tips for improving google shopping campaign results
TRANSCRIPT
Jodi Birkett
Partner
1
Elizabeth Clark The Google Shopping Specialists
#shoppinggurus @dreamagility
Dream Agility – Google Shopping Platform
SECURITY
Google Myths we see every day
Keyword mentality
Google arbitrary recommendations
Day of Week, let alone hour of
week still largely ignored.
Spread sheets
Present periods of high search
volume as an opportunity
Google Tools almost always
exclude client targets or strategy.
Google Myths Debunked – Keywords are DEAD!
Big uplifts from location;
country, region, city,
postcodes and even airports
Good uplifts from day of
week, hour of week, search
terms.
Traditional Marketers have
used locations for years.
Hugely useful data for your
offline colleagues.
Google Myths Debunked - Location
At best, most advertisers merely increase London bids +10% or nice round numbers (guesses rather than calculations cost ££££)
On many campaigns, far higher uplift through location modifiers than any other lever available i.e. product IDs, negative search terms or even keyword bids on text ads.
With bid tech for locations, thousands of recommendations can be generated within minutes based on client goals.
Bid tech or not, huge £’00,000 left on the table without location.
Google Myths debunked – Why location matters:
Client has 40% Gross Margin and wants a 25% ROAS – Release the tech!
How bad would Google’s +10% uplift for London be for client goals?
Even on ‘small campaigns’ 000s of bid adjustments can be made to max £ returns
Google Myths Debunked - Mobile
Mobile often performs differently
from desktop campaigns. Why?
Pareto of products, locations, search
terms, day of week, differs.
How do we improve it?: 1. Mobile needs switching off in the main shopping campaigns
2. Set up a new mobile shopping campaign with separate ad groups. Can be done in minutes with shopping platforms (not spread sheets / Adwords which takes hours!).
3. Set product ID bids low, and increase mobile bid modifiers to 300%. Prevents desktop / tablet bids corrupting your split.
4. Advertisers need to then analyse mobile performance across the big levers -Location, Day of Week, Product ID, Keywords, Search terms.
Google Myths – Mobile Before vs. After
From £-750.95 loss with £0.49 CPC to £0.28 CPC and £37.16 profit.
Day of Week
Day of Week, let alone hour of week still largely ignored.
How to make 7% increase on even a small campaign £2k gain from
£27k spend…..
Individual Product ID
Spreadsheets for Feeds don’t work – Product Titles
A spreadsheet cannot do this for your Product Titles…..
Spreadsheets and automated feed generators are about just turning up.
Dedicated Google and Bing ShoppingMappers put your product titles on steroids.
You appear for ‘00s or even 000s more terms as even identical products in different sizes have different titles to target different search terms.
Spreadsheets for Bidding – death by 1000 knives
• It takes far longer and more staff to run
spread sheets across all the new Adwords
levers – location, search terms, keywords, day
of week, hour of week, keywords, etc.
• You cannot portfolio bid in spread sheets!
• You cannot throw bodies at portfolio bidding.
• Google is throwing itself at retailers to offer
it’s services for free – they’re eating the
agencies lunch at the lower to mid levels.
Return on solution mix
Free feed plugins
Optimised feed solution
Bids Spread sheet managed
Bidding tech applied
Google advice to take cautiously
• Black Friday / Mega Monday overtaken
Boxing Day on Volume
• However, both Deloitte and PWC Post Xmas
Retail Reviews showed that the Black Friday
/ Mega Monday had been a disaster for
many.
• Mobile has been a nightmare for many
retailers, especially on Shopping.
• 50% increased bid recommendations on
retargeting ads.
• 10% increase on London bids.
New kids on the block……
Summary – tips for Christmas shopping success
• For optimal returns, ditch the market place feed and get a ‘Google first’ feed for Shopping.
• Use Mobile, Location, Day of Week, Hour of Day, Search Terms and Product ID level bids.
• Split out Shopping Campaigns into mobile, along product lines, or specific search terms
• Eradicate spreadsheets where possible – its 2016 in a few weeks!
• RSLA’s for shopping.• Give Bing a punt.• Google local inventory ads…….
#shoppinggurus @dreamagility
Google ShoppingThe shifting sands in paid search and how agencies need to adapt
• Brief history
• Operational challenges for advertisers
• Who’s joining these 2 functions together?
• Query optimisation
• The media agency issue
Agenda
Brief history
December ‘02
• Launched as Froogle
• Free
April ‘07
• Rebrand to ‘Google Product Search’
• No cost = great ROI
May ‘12
• Rebrand to ‘Google Shopping’
• Pay to play
• Integrated into AdWords
• When Google Shopping was free everyone had a great ROI.
Then things changed…
• Disconnect between development & paid media practices
Developers seldom know about PPC
Focus on building a feed that’s “good enough” to be accepted by
Merchant Centre
PPC people are seldom developers
Understand AdWords best-practices for structuring campaigns but
not feed structure
• Manually making the changes to the feed that are required to
unlock the value of Google Shopping would be a costly exercise
• Feed quality just as important to success as AdWords
implementation
Titles & descriptions are 2 of the most important signals to
Availability
Accuracy of pricing
Categorisation/taxonomy
Iterations of same product to target larger query volumes
Operational challenges for advertisers
Technology delivers structural
refinement & iteration of
product feeds at scale
Who’s joining these 2 functions together?
Feed QualityAdWords
Implementation
Stock Status
Simple Colours
Taxonomy
Pricing
Unique URL for each
product configuration
Data Freshness
Dev Team Paid Media Team
Promotional Copy
Location & device bid
modifiers
Search Term Reports
& Negative
Keywords
Campaign delivery
settings
Campaign & Ad
Group structure
SKU Segmentation
Without tech filling the gap it’s difficult to make work in isolation
• Title & description for each product
needs to be optimised for a specific
query
Items are unisex
Segmenting out iterations of a product
to target gender-specific queries
Age specific iterations
Size specific iterations
• 1 line item in the feed segmented
into multiple lines to target larger
number of relevant queries &
increase visibility
Query optimisation
Children’s green
waterproof jacket
Boy’s green waterproof
jacket
Girl’s green waterproof
jacket
Toddler’s green
waterproof jacket
6-12 month boy’s green
waterproof jacket
Technology provides scale
Traditional agency roles
Client
Media
CreativeWeb D&B
• Media agencies handle all aspects of
media planning & buying
Sometimes multiple media
agencies for larger advertisers• Creative agencies handle aspects of
Branding
Creative strategy
Planning & execution
• Web D&B agencies typically handle
Back-end
UX/UI
Deployment of analytics
• Client can end up ‘stuck in the middle’
• Feed creation & management often the
remit of the web development agency
• Often very separate entity to the media
agency & little incentive to support
• Puts onus on clients to push any
changes through but often with partial
information or lack of clarity on key
issues & priorities
• Bureaucratic & costly exercise that can
have significant cost impact
The media agency issue
Take control & own the process
• There is a disconnect between Development & Media teams
Very different disciplines
• Multiple stakeholders can slow down or halt progress
Design by committee
Budgetary constraints
• Google Shopping is still in its infancy in many ways
High on hype, low on support
Technology like Dream Agility is crucial
Integrating with technology will drastically improve campaign performance
The frequency & speed of change and structural feed refinement required cannot be easily
replicated manually
Creation of smaller, more targeted feeds can be even more time-consuming & expensive without
tech
• Agencies need to drive the process
In summary
Andy Speake
Ecommerce Manager
Mozimo Shoes / Peter Kaiser UK
An In House Success Story
Twice the sales for less than half the extra cost
The Challenges for an Independent Retailer…
• Competing with the ‘Big Boys’– Not a recognised brand outright, key to success is the brands that we
sell.– Can’t compete Organically or through generic PPC e.g. ‘Ladies Shoes’– Text Ads difficult because of Budget constraints / Limited by
characters and relevant information you can get across.
- Resource & Time Management more difficult for smaller Independents.- The same issues are relevant to Google Shopping also.
Where we were…What we’ve done.
• Initial Focus– Building the overall brand and identity – Organic, PCC & SEO.
– Increasing awareness of our brand – Through the Brands we sell.
– Growing Peter Kaiser Site and awareness.
– Not essentially about increasing SKUs, but increasing depth and selling more of what we had.
• Getting to grips with AdWords account– Completely overhauled account.
– Became smarter surrounding management.
– Google Shopping & PLAs weren’t utilised.
Google Shopping vs Amazon…
• Both have benefits− Credibility and trust of Amazon.
− If small organically, little investment can drive rankings on Google Shopping.
− Large customer base on Amazon.
• Future focus is on Google Shopping– More control on branding, creating own adds etc. Google
Shopping.
– Can’t capture details for marketing, or associated branding with Amazon.
– Associated branding and quality results through keywords on Google.
The Business in Numbers…
• Where is the business at YTD- Overall +40% vs LY- Mozimo +20% vs LY- Peter Kaiser +65% vs LY- Amazon Sales 30% of Overall Sales LY vs 25% TY
• Google Spend- Average Spend per month
Before £1K £4K RevenueAfter £1.5 £7K RevenueNow £2.5K £15K Revenue
How have PLAs helped us?
• Helps with the fundamental issues of an independent business.- Competing with the ‘big boys’- Almost a level playing field.
• Far more efficient on spend and conversion. - Since focussing on PLAs, looking at a 3mth LFL sales period.- Total Revenue +101%- AdWords Cost +48%- Converted Clicks/Orders +140%- Cost / Conversion -38%- Conversion Rate +126%
Improving Google Shopping Performance…
• To trade and work efficiently on Google Shopping issues needed fixing
- Capitalisation in titles – 4% of Feed
Improving Google Shopping Performance…
Other issues highlighted – HTML code in Descriptions
Improving Google Shopping Performance…
Other elements we’ve looked at and addressed through the DA system
- Optimising bids – day of the week/time of day etc.- Ease of creating new Shopping Campaigns.
PLA impact & the future ahead..
• Stats don’t lie!
- Impact has been tremendous for our business.
- Creating new budget.
- Expanding and growing the team to cope with demand.
- On RSLAs for Shopping for months now (beta trialists).
• The Future is bright… - Looking to expand and almost double the budget.
- Success means eager to roll out a similar program on Peterkaiser.co.uk
- Introducing Product reviews/Local inventory ads/Trusted store
(PPC + Retail) x Manchester = Win
by Richard Gregory
Who the hell is this guy?Co-Founder of SAScon
Former MD of Latitude
Manchester Digital Council
Member
18 years in Digital
https://about.me/richardgregory
Do you want to play game?
Which of the following countries has the highest digital search spend per capita?
a)USA
b)UK
c)SINGAPORE
Which of the following countries has the highest digital search spend per capita?
a)USA
b)UK
c)SINGAPORE
How Many Digital and Creative companies in the North West?
a)around 650
b)around 1,200
c)around 8,000
How Many Digital and Creative companies in the North West?
a)around 650
b)around 1,200
c)around 8,000
Employing circa 45,000 and generating £2bn in economic output
Great events
Why is Manchester great at digital?Great Ecosystem
Digital Pacesetters
The Evolution of paid search
...or, why being a PPCer keeps getting harder.
The Demise of Keywords
Social
the rise of identity based targetingRemarketing Lists for Search
Advertising (RLSA)
Customer Match - a better name!
Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP)
Getting predictive
Export - Global domination in 3 steps1. Advertise in
English speaking
countries first
2. Google Translate
as low cost option
3. Develop specific
site for most
valuable
country/region
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/research-study/global-retail-empire-report/
….and when we’ve fixed all that...
Context
That’s enough for now.
Any questions?