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A U G U S T 2017 Google Shopping

GUIDE TO GOOGLE SHOPPING DEVELOPING A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC STRATEGY

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CO N T E N T S

MAKE THE MOST OF GOOGLE GETTING SHOPPING RIGHT

SHOPPING





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BOOST SHOPPING PERFORMANCE BY USING AUDIENCES — P. 10

U S I N G S H O P P I N G TO

MAKING THE MOST OF

G U I D E YO U R OV E RA L L P P C

YO U R F E E D W I T H DY N A M I C

S T R AT E G Y

R E TA R G E T I N G





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MAKE THE MOST OF GOOGLE SHOPPING by Angela Knibb, Head of Paid Search

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GET TING SHOPPING RIGHT by Johan Holmberg, Paid Media Analyst

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BOOST SHOPPING PERFORMANCE BY USING AUDIENCES by Jonathan Kelterer, Paid Media Analyst

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H O W H E A LT H Y F E E D S C A N D E L I V E R S U C C E S S F U L O N L I N E SHOPPING EXPERIENCES by Lidia Ferrer, Senior Paid Media Analyst

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U S I N G S H O P P I N G T O G U I D E Y O U R O V E R A L L P P C S T R AT E G Y by Dan Walker, Senior Paid Media Analyst

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O P P O RT U N I T I E S TO I M P ROV E I N M O B I L E S H O P P I N G S E A R C H F O R R E TA I L E R S by Chris Dunn, COO, FoundIt!

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M A K E F A C E B O O K A D S M O R E R E L E VA N T A N D S H O P PA B L E W I T H DY N A M I C P RO D U CT A D S by Melissa Dayan, Paid Media Analyst

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M A K I N G T H E M O S T O F Y O U R F E E D W I T H D Y N A M I C R E TA R G E T I N G by Lizzy Lakra, Senior Display Strategist

Greenlight is a multiple award-winning digital marketing agency that designs, builds, deploys and measures marketing solutions and campaigns across Search, Content and Engagement, Display, Mobile, eCommerce and more, with the unwavering objective of achieving dramatic growth for its clients. Greenlight promotes brands and products in 29 languages and 32 territories on behalf of such clients as ghd, Dixons Carphone, Superdry, Laura Ashley, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, eBay, Hiscox, Footasylum and many more. Ready to grow? Call us on +44(0)20 7253 7000 or go to www.greenlightdigital.com/get-in-touch

Technical SEO Introduction

MAKE THE MOST OF GOOGLE SHOPPING W H E N YO U D O W I N T H E C L I C K, YO U’R E ANGELA KNIBB, HEAD OF PAID SEARCH —

M O R E L I K E LY T O W I N T H E S A L E B E C A U S E YO U’ V E P R E-Q U A L I F I E D YO U R T RA F F I C. —

If you’re reading this magazine, you’re likely to

the search result, when you do win the click, you’re

be a retailer (or work for a retailer), and want to

more likely to win the sale because you’ve pre-

capitalise on the omnipotent opportunity that is

qualified your traffic. Clearly, we’re on to a winner

Google Shopping. Since its original launch in 2012

here.

as ‘Product Listing Ads’, Google Shopping continues to grow, and is now arguably one of the key components to any retailer’s online success.

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As an agency, we spend a lot of time looking at, and talking about, Shopping. A recent paid media report revealed that Q2 2017 saw 51% of Google search

We know that users are more likely to click on a

ad clicks come from Shopping1, so we’re keen to

Shopping ad than a generic search ad, probably

exhaust all avenues to capture that demand and

because the ad unit is so much more enticing;

drive through conversions. Of course, there are

there’s a lovely visualisation of the product and a

wider opportunities available here than just Google

price point, alongside competitors’ options that you

– Bing has a very similar Shopping tool, and the

can also reference – much like on the high street.

same principles and strategies can be applied to

And, because your customer can see this detail in

drive growth through Bing Shopping as on Google.

If you were wondering how this magazine can help

post-click. We know that conversion rates for

you with your planning, our Paid Media Analyst,

Shopping are great, but bounce rates are still

Johan Holmberg, kicks things off by discussing

a challenge, specifically for Shopping, so Chris

how to lay the right foundations for Shopping by

highlights how to improve them while increasing

emphasising the importance of hygiene factors and

revenue even further.

ongoing optimisations to improve performance. This is how we ensure we have the right structural and best practice considerations in place to really drive that growth our clients need. Jonathan Kelterer, also a Paid Media Analyst, talks us through how we can deepen our approach by thinking audience-first and improve the customer journey by applying different audiences to our campaigns. Our Senior Paid Media Analyst, Lidia Ferrer, turns things up a notch by discussing the importance of feeds, and how we can optimise the data within the feed to improve visibility and performance using Productsup. This is where many people stop with Shopping. Getting the foundations built with the ideal set up and optimisation processes in place, then layering that with audiences and optimising the feeds is crucial for success. However, once they are in place, Senior Paid Media Analyst and serious data guru, Dan Walker, talks us through how we can take that one step further, by using our Shopping activity to inform our wider search strategy. It’s something we think should be a much more fundamental part of Shopping optimisations, and Dan reflects on how Shopping can affect the user journey.

Don’t just stop at optimising your feeds though; Melissa Dayan, Paid Media Analyst and social media lover, gives her advice on how to pull your feed into Facebook to drive further efficiencies. This will support your customers throughout their purchase path, and show them the products they want to see. Finally, Lizzy Lakra, our Senior Display Strategist, explains how we can utilise the very same feed for dynamic remarketing, capturing engaged users as they browse the web and drive them back to convert. Cleverly, both Lizzy and Melissa avoid falling into the ‘creepy’ remarketing trap by considering how many impressions are too many. You may be familiar with some, or indeed all, of these tactics, but I hope this magazine conveys the sheer wealth of opportunity available through Shopping. Laying the right foundations for your business is essential, and past that, there’s loads of room for improvement, growth and expansion – which, in turn, will also improve your revenue and return. Shopping continues to go from strength to strength, and is showing no sign of slowing down. If you’re not already on board, what’s stopping you? If you are, fantastic, use this magazine to help

We’ve written this magazine because of the

develop and grow those strategies. We don’t want

amazing performance we see here day in, day out

good, we want incredible – and I’m sure you do too.

– so you’d be forgiven for thinking that Shopping is without its flaws. While I’d love to leave you with that impression, of course, it isn’t (…nothing in life is, sadly!) which is why Chris Dunn, COO of FoundIt!, walks us through the customer journey

1. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/304502/search-spend-rising-google-shopping-plasremain.html?edition=104281

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Technical Paid MediaSEO

GETTING SHOPPING RIGHT

JOHAN HOLMBERG PAID MEDIA ANALYST



As the interest in Google Shopping continues to rise, we’re seeing spend grow at a rate which is almost three times faster than that of text ads1. In the first quarter of 2017, clicks grew by 39% yearon-year and represented 52% of retailers’ search ad clicks in Google, with no sign of slowing down2.

T H E R E ’ S N O R I G H T W AY TO D O S H O P P I N G. T H E R E A R E, H OW E V E R, T H E R I G H T F O U N D AT I O N S T O B U I L D Y O U R S T R AT E G Y F R O M . —

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IT’S A LL A BOU T TH E FE E D Google Shopping doesn’t use keywords at all; it matches the user search query on Google or Bing to your Shopping feed, displaying the product ad when your product category, headline and/or description line match that search query. Therefore, it relies on content found within the feed when it comes to a product ad being relevant, hence it’s essential to include keyword-rich, accurate, and appealing information. Product titles and descriptions are the most important elements in the feed, and should contain useful and descriptive information, such as brand, product name, gender, colour, size and other features. Remember to put

country to avoid product disapprovals or account suspension. It’s important to make sure the feed is updated as often as the website - stick to an absolute minimum of every 30 days to avoid account suspension. We advise automating the process to fetch accurate product information from your website daily to keep your Shopping ads accurate and, more importantly, your customers happy. Setting up and getting the feed in good condition might be a time-consuming process, but it’s a necessary one to ensure your Shopping campaigns are successful.

C A M PA I G N B U I L D

the most important details at the beginning of

Once you have your feed set up and approved in

the title, as users will usually only see the first 70

the Google Merchant Centre, it’s time to link to

characters.

your AdWords account and start building your campaigns. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ here –

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is often

different structures are important for different

applied to offline marketing, but it’s relevant here

strategies, and to decide what’s right for you, it’s

as well. In order to increase user attention and

key to know your budget and targets. However, here

maximise site visits, make sure you always use

are some guidelines to get you started.

high resolution and compelling images that Google can crawl. In addition to this, take advantage of ‘Automated Extensions’ to highlight compelling

VV

Separate your brand and non-brand

selling points such as free shipping or price drops

searches. You would never target these

to further encourage your customers to click.

keywords together in search, so don’t do so

Furthermore, custom labels help group products

in Shopping. We use an AdWords script and

by specific criteria such as bestsellers, sale, seasonal

extensive negative keyword lists to target

and so on, and are very helpful when organising

brand searches separately. This both ensures

bidding and reporting in Shopping campaigns, as

visibility and helps reduce potentially inflated

Lidia will explain in further detail in her article.

brand cost-per-clicks (CPCs).

Fundamentally, the key to success when it comes

VV

Consider a granular approach to non-brand,

to Shopping is to ensure you have a well optimised

breaking out your campaigns by category or

feed.

brand. This helps increase visibility, helps you

It’s essential that all content in the product

identify areas that are or aren’t working, and

feed complies with Google Shopping policies3,

helps your customer find you where and when

and meets all the requirements for the targeted

they want to.

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Paid Media VV

VV

Create an ‘all products’ campaign to capture any

his article, or adjusting bids for the hour of day, day

surplus products not included in your category or

of week, location, or device. You might also want to

brand breakout.

consider optimising your Shopping campaigns with

Use custom labels to break out top performers, sale and high margin items to maximise visibility and budget where you know you’re more likely to sell.

VV

VV

automated bid strategies. There are several different ones to look into; for example, target ROAS will automatically optimise bids to reach the return on ad spend (ROAS) target set up and maximise conversion value (it’s optimal to have at least 10 transactions

Use campaign priorities to streamline your

per day); enhance CPC adjusts the manually set

budget to the products you want to push.

cost-per-clicks (CPCs) depending on the likeliness

Consider having your top sellers, high margin and sale items (for example) on high priority, your non-brand category breakout on medium priority, and your brand and all products campaigns on low priority.

of a conversion (aiming to maximise the amount of conversions while keeping costs low and increase conversion rate); or maximise clicks to drive as much traffic as possible using a specific budget. We’ve seen real growth in this area, particularly when a proactive approach is taken and you don’t just ‘set and forget’, but continually review, tweak, test and learn.

It’s important to break out campaigns as granularly as

If there’s one thing I want you to take away here, it’s

possible to gain greater control in terms of bids and

this: there’s no right way to do Shopping. It completely

performance. This means dividing your campaigns

depends on your budgets, targets, time, and business

into sub-categories and individual products; a good

priorities. There are, however, the right foundations to

idea is to break out top performing products to

build your strategy from. Ensure you have an accurate,

their own campaign or ad group to provide more

comprehensive and well-optimised feed, updated

accurate management and a better overview of

daily. Consider how you want to structure your

the top products that need attention. If, like us, you

campaigns to meet your business goals, and above all,

use DoubleClick, you’ll be aware that you can use

once you have your activity live, optimise it! I really

Adaptive Shopping to automate this process – believe

can’t emphasise that last point enough. Consider what

me, it’s been a life saver!

your levers are to push performance, and then do so. You’ll be amazed by how much you can get out of this

C A M P A I G N O P T I M I S AT I O N

channel once you do.

As your campaigns run, you’ll want to improve performance by performing regular Search Query Reports to find negative keywords to add to the account, thus saving money and avoiding terms which are unprofitable or irrelevant. You might consider layering in audience targeting as Jonathan advises in

1. https://www.salesandorders.com/q4-2016-google-shopping-growth-analysis-report 2. http://searchengineland.com/merkle-paid-search-nonbrand-growth-q2-2017-279275 3. https://support.google.com/merchants/ answer/6149970?hl=en-GB

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THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX ALL OUR MAGAZINES ARE LOVINGLY MADE BY OUR CREATIVE TEAM Our resident creatives are the ones who are always looking to challenge the norm; they’re the dreamers, the rainmakers. From big ideas to creation to ongoing maintenance, their expertise spans the board – making what seems like the impossible, possible. What’s more, they always keep user experience, interactive design and ongoing maintenance in mind so that you end up with something that’s not just fit for purpose, but built to last.

Check out our showreel to learn more about our branding and creative, responsive design and web development capabilities. Watch it here: http://www.greenlightdigital.com/build/ 9

Paid Media

BOOST SHOPPING PERFORMANCE BY USING AUDIENCES JONATHAN KELTERER PAID MEDIA ANALYST



It can’t be said enough: Google Shopping is

While this is an excellent starting point, as it makes

becoming an increasingly popular tool for both

it possible to granularly control product groups and

advertisers and consumers. Consequently, a rising

eliminate unwanted traffic, going a step further

number of retailers are shifting budgets towards

and adding audiences to the mix truly enables

Shopping and competition is increasing – meaning

advertisers to maximise their efficiencies.

rising costs-per-click (CPCs) and more obstacles to a healthy impression share. As a result, effective and efficient targeting is the key to reducing those costs, as well as maximising revenue and efficiencies.

retarget website visitors and not only present them with product images further down the funnel, but also present existing customers with new product lines, or present customers with

However, targeting methods in Shopping are

products complimentary to a prior purchase.

limited. In some cases, advertisers don’t have

Additionally, advertisers can make use of Google’s

access to, or control over, the product feeds,

similar audience function to target users who are

which only leaves them with priority settings,

comparable in behaviour to predefined existing

product group breakouts, ongoing optimisation

audiences.

and negative keywords to manage visibility.

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By using audiences for Shopping, advertisers can

www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000

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Paid Media

A D D I N G A U D I E N C E S T O T H E M I X T R U LY E N A B L E S A DV E RT I S E R S TO M AX I M I S E T H E I R E F F I C I E N C I E S. —

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www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000

AUDIENCES

SIMIL AR AUDIENCES

Audiences for Shopping are much like using

Similar Audiences recently became a widely

Audiences for Search; having created a set of

available feature in AdWords, and as such has

audiences made up of users who have previously

considerably enhanced audience functionality since.

performed a particular action on a website,

They come into play in instances where advertisers

or having uploaded a list of email addresses,

want to focus on generating new customers by

advertisers can then target these users specifically.

getting product images in front of previously

There are two targeting options to choose from:

unknown users. This is achieved by Google

either advertisers can choose to target an audience

automatically registering the user behaviour of

only, or they can choose to implement higher bids

customers who already belong within existing

on it to ensure maximum product visibility for high

audiences, and it then populates audience lists

value audiences.

with users who have shown similar behaviour and

The first option – target and bid – is especially useful when advertisers wish to only target a specific audience with a set of products. It can, for example, be used to retarget customers who have purchased a pair of running shoes with shorts, jerseys and socks. Another use case can also be retargeting customers who have bought a summer range with a winter range. Shopping is able to

interests, but who are not on any other pre-defined audience lists. This allows advertisers to use their existing audience to help find users who behave similarly, but who haven’t engaged with your brand before. As they’re based on your existing consumers, it’s a cost-effective way to get your brand and products in front of new users who are much more likely to convert, based on their online behaviour.

uniquely present potential customers with a variety of images and can thereby provide them with their first visual touch point of interesting products. Using the ‘bid only’ option enables advertisers to gain higher visibility for certain audiences, and is the best way to ensure that previous website users get served product ads by the same advertiser, instead of competitors’. This method gives advertisers greater brand visibility amongst users who are more likely to convert.

Overall, a healthy mix between using Audiences for Shopping as well as Similar Audiences can turn Shopping campaigns into a success, with remarketing to known users and customers driving a positive return on investment while also driving highly targeted prospecting through similar audiences.

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Technical Paid MediaSEO

HOW HEALTHY FEEDS CAN DELIVER SUCCESSFUL ONLINE SHOPPING EXPERIENCES

LIDIA FERRER SENIOR PAID MEDIA ANALYST



Creating an easy and unique shopping experience, both online and in-store, is the future of retail. ECommerce has already revolutionised the way we shop, however it will continue to evolve, as marketers seek to satisfy and tweak the online shopping patterns and preferences that shape retail today.

T H E M O R E YO U F O C U S ON SETTING UP AND REVIEWING FOR I M P ROV E M E N T S, T H E M O R E YO U’L L S E E YO U R P RO D U CT S P E R F O R M B E T T E R O N L I N E. —

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In-store experiences may lack some online benefits such as immediacy, but conversely, online will never be able to let people try on a product before buying it. However, both try to offer as good an experience as possible, and the way in which we display and organise our product catalogue is key to achieving our business goals, both online and offline. Here are two cases to demonstrate why:

Imagine you go into a shop and you see mountains of items mixed up together on the same table. What would you do as a customer? Probably, you’ll touch a few key products, try to find what you want to buy, but if you don’t find anything you like the look of, you’ll probably leave the store without buying anything. My point? The way products are displayed will help you sell more.

Imagine now that you work in that shop as a sales assistant and you’re in charge of its merchandising, and must follow the company guidelines. You’d probably need to put new collection products all together, prioritise products on sale, have samples of all sizes and colours available, and have to separate areas by gender or category products. Here, the focus is on organising the shop so key items are visible and easy to find.

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Paid Media C A M PA I G N B U I L D This confirms that the way in which we display our

This channel can become our online shop window,

products is crucial to generating more sales. More-

but it can be aggravating as an advertiser as there

over, the way in which we organise and prioritise

are often resellers or other competitors that offer

categories will affect our performance.

the same product in the same “store” (i.e. Google or Bing Search). Therefore, you need to show relevant

It’s exactly the same for the online shopping ex-

products and use all the tools at your disposal to

perience. We know that site merchandising is very

approach users with the products and information

important to guaranteeing good user experience,

they’re looking for at the right time and in the right

but what about the way we reach users? Shopping

place.

can be a powerful channel, as users can look up a particular product, see a picture, land directly on

Having a healthy feed will help your customers find

the product page and buy it in two or three steps. It

what they’re looking for and will make your life

sounds great, doesn’t it? So, we have to make sure

easier when it comes to optimisations. This can be

our product listing ads are relevant and give the

done by using product data management and feed

right information to each search query.

optimisation tools such as Productsup.

PRODUCTSUP This tool provides cloud-based software for manag-

getting a diagnosis and recommendations for each

ing and optimising product data for small and large

feed column, and getting warnings of any errors

accounts quickly and easily. There are so many

that need to be fixed.

functions available, such as creating rules or lists,

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In Productsup, start by focusing on optimising ad titles, as they’re an integral part of your ad, and then create custom labels so you can easily push categories or specific products. Here’s how to do it:

1 OPTIMISING TITLES

Productsup allows us to apply different rules and “if functions” that help to create relevant titles, like: öö

“Append/Prepend Column” box: this enriches the title with key product attributes by

Example of a good title structure for apparel:

“appending” or “prepending” the brand, colour, product type, gender, material, etc. from the

BRAND + GENDER + TITLE OR MODEL + PRODUCT TYPE + COLOUR + SIZE

respective attribute columns öö

“Append/Prepend Value” box: this allows you to manually type in the specific product information that you want to add to the title

Title optimisation will: VV Increase the number and the quality of

öö

several different text elements in one go

impressions – a good product list ad acts like an impressive shop window VV Improve click-through rate (CTR) and get more qualified clicks – effectively like getting more people to walk into your shop

“Map Replace” box: this box allows you to edit

öö

“Replace If Column Contains” box: replace ‘!’ with ‘.’

öö

Be sure to make use of the“Remove Duplicate Words” box, “Remove Consecutive Whitespace” box and “Remove HTML Tags” box

VV Increase cost efficiently – more relevancy will mean better performance

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Technical Paid MediaSEO

2 C R E AT I N G C U S T O M L A B E L S

There are hundreds of ways to achieve this in Productsup, but I prefer the below useful guidance: öö

Create lists to assign values or group products (“category mapping”): assign

You can have up to five custom labels. This

values like product_google_categories,

means that products can be grouped in many

product types, collections, colours

ways and you can easily apply different bids to

to different products, attributes or

them. Each business needs different labels and will need to be adapted accordingly, but these ideas should be helpful:

information öö

“Detect colour” box: if you have missing values in your colour column, the Productsup software can detect the colour in your description and add it to your

BASED ON AT TRIBUTES

colour column

VV Gender

öö

Append/prepend columns

VV Sale / non-sale / promotions / clearance

öö

Map and replace attributes

VV Product category

öö

Remove white spaces and duplicated

VV Seasonal / new products

words automatically

VV Price range

Once we have the titles optimised and the

VV Margin

custom labels in place, it’s time to go into the search engine interface and push the relevant

BASED ON PERFORMANCE VV ROI VV Bestsellers VV Clicks

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products or categories appropriate for the season, in order to increase visibility and boost performance via this channel.

As you begin optimising, you’ll notice the amount of time, quality and cost efficiencies that start to form. The more you focus on setting up and reviewing for improvements, the more you’ll see your products perform better online. It’s when you realise how much you’ve improved performance that you appreciate the platforms that facilitate the process; if you’ve not already begun working on your Shopping feeds, I urge you to do so – you won’t look back.

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Paid Media

USING SHOPPING TO GUIDE YOUR OVERALL PPC STRATEGY

DAN WALKER SENIOR PAID MEDIA ANALYST



According to a recent report on Google Shopping1,

understanding of the impact that product ads have

Google search ad clicks among UK retailers in 2017

on the rest of paid search strategy can be essential

were up 40 % year-on-year in 2017, accounting

to effectively delivering results.

for 51% of all Shopping clicks overall. The rising engagement and overall share of clicks that Shopping dominates is phenomenal, particularly when considered alongside the increasing struggles faced by bricks and mortar retailers over the same period2. This highlights that Shopping activity is becoming an increasingly important - if not the most important - component of retailers’ paid search activity. With that in mind, having a wider

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Clearly, we all need to invest our time and budgets in Shopping, but can it have a holistic impact on our search accounts? By understanding Shopping’s role in the path to conversion, and where that traffic has come from, I argue that we can actually use it to fuel our other channels, support the customer journey, and close sales along the way.

U N D E R S TA N D I N G S H O P P I N G ’ S ROLE

For example, you might find that your recently set up Shopping campaigns are driving a stronger last-click ROI than expected, in which case you’d

We expect to see measurable differences in the way customers engage with Shopping ads when compared to search ads, and so it’s important to understand what these differences are with regards to your business and the products being advertised. Key questions that should be asked are:

probably consider reallocating some of your search budget to maximise overall revenue – but further investigation might find that generic search is much more effective at driving assisted conversions. In this case, it’s important to consider your overall business goals; do you want to invest your additional budget in ROI efficiencies, or converting more sales? There’s merits to both approaches, and

1. Where does Shopping sit in the funnel compared to other paid activity? 2. Should revenue from Shopping be attributed differently in order to accurately measure its bottom line value? 3. What kind of customers do Shopping ads attract? a. Lower brand awareness or brand loyalty? a. Lower or higher average order value (AOV)?

understanding the part each channel plays in the funnel will help you decide where it’s best to invest your budget, and how that should change over time. You might also find that Shopping is driving sales on products that tend to be bought by customers that have a lower lifetime value or lower likelihood of returning. In the case of B2B retail, you might also find that a significant portion of Shopping revenue is coming from lower average order value B2C sales which isn’t ideal if you’re looking to build a customer base of high-spend B2B customers. If this is the case, how do you re-engage with those consumers? Do you need additional remarketing lists across paid search and display to recapture them? Do you need to increase your cross-selling efforts on site? Digging deeper into

Knowing the answers to these questions will help

the performance will tell you where you need to

accurately gauge Shopping’s value outside of simply

invest your time to re-engage these one-off product

comparing performance-based results using your

purchasers, turning them into more valuable,

de-facto attribution model.

lifetime customers.

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Technical Paid MediaSEO

S E A RC H C A M PA I G N E X PA N S I O N

traffic is only being driven through Shopping ads, in which case, should you turn traffic off from the

The AdWords Keyword Planner3 is an indispensable

less engaged traffic? Or is there, in fact, a halo

tool for campaign builds for any paid search

effect, whereby there’s greater revenue when both

advertiser, but it has its limitations when it comes to

channels appear in the same space?

growing an account. It can be a great starting point when building new campaigns from scratch, but it’s

One way to measure this is to set up a trade-off

difficult to qualify how well specific search terms

test, which will evaluate the incremental traffic and

will perform before running them.

revenue driven by each channel, or any beneficial results that can be achieved when both channels

This is one area where Shopping can be the lifeforce in expanding your existing paid search campaigns. By identifying the categories and products sold, and pulling your Search Query Reports to identify the search terms matching your products, you have a clear guide for keyword expansion. This allows you to focus your time and budget on the products and categories that are actually selling for your brand, meaning you can focus your attention on search terms which are driving valuable traffic and revenue. This is a highly cost- and time-effective way to expand your search campaigns.

A D D R E S S I N G C A N N I B A L I S AT I O N When running search and Shopping campaigns simultaneously, there’s always bound to be a certain amount of crossover. This leads to a few important questions – are there areas where Shopping ad visibility has detrimentally affected the performance of text ads? Or does one channel make the other superfluous? Do some search terms convert better on Shopping compared to standard search (or vice versa)? Perhaps there are search terms that you have strong visibility for on both channels, but

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appear in the same search.

HOW TO SET UP A SHOPPING S E A R C H T R A D E - O F F T E S T:

separate the campaigns, as Johan discussed earlier. Understanding Shopping’s role in the purchase funnel helps us identify where we should focus our efforts, and then helps identify our keyword

1. Choose a search term or group of search terms to test

expansion opportunities, as well as trade-off testing options to increase efficiency.

2. Test running those terms on either

When set up and optimised well, Shopping is an

channel individually (be sure to

incredibly powerful tool in any retailer’s arsenal,

schedule this in a way that accounts

not just when it comes to driving revenue, but

for seasonality, promotional changes or

also when it comes to identifying expansion

other known impacts on performance)

opportunities. Use it to help you expand your keyword campaigns by tapping into product-

3. Use negative keywords to prevent

specifics to increase your relevancy and, ultimately,

Shopping ads showing while pausing the

your efficiencies. Your customers are telling you

search ad groups and campaigns – and

what they want to find on your site and what they

then repeat for search with Shopping ads

want to buy from you, so make sure you listen

paused

to them, and find others looking for the same opportunities!

As a final point here, I want to emphasise the importance of looking beyond the last click, and understanding the impact Shopping has on the wider channel mix. When we look at generic search activity, we want to understand where generics are starting and assisting the sale, and it’s no

1. https://www.merkleinc.com/blog/merkle-q2-2017-digitalmarketing-report-released 2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/08/onlineretail-booms-high-street-struggles/ 3. https://adwords.google.com/home/tools/keywordplanner/

different when it comes to Shopping, hence why we

S H O P P I N G A C T I V I TY I S B E C O M I N G A N I N C R E A S I N G LY I M P O R TA N T - I F N O T T H E M O S T I M P O R TA N T C O M P O N E N T O F R E TA I L E R S ’ PA I D S E A R C H A C T I V I TY. —

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Paid Media

OPPORTUNITIES

CHRIS DUNN COO, FOUNDIT!



TO IMPROVE MOBILE SHOPPING SEARCH FOR RETAILERS Retailers’ biggest and fastest opportunity for growth

an increase in spend there. The channel already

is through mobile shopping, specifically Google

performs well, despite that high bounce rate. I know

Shopping ads. FoundIt!’s research revealed that

a lot of people will think ‘it’s performing well, so

Google Shopping represents 25% of all sessions

let’s leave it as it is. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

across direct, paid and shopping traffic, and is the biggest single source of traffic1. As Google Shopping is the most likely first touch point for mobile shoppers, it highlights the need for retailers to improve their mobile experience, as it also proves to be the most the fickle channel by far, with as much as 83% of traffic bouncing straight out the door or viewing as little as two and half pages before quitting. We know that the conversion rate for Shopping campaigns is strong – hence why there’s such

24 24 24

www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000

Well, I haven’t. If we see these conversion rates and returns at an 83% bounce rate, what would we see at 75%? Or 50%? Or if we aim for the stars and say 25%? The increase to revenue would be phenomenal, and that’s where we come in – to understand why we’re losing visitors, and more importantly, how we can turn those bouncers into happy, purchasing customers.

25

Paid Media

WHY ARE SHOPPERS SO QUICK TO

What next step generated revenue? Other 2.53%

ABANDON THEIR JOURNEY? We identified two key factors associated with Google Shopping’s high bounce rates. First, around

PLP 3.91% PDP 19.25%

three quarters of searches which come from Google Shopping and land on product pages are broader category style searches, not product searches – yet they’ve landed on a product page. This requires the

Cat/Shop 70.39%

shopper to try to expand their view in an easy and relevant way so they can see more of what they came in looking for. In fact, if you look at where the majority of sales come from in Google Shopping, over 75% of sales can be attributed to sessions where the user took the next step of navigating upwards to a higher level category to explore the range in more detail.

Image source: http://www.foundit.com/blog/mobile-shoppingsearch-retailers-biggest-opportunity-improve/

Second, product pages lack relevant options to broaden the view. While eCommerce sites are typically well designed to allow the shopper to drill down and narrow their view, product pages are the

This underscores the importance of getting Google

very thin end of this experience, and make for a

Shopping users away from the narrow product

poor choice to start a journey due to weak, overly

pages they landed on and into the site in as relevant

general – or even irrelevant – navigation options.

a way as possible so they can fully explore the

This deficiency on product pages makes it extremely

range.

challenging for the shopper to navigate upwards, or do so in a way that’s relevant to their original intent.

I T’S N OT WO RT H IGNORING AREAS W H E R E YO U CA N I M P R O V E W H AT ’ S A L R E A DY WO R K I N G. — 26 26 26

www.greenlightdigital.com |  +44 (0)20 7253 7000

A M I S M AT C H O F S H O P P E R

MASSIVE VOLUME OF LOST

INTENT WITH THE WRONG

OPPORTUNITY

T YPE OF CONTENT

There are clearly massive gains to be realised from

With more mobile users arriving via Google

improving the mobile experience at the product

Shopping, we’re truly seeing a mismatch of shopper

page level. Given the sheer volume, retailers who

intent with the wrong type of content. Matters

prioritise this will likely see some of the quickest

are made worse when this is combined with

and most significant gains in their sales this year.

smaller, portrait and hand-held screens, where any navigation options are fewer, more obscure and more challenging to use. We found this resulted in it being 30% more difficult for shoppers to broaden their view and navigate back up the site. When you look at the bounce rate between Google Shopping on mobile and desktop, 27% of sessions browse past the first page on mobile, versus 38% on desktop. That’s shoppers who don’t bounce and successfully navigate inwards from the product they landed on to another page of the site.

I know it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on our weaknesses, and working to improve only the areas that aren’t performing. I don’t deny the importance of that, but don’t do focus on this to the detriment of areas where you can improve what’s already working. This is something most retailers ignore, so get the edge over your competitors, don’t focus all your efforts on turning bad to acceptable – rather, focus some of your efforts on turning good to incredible. Your bottom line will thank me.

1.

http://www.foundit.com/blog/mobile-shopping-searchretailers-biggest-opportunity-improve/

27

Paid Social

MAKE FACEBOOK ADS MORE RELEVANT AND SHOPPABLE WITH DYNAMIC PRODUCT ADS

MELISSA DAYAN PAID MEDIA ANALYST



28 2 8 28

Once you’ve got your feed optimised for Shopping, the next logical step is to seek additional

HOW CAN IT BENEFIT

opportunities to maximise efficiencies. The good

PE RFO RM A NCE?

news is that your feed can also be used to tap into

This ad format helps you to only promote the

your user base on Facebook.

products that are most relevant to your audience, while also allowing you some control on the ads

Facebook has set itself apart by taking the next

being served. As you’re able to amend the copy

step towards creating ads that are more targeted

surrounding the products that are automatically

towards relevant consumers, while also being

imported into the ads, it leaves you some creative

flexible in its ability to deliver personalised

space to target your audiences. You could, for

creatives. It’s this trend that’s captured the attention

example, make them aware that these are the

of the entire industry, and the focus is very much

products still waiting for them in their basket.

shifting in favour of this customer-centric approach.

Or if you’d like to serve less intrusive messaging, you could use the free copy space to promote a

H OW D O E S I T WO R K?

sale that’s currently live on your website to give users that extra push to click ‘buy’ on their basket

Facebook’s Dynamic Product Ads use product

overview.

catalogues and a remarketing pixel to link onsite behaviour through to a user on Facebook, allowing you to target them with the exact products that they engaged with. It automatically generates ads from those products, serving them to the user across any device they use: mobile, tablet or desktop. The ads automatically adjust to the device, and you’re also able to amend copy that accompanies the creative if you prefer to have a bit more control over the ads being served. What makes it so easy to set up is that you can take the existing product catalogue that you use for Shopping activity and upload it to Facebook. This way, the engine is able to identify any product IDs with a user’s online behaviour (recorded by the Facebook pixel on the client’s website) and serve those products back to them on Facebook.

I M P A C T, O P P O R T U N I T I E S & CHALLENGES As the industry shifts more and more towards a focus on providing the most relevant – and also unique – experience for consumers online, Facebook is leading the way in optimising the journey for consumers. With the use of ad blockers quadrupling in the last three years1, it’s become even more important to make sure we’re constantly improving consumers’ online experience with advertising. Of course, with an improved customer experience comes an increase in engagement. Serving relevant and engaging ads to users not only helps increase click-through rates, but also helps to convert them online when they’re driven back to the brand’s website. Given how saturated and competitive the

29

Paid Social

market is on Facebook, particularly for retail, this

This is why Facebook leaves us as advertisers in

ad format certainly sets itself apart by allowing

control of the accompanying copy, so it’s important

us to really engage with users and showcase the

to be creative and show the human side of a brand’s

products that they’ve already expressed interest

advertising without seeming automated or intrusive.

in. This ensures you remain top of mind while

By coupling the products your consumers have

your customers browse online, even when they’re

viewed with non-intrusive copy to encourage your

targeted with numerous ads per day on Facebook

customer to click back to site, you’re likely to see

alone. The average user spends 50 minutes per

an increase in traffic and conversions from a new

day on Facebook , so Dynamic Product Ads are a

platform.

2

great opportunity to show the user an ad that’s more relevant to their interests, as compared to a

All this, just from optimising your Shopping feed,

standard creative format that’s typically based on

and plugging it into new platforms. All the hard

guessing what a specific audience would like to

work that went into setting up and optimising your

see. That’s the beauty of Dynamic Product Ads: they

feed is now going to pay dividends, both for your

just show users what they’ve expressed interest in,

brand and your audience.

which makes them that bit more valuable. A potential challenge here is that consumers today are more aware of advertiser targeting methods than ever, therefore might view serving products that they’ve recently viewed on site as a very intrusive method, and react negatively to this.

W I T H A N I M P ROV E D C U S TO M E R E X P E R I E N C E COMES AN INCREASE IN E N G A G E M E N T. — 30 30 30

1. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/544716/the-fastrise-of-ad-blockers/ 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/ facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-toits-advantage.html

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR FEED WITH DYNAMIC RETARGETING LIZZY LAKRA SENIOR DISPLAY STRATEGIST



31

Technical SEO Display Programmatic

KEEPING THE END CONSUMER IN MIND I S I M P O R TA N T W H E N THINKING ABOUT HOW TO A P P ROAC H DY N A M I C R E M A R K E T I N G AT A L L S TA G E S . —

If you were thinking you’ve exhausted all options you possibly can with your Shopping feed, I have news for you.

Firstly, you might want to look at what your cart abandonment rate looks like. What percentage

Having a product feed set up and ready to go

of users are showing intent on your site, but not

means you’re halfway there to getting dynamic

purchasing there and then? If you haven’t checked

retargeting in Display off the ground. Dynamic

already, this is likely to be alarmingly high, having

retargeting can significantly increase your sales

hit an average of 71.1% in 2014, and is predicted

and revenue, mainly due to two key factors; people

to increase to 73.4% in the years to come1. This

who have visited your website are more likely to

is due to the increase in mobile shopping and

visit again, and those who have bought from you

browsing. Mobile, while still predominantly used as

previously are also more likely to become repeat

a research device, is increasingly adding to online

customers.

sales, making dynamic retargeting an even greater

With cart abandonment on the up, dynamic retargeting presents a great opportunity for brands to capture additional sales and recover abandoned

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cart values into actual revenue.

opportunity.

B U I L D I N G A S T R AT E G Y

There are multiple ways to approach creative and strategy; it can be as simple or complex as

Keeping the end consumer in mind is important

you choose. A basic starting point is to serve the

when thinking about how to approach dynamic

potential customer with the last product they

retargeting at all stages. Relevancy is key to your

looked at. While this is better than doing no

creative, as you’ll want to deliver a valuable and

retargeting at all, it’s a simplistic view and assumes

enticing message to potential consumers – but

that they didn’t want to purchase any of the other

the more granular you go in terms of messaging

products they browsed.

and creative, the greater your chances are of ‘getting it wrong’ if you’re not constantly reviewing your processes to ensure you’re targeting the right audience. On the flip side, if you’re able to successfully marry creative and data to the end user, you’re on to a winner; the key to success when going granular is to ensure you have access to in-depth and comprehensive data sets, and are capable of creating an exhaustive product feed

A more complex approach involves tying together various strategies, whether that be upselling products or services, growing your repeat purchaser pool, identifying consumers as potential gifters, etc. – the possibilities are endless. Complex doesn’t always mean results, so a test and learn approach is really important to driving results in both the short and long term.

that can either be regularly reviewed manually or through machine learning technology.

33

Technical SEO

PROTECTING THE END CONSUMER

These are the ongoing challenges that can be easily fixed if enough attention is paid towards them. Your technical team need to keep a close eye on frequency and run tests to evaluate what the

We all know the annoyance of being stalked around

optimum number of ads to serve is. Creative needs

the web by that same pair of shoes you didn’t buy

to be reviewed and assessed to ensure it’s in line

the first few hundred times you saw them, so you

with current branding or your site’s look and feel

need to ask yourself the right questions to ensure

– if there is a big sale on, for example, the creative

that you’re supporting the consumer in their

should reflect this. It’s important that you and your

purchase, rather than hounding them. Questions to

design team care about the appearance of the ad

ask include:

and that you’re consistent in what you deliver from start to finish, while also testing to ensure the most

• After how many ads does the message become annoying? • How can a sales message be delivered in a visually appealing way? • How can the message and creative be as relevant and useful as possible to the

compelling message is being delivered to the most engaged audience possible. While the set up phase can be time consuming, once everything is up and running, creative amends are more straightforward - you’ll save time and money on creative costs, while watching your ROI, engagement and conversion rates increase.

end consumer? • Does dynamic retargeting remain

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1. http://uk.businessinsider.com/shopping-cart-abandon-

effective throughout the year, or can

ment-merchants-now-leave-46-trillion-on-the-table-

you exhaust it?

and-mobile-is-making-the-problem-worse-2016-11

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Technical SEO

www.greenlightdigital.com The Varnish Works, 3 Bravingtons Walk, King’s Cross, London, N1 9AJ +44 (0)20 7253 7000 [email protected]