Google Shopping Campaigns Guide - CPC Strategy

A ____ New Way To Do PLAs GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS

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TaBle oF ConTenTS

GooGle SearCh overvieW GooGle SearCh paiD aDS

WhaT are proDuCT liSTinG aDS? WhY proDuCT liSTinG aDS? proDuCT liSTinG aDS STruCTure

WhaT are GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS? ShoulD i CreaTe a GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn? GeT STarTeD WiTh GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS CampaiGn SeT up

ShoppinG CampaiGn SeT up unique aTTriBuTeS CampaiGn prioriTY neTWorkS online vS loCal FlexiBle BiDDinG DYnamiC TraCkinG link merChanT CenTer neW GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn FeaTureS

iSSueS To WaTCh ouT For WiTh GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS proDuCT GroupS vS aD GroupS 10 FeeD aTTriBuTeS laYerinG

GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS proS & ConS

GooGle SearCh overvieW

ChapTer 1


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GooGle SearCh overvieWGoogle announced the arrival of Google Shopping Campaigns in late October (2013), as a new way to break out Product Listing Ads campaigns for Google Shopping. Google Shopping Campaigns are an interesting development for retailers and retail search. We’ll outline the details of Google Shopping Campaigns structure, how to get started, and Shopping Campaigns best practices later in this whitepaper.

To get an idea of how Google Shopping Campaigns work, you need to understand the layout of Google Shopping and how Google search results work. If you already know about Google Shopping pay layout and paid ads, go ahead and skip to What Are Google Shopping Campaigns?

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/10/introducing-shopping-campaigns-better.html

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/10/introducing-shopping-campaigns-better.html


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GooGle SearCh paiD aDS

Google is the number one search engine and a major destination for online shopping. Here’s a quick look at what shoppers see when they do a Google search. For reference, the page you see here was created by searching for “the da vinci code hardback” in Google search:

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) text ads Organic search results Product Listing Ads

Google Product Listing Ads are likely the first thing you notice on this page. These are the image ads that show up on the right of this page. Product Listing Ads are cost-per-click (CPC) ads for Google’s comparison shopping engine, Google Shopping.

In addition to PLA ads on Google search, there are also sponsored ads, (out-lined in green). Like PLAs, these are also paid ads but do not include images.

Lastly you’ll notice the organic or non-paid listings on the search page, which online sellers have very little ability to change other than SEO best practices.

WhaT are proDuCT liSTinG aDS?

ChapTer 2


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WhaT are proDuCT liSTinG aDS?The place you want to be here is PLAs. PLAs are typically much cheaper than text ads and have been found to have a 22% higher click-through rate than traditional text advertisements. Wouldn’t you click on an image instead of text?

Taking that a step back, to have products show up as ads with images on Google search, online sellers pay each time someone clicks on an image ad and submit product information using a data feed.

On Google Shopping, Product Listing Ads lead to comparison shopping pages or directly to a merchant’s online store:


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PLAs direct shoppers to your website, where they checkout on your shopping cart. Google also features comparison shopping pages (above screenshot), which show similar products and seller attributes such as shipping and price.

Another aspect of Product Listing Ads is bidding. Bidding is one of various factors in determining how well your products rank on Google Shopping. Generally speaking, the higher the bid, the higher the likelihood that your product will be one of the first to be seen by a shopper. It is very likely that the top 5 Da Vinci code listings you see here also have some of the highest bids. Remember bidding is important for PLA performance and ranking on Google, but there are a number of factors are used to determine placement on these pages.

We won’t go too much into PLA strategy here, but for an in-depth strategy and Google Shopping campaign best practices (including bidding, reports and campaign structure), check out the Google Shopping Guide.

WhY proDuCT liSTinG aDS?

So Product Listing Ads are paid image ads on Google search result pages. Before you learn about Google Shopping campaigns, which are an update to PLAs, lets touch on why you would list your products on Product Listing Ads in the first place.

http://cpcstrategy.com/product-listing-ads/

http://cpcstrategy.com/product-listing-ads/


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If you aren’t already sold on the search giant and ecommerce destination Google, here are some intimidating statistics from Google:

There are over 1 billion products on Google Shopping

Google PLA clicks increased 200% YOY since Sept (2012 vs. 2013)

PLAs are available in 23 countries globally

Google Shopping accounted for an average of 20.19% of overall store traffic and 18.75% of overall revenue during Black Friday weekend. View our Black Friday report.

PLAs are display ads, which means they include product images, which as previously mentioned have a 22% higher click-through rate than traditional text advertisements.

For Sellers, Google Product Listing Ads are also designed with merchants in mind:

Unlike other ad programs or marketplaces, PLAs allow sellers to make changes. Sellers have the ability to modify bids, budget, and ad group structure to limit spend, eliminate poor performing products, and granularly control their ROI goals.

PLAs are integrated with Google Analytics, which makes tracking and monitoring performance easier.

Shopping Campaigns allow merchants to make feed changes within AdWords (we’ll touch more on this later)

If you aren’t listing on Product Listing Ads, here are detailed instructions to get you going.

http://cpcstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-Google-Shopping-Report-2.pdf

http://cpcstrategy.com/product-listing-ads/set-up-google-shopping-account/

http://cpcstrategy.com/product-listing-ads/set-up-google-shopping-account/

http://cpcstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-Google-Shopping-Report-2.pdf


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proDuCT liSTinG aDS STruCTure

We’ll get to the meat and potatoes of Google Shopping Campaigns here shortly, but we need to make just one more small pit stop. Google Shopping Campaigns are a new way to build out Product Listing Ad campaigns. To understand how Google Shopping Campaigns are structured its important to identify how traditional PLAs are created.

Sell on Google Product Listing Ads

1. Send Data Feed

To list products on Google Shopping, retail merchants send product infor-mation to Google via the Google Merchant Center using a product data feed. For Google Shopping data feed format and an example, check out this resource. Here is a general outline of required data feed content:

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2009/10/sample-data-feeds-and-feed-specifications-for-comparison-shopping-engines/

http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2009/10/sample-data-feeds-and-feed-specifications-for-comparison-shopping-engines/


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2. Create Ad Groups with Data Feed Columns

Then within AdWords, merchants can create ad groups for products and categories based on information in your data feed using existing columns (red below), and custom labels in the AdWords label or AdWords-Grouping column (purple below).

Ad groups created with traditional PLAs are based on the structure of your data feed columns. Merchants without custom AdWords labels miss out on ad groups for best sellers (products within certain price brackets), seasonal items, and similar, more-detailed product dimensions which require unique labels in the data feed.

With Google Shopping campaigns, this process is largely the same. The big differentiation is how those ad groups are created within the AdWords login and how changes are made in the data feed for those ad groups.

WhaT are GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS?

ChapTer 3


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WhaT are GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS?Google Shopping Campaigns are a new way to structure Product Listing Ads within the AdWords login.

Product Listing Ads haven’t changed- they are still CPC display ads which convert well for retail merchants. Shopping Campaigns were designed by Google to “…streamline how you [retail merchants] manage and bid on your products, report on your performance, and find opportunities to grow traffic from Google.”

In other words, Google Shopping Campaigns were created for online sellers to make it easier to structure, track, and bid on Product Listing Ads.

The key differentiation between former PLAs and Shopping Campaigns is how shopping campaigns are segmented based on sub groups or layers. You can only add 1 layer at a time, and with each layer the number of products available for that layer decreases.

Shopping campaign product groups are structured in such a way that every ad group is a sub-element of your all products product group.


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Once you’ve selected your initial sub product group under all products (e.g brand, category), each of those sub product groups can only be segmented by what is in that category (excluding everything else).

Google’s explanation of Shopping Campaigns focuses on allowing merchants to group products more closely to how a merchant might in a brick and mortar store:

All Products

Product Category

Product Sub Category

http://www.youtube.com/embed/fzFs7O1gmrQ


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ShoulD i CreaTe a GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn?

Below we’ll cover how to create a Google Shopping Campaign, but you may or may not want to delete your current PLA campaign, and it’s not in your best interest to run a PLA campaign alongside a new Shopping Campaign.

Also of note, you will not be able to change the type of your existing PLA campaign, if you want to use the new Shopping campaign format, you’ll have to create a brand new campaign.

I’m predicting the new PLA campaign structure will eventually roll out to everyone and be the campaign structure in the future.

Paid PLAs were easier to manage and resulted in a higher ROI for advertisers who jumped on board earlier, learned how to structure ad groups and understood how Google ads worked. Similarly, it’s in your best interest to at the very least understand how the new PLA campaigns work. If you think you’d like to create new PLA campaigns keep in mind Shopping campaigns change how PLAs are structured, and so they may or may not be a fit for your store at this time depending on your category, access to your data feed, campaign complexity, and other related variables.


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Consider these questions before creating a Shopping Campaign:

If you answer yes to the following questions, you may want to hold off on starting with a Google Shopping Campaign:

Do you have an existing PLA Campaign with historical performance?

Is your PLA Campaign broken out extensively (e.g. best sellers, price buckets,etc)?

Are you using multiple AdWords labels in your data feed?

Does your PLA Campaign use filters?

If you answer yes to the following questions, you’re likely a good candidate to get started with Google Shopping Campaigns:

Do you have limited access to your data feed?

Are you only using an all products ad group?

Are your PLA ads fairly limited in how broken out they are?

Are you using few AdWords labels in your data feed?


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GeT STarTeD WiTh GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS

Remember that Google Shopping Campaigns are a new type of campaign structure for Product Listing Ads. To create Google Shopping Campaigns, you’ll start within AdWords just as you would with your current PLAs. These steps also assume you are sending a correctly formatted and optimized product feed to Google Shopping.

Create a Shopping Campaign

To create a new Google Shopping Campaign:

1. Login to AdWords and select the campaigns tab:


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2. You should see a new “Shopping” campaign at the bottom of the dropdown menu in the screenshot here:

CampaiGn SeTup

Google Shopping Campaign setup is very similar to PLA setup, with some exceptions including campaign priority and local ads, which we’ll go over shortly.

There are additional new features that we won’t touch on here.


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3. Now all you have to do is set your bid & your budget:


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ShoppinG CampaiGn SeTup unique aTTriBuTeS

The newest AdWords update includes some additional Advanced Settings on this page including campaign priority, networks, online vs. local, and dynamic tracking.

Campaign Priority

You can set the priority of this Google Shopping Campaign as High, Medium, or Low:

Setting a priority level overrides the typical bid ranking prioritization. In the old PLA campaign format, you could set up multiple campaigns with Google Shopping ads, but a product would always be placed in the campaign where it would have the highest bid.

With the new Google Shopping campaigns, a bid will only be used for campaigns that have the same priority level. If you have 2 Google Shopping campaigns, 1 with High priority and the other with Low priority, the bid in the high priority campaign will always be used even if that bid is lower.

So you could have 1 campaign targeting low priced or low margin products and set it as a high priority, and then have a 2nd campaign targeting everything else with a low priority. That way you can set a low bid on your low margin products and be sure that your lower bid will always be used for those products because that campaign has the higher priority.


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This is only necessary if you’re setting up multiple Google Shopping Campaigns.

Networks

Currently, PLAs ads appear only on Google.com unless you’re running a Dynamic Remarketing campaign.

With Google Shopping Campaigns setup, PLAs are integrated into Google Maps and other Google sites and properties within the Google Search Network:


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Online vs. Local

Google Shopping Campaigns give merchants the option to tell Google whether your products are available online, in a local store, or both.

In order to display local availability of your products you must also submit a Local Products feed through your Merchant Center in addition to your standard product file:


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Flexible Bidding

Google is taking their automated bid strategy and making it a little easier to create a new campaign. Keep in mind that if you use a “Flexible” or automated bid strategy you’ll still want to monitor it to make sure it continues to be effective.

Dynamic Tracking

Google gives you the option of adding your own tracking parameters:

Link Merchant Center

With Google Shopping Campaigns, there are no longer multiple Extensions available for the same Merchant Center and you no longer have the ability to create a new extension.

This implies 2 things. First, that filtering the extension is no longer possible (or necessary) which means that by default all products approved in the Merchant Center will be available for your Google Shopping Campaign.

Second, that future filters applied to the product extensions for other campaigns (if they’re even still available) won’t apply to Google Shopping Campaigns.

Be sure to select the appropriate Merchant Center from the drop-down menu seen here.


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neW GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn FeaTureS

Google’s added a few new features to this campaign type. First and foremost they’ve added 3 competitive metrics.

Benchmark CTR & Max CPC

The Benchmark CTR & Max. CPC columns which will be displayed by default in your campaign will show you how other retailers with the same or similar products are performing. Google will tell you what their average CTR is & what they’re bidding so you can see how your bids stack up with your competitors.

Impression Share

They’ll also show you Impression Share which is the percentage of times your ads were shown for eligible searches. For example if your impression share is 50%, it means that your product ad is being shown half the time for relevant searches. A low impression share could mean that you’re not bidding high enough to be shown for a high percentage of searches, but it could also mean that you have a poor data feed leading to lower rankings on Google Shopping.

Products Tab

The other new feature is the Products Tab, which is particularly helpful if you spend a lot of time working with datafeeds. This tab has all the info for every product you’re submitting to the Google Merchant Center. So if you’re ever unsure of what info you’re including for a particular product like what the ID is, what the Brand is, etc. you can look that up in the Products tab. It’s a great way to get some more insight into how the data you’re sending looks to Google.


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Exclusions

Google’s also giving you the option to Exclude a sub-group of products from your product group. Instead of bidding on a sub-product group, you can exclude it.

To do this you still need to add a sub-group to your product group- but select the “excluded” button. This excludes those products from that product group, which filters them down into the Everything Else product group:

ShoppinG CampaiGn aD Group STruCTure

ChapTer 4


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ShoppinG CampaiGn aD Group STruCTureTraditional Product Listing Ads allow merchants to create ad groups using labels from their data feed, including category, brand, or AdWords label. Merchants create ad groups by segmenting products based on their label in the data feed.

With the use of AdWords labels and groups, merchants using PLAs could create a slew of different ad groups.

AdWords labels allows merchants to get really granular and complex with ad groups in the feed. However, this process can get complicated, and can lead to issues such as bid overlap for products in multiple ad groups:

For merchants and agencies that understand how PLAs can be broken out and how to utilize AdWords labels, this structure is a significant benefit, but it’s equally as limiting for those without that expertise.

Category Ad Group AThis could be a category Ad Group which has some of the same products as your All Products Ad Group

Product B

Best Seller Ad Group

Product C

Category Ad Group BThis could be another category Ad Group, with overlapping products.

Product A

Category Ad Group BThis is your entire data feed-all of your products

Product AProduct BProduct C

http://cpcstrategy.com/product-listing-ads/ad-group-structure/


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Google Shopping Campaign structure works similar to how PLA ad groups are currently broken out, but makes the process much more intuitive. While this is useful in many ways, it also adds a layer of complexity in terms of how many ad groups you can have and how they are structured.

The big difference between ad group structure for former PLAs and Shopping Campaigns is how ad groups are broken out. Traditional PLAs allow merchants to segment products however they please, creating sub segments which overlap between other ad groups. Here is another way to look at how ad groups can overlap with traditional PLAs:

Consider each different colored slice as an ad group. You’ll notice that certain ad groups have products within other ad groups, often multiple different ones. Think of a Venn diagram, where elements overlap (some items belong to multiple groups). A good analogy for this is social groups. You can be part of a running club, as well as an ecommerce network, and some of the people in those groups are also in other groups as well as yours.


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Shopping Campaign product groups are structured in such a way that every ad group is a sub-element of your all products product group. This sounds confusing but stay with me here.

Shopping Campaigns work in such a way that merchants create product groups based on what products remain. Imagine a pie which you continue to slice away at, each piece getting cut from the whole. Once half of the pie is eaten, you can only get pieces from the remaining section.

Once you’ve selected your initial sub product group under all products (e.g. brand, category), each of those sub product groups can only be segmented by what is in that category (excluding everything else).

Here is an idea of how that is different visually:

In the new Google Shopping Campaign you no longer have Ad Groups because you’re not managing ads. This is not a text ad campaign where you create & manage ads, this is a product-based campaign where you manage products

Product Groups vs. Ad Groups

To create product groups, you can segment sections of your all products product group based on feed labels.


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If you stop here, you can set a Max. CPC for your All Products groups. To break out additional product groups click on the Pencil icon:

From here you can choose one of 10 feed attributes through which to create a product group underneath all products.


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10 Feed Attributes

You have 10 ways to add your first layer using different attributes from the feed:

1. Category (Google Product Category)2. Brand3. Item ID4. Condition5. Product Type6. Custom Label 0 - 4


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You’ll notice the sixth option here is Custom label. The 5 available Custom Labels columns are similar to the old AdWords Labels column with one exception. You can only have 1 custom label per column, which is probably why Google lets you add 5 columns:

To create product groups with custom labels, you’ll need to add columns in your feed with the header “custom label 0”, etc. Just like AdWords_labels, you can identify attributes to segment within product groups such as “best seller” or “Holiday.”


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Layering

Google Shopping Campaigns are like ogres (and onions) they have layers.

As mentioned above, the key differentiation between former PLAs and Shopping Campaigns is how shopping campaigns are segmented based on sub groups, or layers. You can only add 1 layer at a time, and with each layer the number of products available for that layer decreases. You’ll see that as you add targets, you’ll get the option to add targets for “Everything Else.”

The bid no longer determines which target a product is placed in. The target’s order in the hierarchy determines where a product goes.

For example, in this image below you can see that by default, Google gives the option to segment products by Category, and that the Apparel & Accessories category has 22k products. All categories listed here are based on the Google Product Categories submitted in the feed.


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If we select Category as the first layer, then all segments added on this layer MUST use other Categories. Category & Brand segments cannot coexist in the same layer. If we wanted to add a Brand target here, it would have to be added within one of the category targets.

You can, however, add multiple product category targets in this layer. So you could add an Apparel & Accessories target as well as a Sporting Goods target because they are both Google Product Categories.

Once all the category targets are set, we have the option to add targets for “Everything Else” which lets you set targets for any other type of layer, like Brands for example:

Clicking on the plus box gives you a new selection screen, and you can now select from any available brand in the feed:


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However, the products available for this new North Face target are only the products that were NOT included in the previous Apparel & Accessories target. The Apparel & Accessories target takes priority because it was in the primary layer.

Any North Face products that are left over can now be included in this Brand layer.

To illustrate that point, let’s reverse the layers and start with Brand. So in this case, when we click on All Products we’ll first choose “Brand” from the drop-down menu at the top instead of Category.

Here we can see that there are over 2,200 products available for the North Face target:

This is because we’re starting out targeting specific brands. If we then want to add a Category layer below that in the “Everything Else” section with an Apparel & Accessories target, that target won’t have any North Face products because all the North Face products were put in the North Face Brand target in the primary layer.

iSSueS To WaTCh ouT For WiTh GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnS

ChapTer 5


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iSSueS To WaTCh ouT For WiTh GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGnSThe new Shopping Campaign structure was designed to make Google PLA management easier for advertisers, to mimic how advertisers sell items in store. However, like most things there are some benefits and draw-backs to the new structure. Remember that Shopping Campaigns are still in beta, so more changes are likely to come.

Layers Cannot Be Retrieved Once Deleted

When you change how a particular target is layered, you lose the entire structure of that target and have to start from scratch. For example, let’s say you wanted to switch your live label target so that you bid on categories like Men’s Footwear first, then had the brand bids at a lower priority.

You can’t simply adjust the priority. You have to delete everything and restructure the live label from scratch.

This also means that if you accidentally change the structure of your campaign, you’re screwed. There’s no “undo” button.

If you ever see this window, it means you’re about to lose that targets’ structure. So be careful when you’re setting things up:

This also means that you can accidentally go through and reset or change something; you could wipe out your entire campaign structure. So make sure to take notes or screenshots just in case.


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Data Located in Different Locations

Graphical representation of performance over time

No comparison to previous date ranges

The new Google Shopping Campaign reporting has some variables located in different locations, with different representation than traditional PLAs, such as the above variables which have been moved to the dimensions tab.

Limited segmentation

Since Shopping Campaigns are based on layers, they limit what experts can break out for product groups.

No downloadable reports within AdWords

No change history within AdWords

GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn proS

ChapTer 6


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GooGle ShoppinG CampaiGn proSEasy Buildout

Easier to build out & evaluate multi-level strategies (like a category target within a brand target). Layering is also a much easier process for new users

Data will already exist when you subdivide your groups, making it easier to see if a new strategy will be effective

Benchmark CTR & Bids let you know how your bids compare to other retailers with similar products

Products Tab shows you all your product data directly in the Ad-Words login and is searchable by any attribute

The Google Shopping Campaign type isn’t just a cool new way to bid on your products, this is a completely new way of thinking about how to structure your Google Shopping Campaign.


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Insider Best Practices

Here are some insider best practices from our extensive experience managing the new campaign structure:

Pick one way of grouping products together and start with that.

If you want to create a few product groups based on Brand start with that. If you want to do it by Product Type or Category or Product ID, start with that. As you get more familiar with this new campaign structure you’ll start to understand how your product groups are working together and you can get more granular from there.

Stat Slow. It’s better to start slow & get it right then to get too complicated too quickly & lose focus.

Increase bid levels for Google. CPCs on Google Shopping have been traditionally been lower than text ads which is ridiculous considering how much better they convert. Google wants to give you visibility into how your competitors are bidding because they want a bidding war.

Start the Switch. It’s not imperative you switch everything over right away, especially if you already have an extensive campaign built out. You can begin building the campaign now and move over gradually. If you only have a basic campaign built out, with just one or two ad groups, you might as well start using the new campaign structure.


liFe iS ChaoTiC,

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Get more on Google, Amazon, AdWords, and other leading shopping channels without logging into a platform, dealing with technical elements of your data feed, or poring over performance data.

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Google Shopping Campaigns Guide - CPC Strategy

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