Optimizing Text Ads for Retail

transcript

Optimizing AdWords

Text Ads for Retail

How Retail Advertisers Can Drive More Product Conversions with Text

R E T A I L A D V E R T I S E R C O U R S E

Before We Get Started

Session Recordings Will Be Sent Next Week

Q&A Following the Presentation

Submit Questions In the Chat Box to the Right

Logistics Speakers

Jon Gregoire

Director of Marketing

CPC Strategy

David Weichel

Director of Paid Search

CPC Strategy

What’s been your experience managing text

ads over the last 12 months?

Poll For The Audience

AdGooroo:

“On average the top 20 advertisers spent a whopping 63% of their

Desktop Paid Search budget on Product Listing Ads, with only 37%

devoted to traditional text ads.”

(Data from Q2 2014)

• Founded in 2007

• Over 300 active retail clients

• Top 50 fastest growing company in San Diego 3 years running

• Recognized as an Official Google Shopping Partner

• Custom-built retail search technology platform, CAPx

Solutions

Retail-focused Paid Search (PPC)

Google Shopping Management

Shopping Channel Management

Amazon Sales Acceleration

CPC STRATEGY HAS BEEN FEATURED ON

DELIVERING LASTING RESULTS FOR OUR CLIENTS

VISIT CPCSTRATEGY.COM

www.CPCStrategy.com | 619.501.6138 | contact@cpcstrategy.com

Evolution of Retail Text Ad Inventory

David Weichel

Director of Paid Search

Head of Paid Search strategy and innovation at CPC Strategy

Featured speaker at SMX Advanced, SMX East, MivaCon

Leads all product development with CPC’s in-house PPC

technology

Course Overview

• Allowing Shopping Campaign Performance Data to Inform Text Ad Strategy

• Framework for a Retail-Focused Campaign Architecture

• Essential Automated Rules to Apply

• Optimizing Ad Copy for Retail

• Leveraging Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs)

• Q&A

Start with Shopping

Allowing Shopping Campaign Performance Data to Inform Text Ad Strategy

• Google’s retail-specific ad program should undoubtedly be the starting point

• Text and Shopping ads don’t exist in a vacuum

• Shopping will return the valuable, product-level information you need to build out text

campaigns effectively

What Data is Valuable?

Spotting Your Opportunities

• If it doesn’t convert on Shopping, move on

• Brand & product-level sales volume

• Impression share (take w/ a grain of salt)

Search Terms Data

• Representative of how real people search for your products

• Spot new themes & trends in language

• Aggregate stats are the most useful here

• Inform new keyword targets, negatives & ad copy

Recommended Budget Allocation

Follow The ROAS

• Shopping campaigns generally see better returns than text

Drive budget here until you see diminishing returns

Restructure your campaigns to make sure budget is going to top performers

• Text can drive higher volume for high-demand brands

Generally higher CPCs, higher CPA, lower ROAS

Historically low performers don’t flip on a dime without doing something drastic

• Optimize for the highest net return

Text Ad Optimization Can Be A Long, Phased Process

• Invest into Shopping for more immediate returns

Campaigns & Ad Groups that Matter in Retail

Framework for a Retail-Focused Campaign Architecture

Inventory Driven Targeting

• Category/Type

• Brand

• Collection

• Specific products – name or SKU

Audience Driven Targeting

• Gender & age

• Area of need, or purpose

e.g. “lighting for interior designers”

Dynamic Search Ads

• Highly recommended for all retail advertisers

• Ad headlines & LP URLs are automatically generated

• Great way to quickly break out campaigns with product targets

• Generally cheaper traffic & can convert well

• Scalable way to “fill in the gaps”

Mobile Ads

• Very cautious when it comes to mobile

• Only push mobile if you have a mobile-friendly site

• On average, down-bid by -70%

• Huge for retailers with B&Ms and driving local in-store traffic

• Link your Google My Business page

Automated Rules

Essential Automated Rules to Apply

Keeping Up With A Dynamic Product Catalog

• Pause ads/keywords if out of stock (OOS)

OOS text on landing pages

Create separate OOS feed

• Pause ads/keywords if LP reaches a 404 error

• Pause ads/keywords pointing to low quality search results pages

“No Results Found”

Only 1 product result

Ad Parameters & Ad Customizers

Ad Parameters

• Numbers only

• Assigned at keyword level

• Include product price in ad copy

Ad Customizers

• Numbers & text accepted

• Assigned at multiple levels – ad group, keyword, campaign.

• Dynamically insert attributes like price, brand, etc.

• Countdown sales timer

• Must rotate alongside a non-Customizer ad

Automated Bidding Rules

• Should be geared towards your ROAS targets

“If…Then…” rules

Prevent runaway spend on non-converters

Be cognizant of the limitations of Adwords conversion tracking

• If you care about CPA, same logic applies

• Methods for implementing bid automation

Adwords scripts

Adwords Automated Rules

Bare Minimum

Optimizing Ad Copy for Retail

• Seller Ratings Annotations

• Google Trusted Stores

• 3rd Party Review Sites

e.g. eKomi, Shopper Approved, BizRate, TrustPilot, etc.

• Targeted Sitelinks

• Address the stage of the funnel

• For top-of-the-funnel ads, sitelinks should highlight known-converters

Top Selling brands & products

• For bottom-of-the-funnel ads, highlight your store value props

e.g. No-Hassle Return Policy, or Free 2-day Shipping

Tweaking Ad Copy

Optimizing Ad Copy for Retail

Relevance (And Bolding) Is Key

• Better Quality Scores, improved ad position, lower cpcs

• Use the exact keyword text in the ad if possible

Don’t Lose The ‘Voice’ In Your Copy

• Address the stage of the funnel and seek to push the shopper closer to a purchase

• Highlight meaningful value props for that stage

• Brand-specific, but product agnostic e.g. “mens nike shoes”

• Mention your best-selling styles in the copy

• Product-specific e.g. “mens nike free 5.0”

• e.g. Free shipping, 24/7 customer service, 90-day return policy, etc.

What are RLSAs?

Leveraging Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs)

• Allows advertisers to customize ads and tweak bids based on past behavior

• ROI-driven advertisers typically shy away from the more top-of-the-funnel, educational queries

• Pro: Better COS results

• Con: Gives up significant market share

• Default lists – 30 day cookie window:

• All Visitors

• General Viewers

• Product Viewers

• Shopping Cart Abandoners

• Past Buyers

How RLSAs Should Fit into Your Strategy

• Opportunity to expand your top-of-funnel reach

• Do you have a system in place for measuring customer LTV?

Refining RLSA Strategy

Be cognizant of the minimum requirements

• 1,000 user list size for RLSA

• Use historical performance to inform custom audience segments

Take advantage of custom parameters and values in the remarketing tag

• e.g. ‘Product viewers’ can span multiple brands, types, etc.

• Include Brand, Collection, or Category/Product Type

• Refined targeting & bid adjustments

Consider segmenting by recency:

• Cart Abandoners, past 24 hours: +50% bid adj

• Cart Abandoners, 2-7 days ago: +25% bid adj

• Cart Abandoners, 8-30 days ago: +10% bid adj

Evaluate Your Investment in AdWords Text Ads

Questions for David?

Submit your questions in the chat box on the right

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