visuals that emphasize the product’s key features. Think about the message your images are sending and how they tie into your broader marketing goals.
  2. Leverage the Performance Tab: Google’s Merchant Center provides invaluable data about which images perform best in your campaigns. Use the Performance Tab to identify trends, like: Are lifestyle images driving higher engagement? Are certain products being clicked on more frequently than others? With these insights, you can prioritize updates for products that need a boost or are part of your best-selling categories. For small businesses or local merchants, this is useful to focus resources where they’ll have the most impact.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best tools at your disposal, it’s easy to make mistakes that can undermine your product imagery. To ensure your images resonate with your audience and support your marketing goals, here are a few common pitfalls to watch out for—and how to avoid them.

  1. Avoid Overediting: While it’s tempting to go all-in on enhancements, it’s important to keep your images authentic. Over-saturated colors or overly polished products can look unnatural and may lead to customer dissatisfaction if the product doesn’t match the image. Strike a balance between polished and realistic.
  2. Ensure Consistency: Uniformity is key to creating a professional-looking product catalog. Stick to a cohesive style, whether it’s consistent lighting, background settings, or color grading. Mismatched visuals can confuse customers and weaken your brand’s credibility.
  3. Don’t Ignore Mobile Optimization: Most shopping happens on mobile devices, so ensure your images look sharp and compelling on smaller screens. High-quality, optimized visuals that load quickly can make or break a customer’s experience.

By planning your visuals thoughtfully, analyzing performance data, and avoiding common mistakes, you can fully unlock the potential of Google’s Product Studio.

Wrapping it Up

Google’s Product Studio is more than a tool – it’s a way to level the playing field for smaller businesses. With high-quality product images more accessible than ever there’s no excuse for “good enough”. Better visuals = better results and that’s something every business can benefit from.

In the coming months, Google plans to start upgrading smaller businesses with the new features of Product Studio, simplifying the setup process and enhancing access to performance insights for these merchants.

Ready to take your product images to the next level? Get in touch today and let’s chat about how you can start using Google’s Product Studio to transform your ads and grow your business.