Andreas Reiffen (camato.io) and Kirk Williams (ZATO) teach you how to optimize your Google Shopping PLAs in time for the Holiday season.

1. Thursday, November 10, 2016 1:00 EST (10:00 PST)
Speakers:
Kirk Williams, Owner, ZATO Marketing
Andreas Reiffen, CEO, Crealytics
It’s Not Too Late!
Maximize Your Google Shopping in
Time for the Holidays

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3. Kirk Williams
Owner (and minion), ZATO Marketing
@PPCKirk
Andreas Reiffen
CEO, Crealytics
@AndreasReiffen
Today’s Presenters

4. Topics, we’ll cover today …
Google Shopping: Why you should care…
How to segment Google Shopping campaigns to capture high quality shoppers
Speak your customers’ language and write more compelling product titles
Why you can’t win in Google Shopping when you fail in pricing
What image testing could add to your Google Shopping campaigns

5. My entire screen on a 13” Macbook

6. Crealytics: Shopping = 56% Spend Share

7. Merkle: Shopping = 46% Click Share
hot snot,
look at that
trend!
https://www.merkleinc.com/thought-leadership/digital-marketing-report

8. A look at the future of Ecom SERPs

9. But how is Shopping growing like this?

10. For starters, people just like clicking them.
Price
Image
Info

11. Words!
Reading!
Work!
Abort,
Abort,
Abort!

12. Pictures!
Prices!
Data!
Buy,
Buy,
Buy!

13. Andy
Taylor
http://searchengineland.com/google-shopping-ads-so-hot-right-now-the-meteoric-rise-of-plas-248055

14. Andy
Taylor
http://searchengineland.com/google-shopping-ads-so-hot-right-now-the-meteoric-rise-of-plas-248055

15. Andy
Taylor
(him!)
http://searchengineland.com/google-shopping-ads-so-hot-right-now-the-meteoric-rise-of-plas-248055

16. July 2015
Micro-Moments in Shopping (i.e., mobile)

17. August-ish 2015
BIG retailers showing more PLAs

18. September 2015
YouTube Shopping Ads (Search Partners)

19. September 2015
YouTube Shopping Ads (Search Partners)

20. September 2015
Massively Large Shopping Ads on Mobile

21. December 2015
Shopping Ads in Image Search
“Heck, what
else can we
monetize?”
- Google
Boardroom
Convo

22. March 2016 PLA Imp Up 174% YOY
http://searchengineland.com/google-shopping-ads-so-hot-right-now-the-meteoric-rise-of-plas-248055

23. But also, Google has invested heavily
in Shopping changes

24. April 2016, New GMC Feed Rules

25. May 2016, GTINs Required

26. Keeping up with the Joneses Amazon.

27. July 2016, Showcase Shopping Ads

28. August 2016, YUUUGE GMC Overhaul

29. Finally... PLA placement matters!
Shopping in
its infancy
circa 2013

30. PLA placement matters
Shopping as 2016 ends

31. and a variant...
PLA placement matters

32. So, whatever you may think about SERPs...

33. 33
Google Shopping campaign segmentation

34. 34
Different intents disrupt bidding by product
[designer +
product name]
[designer +
category]
2.5x
1.4x
base CR
[category]
Typical differentials:
[nike +
mercurial]
[shoes] [nike +
shoes]
Example:
$1.00
A
B
Nike Mercurial Superfly
Soccer Shoes
Different intents, but identical product bid Compare conversion rates by specificity

35. 35
A
B
Nike Mercurial Superfly
Soccer Shoes
Designer
queries
Generic
queries
$2.50
$0.45
Bid higher for the best performing queries
Segment your shopping
campaigns by specificity of
search queries.
Use campaign priorities
and negatives to allocate
traffic.
Bid higher for your best
queries.
Segment traffic by designers vs generics How to game AdWords

36. 36
Semantic segmentation drives performance
We kept sales stable and decreased CPO by 27%
14.0
10.4
8.4
10.2
8.1
7.3
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3
-27%
testcontrol
Segmentation allows us to
set bids beyond product
averages.
Queries with a high
conversion probability get
more exposure.
We save money on low
quality queries.
CPO ($) on campaigns split up by specificity vs normal Explanation

37. 37
Use negatives to segment your campaigns and to
control where search queries are assigned to
Generics
Designers
Designer + Product
name
high
medium
low
Designer names
Product names
Product names
n/a
Campaigns NegativesPriorities

38. 38
Campaign priority itself has no impact
Priorities allow you to direct traffic to specific campaigns
We scheduled campaigns
to run intermittently
throughout the day.
Only a single campaign was
running.
We set different priorities.
101.4%99.8%100.0%
Medium LowHigh
Clicks
Traffic per campaign setting Test method

39. 39
Impressions (in k) before / after Key insights
CPCs are difficult to control and vary without
segmentation
bid = 1.50
5.4
4.3
0.7
2.1
0.6
0.4
bid = 0.50
1.3
generic terms designer terms designer only term CPC
0.22
0.09
0.40
0.85
0.63
0.25
We tested a designer-only
term which is stable in
impressions.
CPC for the same queries
increased by +186%.
Spike in generic queries
affects traffic quality and
ROI.

40. 40
Outcome of raising bids depends on where bid is
positioned on the Google Shopping S-curve
Budgetbidding
Designer-only term
Generics term
+17%
CPC +286%
Imps
+320%Imps
+213%CPC
Shopping query elasticity CPC and imps change

41. 41
Key take-aways
Segment your Shopping
Campaigns by specificity of
search queries to get much
better results.
For the most effective bid
management try to identify
the tipping point by starting
with the highest bid you are
willing to afford and then
decrease your bids
gradually.
Constantly monitor CPCs
and search query
impressions to find out
where the cliff is.
Segment by specificity Constant monitoringS-curve bidding

42. 42
Product title optimization

43. 43
Optimizing product titles by including top-
performing search queries
Do search query impressions related to
party dresses increase?
Lipsy Lace Panel Body-
Conscious Dress – Navy
Title after
Title before
Party Dresses Navy Blue
Lipsy Lace Panel Body-
Conscious

44. 44
Party dresses query volume increased
18,552
18,115
4,023
title changed
18,971
419
original
22,138
on other products on product
Party dresses query volume before and after title change Key insights
Title modification allows you
to direct traffic to specific
products.
Adding search queries to
titles improves the overall
traffic.

45. 45
Specifics about the Google algorithm to keep in
mind for title modification
The first words SynonymsThe word order
Words at the beginning of
a title are considered more
important
If people search for ‘green
shoes,’ your title should
ideally contain these two
words in the same order
(instead of ‘shoes green’)
If a dress could be called
‘party dress’ or ‘evening
dress,’ make sure that you
don’t use the same term
across this product
category.

46. 46
Speak your customers‘ language and make your
titles similar to what they search
Product
Dynamic title
inspired by real search queries
Rule-based title
<brand> <category> <color>
Columbia Down Jacket Black …
Columbia Down Jacket Dusty
Purple …
Black Down Coat Columbia …
Columbia Jacket – Purple, Down,
Feather Fill …
columbia jacket

47. 47
We use thousands of data points from different
sources to come up with the optimal title
Optimized product
titles
Data source OutcomeUsed data
AdWords Accounts
Search query performance
Product performance
Merchant Center
Product details
(produdct ID, brand, title, taxonomy,
color, size, gender, price, URLs, ...)
Semantic Database
(or a human brain)
Similarity of attributes
(brands, categories, colors, gender,
material)

48. 48
The result including performance uplift are
displayed in the camato user interface

49. 49
Identify important keywords which are missing
completely in product titles
1-grams
women (1,618,221)
mens (1,415,367)
outerwear (68,645)
ugly (1,415,367)
gifts (34,851)
pregnancy (23,035)
hoodies (21,959)
onesies (21,876)
sale (19,899)
discount (16,458)
dressy (13,454)
3-grams2-grams
Manually add the n-grams to the right products
Shown data are impressions (last 30 days)
jewelry shoes (708,111)
women dresses (690,700)
athletic shoes (415,769)
women's sneakers (218,281)
maternity clothes (34,851)
timberland boots (171,002)
mens clothing (129,003)
women jeans (79,965)
camel coat (46,703)
party dresses (41,059)
second hand (684)
masquerade ball gowns (149,619)
plus size clothing (130,983)
thigh high boots (93,429)
wedding guest dresses (34,119)
overalls for men (32,109)
casual white dresses (28,235)
plus size lingerie (27,739)
white maternity dress (27,240)
lace up flats (24,606)
used evening gowns (458)
cheap shoes for (284)

50. 50
Google Shopping & competitive pricing

51. 51
Impressions and clicks in Google Shopping are
often very sensitive to price changes
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
+5%
Price in $ Clicks
Product price Clicks
Time in days
Clicks drop off after product price increase Chart Info
Google product category:
Apparel & Accessories >
Shoes > Sneakers
Brand:
5% price increase coincides
with a 60% decrease in
clicks

52. 52
We compared cheap vs. expensive products and
used a test setup to guarantee meaningful results
We compared:
• cheap products (below
avg. price)
• with expensive products
(above avg. price)
• At least six competitors
• Available at all times
• Similar products (all
sneakers)
• Products were excluded
from normal shopping
activity
• Results were not
influenced by regular
bidding activities
Setup TestCriteria

53. 53
For all products we often see S-shaped curves,
but cheap products generate traffic much earlier
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
Max CPCImpressions per product
5/16/165/12/16 5/14/165/11/16 5/13/16 5/17/165/15/16
cheap products Max CPCexpensive products
Imps. of differently priced products while bidding up Key insights
Impression volume for
expensive products
significantly lower
Cheap products hit
Impression limit after 5 days

54. 54
Average CPC is higher for products
with prices above average market price
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
5/15/165/13/16
-13%
Max CPC
5/16/165/12/16 5/14/165/11/16 5/17/16
-4%
-6%
-12%
-8%
-30%
expensive products Max CPCcheap products
Avg. CPCs of differently priced products while bidding up Key insights
Avg. CPC of expensive
products is about 15%
higher despite same bids

55. 55
Cheap products generate the lion‘s share of
total traffic
Imps
1.828.412
4.282.611
+134,2%
44.122
+135,3%
103.803
Clicks
2.047
+9,1%1.876
# of products
expensive products cheap products
Traffic of similar products within one shop Key insights
Cheap products generated
much more traffic despite
similar number of products
in both groups

56. 56
Despite getting more traffic, the performance of
the cheaper products is much more efficient
40
28
-29,5%
CPO
+280%
Conversions
274
1,042
+61,3%
CR
0,6%
1,0%
expensive products cheap products
Traffic of similar products within one shop Key insights
Number of orders through
cheap products almost 3
times higher
Higher CR resulting in CPO
being ~30% lower
Cheap products generate
280% more conversion

57. 57
There is not really a long tail
A small number of products drive the majority of the sales
50
15
10
45
180
5
40
55
0
Top 10% products = 58% conversions
*Only products with conversions (448)
Expensive
Cheap
Conversions per product (UK multi brand retailer) Key insights
More significantly than in
search, shopping
conversions are driven by
just a few products
Concentrate on those
products for account
optimization.

58. 58
How to optimize pricing for Google Shopping
$.47$.47
Expensive products Price vs Bid managementSelective discounts
Don’t overbid on expensive
products, rather consider
price changes
Discounting only a few
select products to bring
traffic to your site could be
a killer strategy
Price and bid management
will be merged one day

59. 59
Product image testing

60. 60
Ad copy split testing is one of the fundamentals
of paid search optimization
1
3
Write additional ad copy
Gather data
+
Delete/pause the loser ad
2

61. 61
Although everyone has several alternative
images available, nobody is split testing images
There are always several images available in
the shop
However, we just use one and let it run forever
Who guarantees us that this image is the best?
ASOS Christmas Sweater

62. 62
Challenge 1: Google doesn‘t necessarily show
your image
Search Engine Results Page Shopping tab
Products sold by
multiple retailers can be
aggregated in the
Shopping tab.
Although you get a click,
your product image may
not have shown up.
There is currently no
way to distinguish clicks
from the SERP page
and the Shopping tab.

63. 63
Challenge 2: Google doesn‘t change the images
immediately
Average result of several live tests with few changes at once.
Search Tab
Shopping Tab
up to 1 hour 1-3 hours 2-4 hours
Google needs time to index the new images
• Up to 72 hours when URLs are changed
• Up to 6 weeks if URLs remains the same (server-side image swap)
During the first hours after the image change, Google may not serve the product at all in the
SERPs

64. 64
Short-term solution: Test model shots vs. product
shots across entire product categories
Product shot vs. model shot Bulk split testing
Testing images on a
product level is difficult
today
• no tools on the market
yet to support image
split testing
• technical challenges
We recommend that you
pick a few product
categories where you are
using e.g. model shots
and replace them all with
product shots
vs.

65. 65
In the future, the responsibilities of Paid Search
managers will go beyond managing campaigns
$.47$.47
How to name products? How to merchandize?What price?
Paid Search managers will
influence what product
information is provided,
especially how products
are named.
Google Shopping can be
used as tool to test price
elasticities of individual
products.
Today, merchandizing is
often driven by gut feeling.
Google Shopping allows
for a more data-driven
approach.

66. 66
Thank You! Questions?
$.47$.47
www.crealytics.com
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