AN END TO PLA CAMPAIGNS!?

AN END TO
PLA CAMPAIGNS
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
!?
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
Table of Contents
What is happening to regular PLA campaigns?
3
Why is this happening?
3
When is this going to take effect?
3
How does the new Google Shopping differ?
1.
Direct access to Merchant Center
product data feed
4
2.
Retail-centric campaign management
4
3.
Advanced reporting on per product level
6
4.
Competitive metrics
6
4
What will your ads look like?
8
What does this mean for your product feed?
9
End note
10
2
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
What is happening to regular PLA campaigns?
Google recently announced that Products Listing Ads (PLA) campaigns will soon be replaced
entirely by a new campaign type: Google Shopping.
Why is this happening?
Creating PLA campaigns with the traditional structure has proven to be somewhat complex and not
that optimal. The new Google Shopping campaign structure is meant to simplify and optimize the
creation and management of PLA.
The difference is how PLA campaigns are set up.
When is this going to take effect?
The Google Shopping campaign structure came out of beta and was made available globally in
February of this year. At this point you can still opt to work with the regular/ traditional/ original
PLA campaign structure.
Yet by the end of August 2014, Google will urge everyone to make the switch over to Shopping
campaigns.
So, it’s best you start informing yourself about it now – if you haven’t already - to stay competitive.
3
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
How does the new Google Shopping differ?
1. Direct access to Merchant Center product data feed
The new Google Shopping campaign structure lets you browse your product inventory directly in
AdWords without having to log into your Google Merchant Center account.
This means that individual products and their key attributes are listed and visible to you, so that you
gain better insight and control into what products are being advertised in a given campaign.
2. Retail-centric campaign management
What is known as product targets in regular PLA campaigns becomes product groups in Google
Shopping campaigns. The creation of these product groups works like a funnel system (ref image
1.1), whereby group attributes are drawn from your product feed submitted to the GMC.
When you begin, you have a default “All products” group, which includes your entire inventory. From
there you subdivide your products according to one of 10 attributes each time. From the all products
group, you get more and more granular as categories and sub-categories are created (ref image 1.1).
Any product not included in a sub-group automatically stays in the “All products” group so that these
products are covered too (unless you choose to specifically exclude them).
ALL PRODUCTS GROUP
e.g. All goods sold at an online retailer
PRODUCT GROUP
e.g. Brand X
PRODUCT SUB-GROUP
e.g. Product type: Shoes
PRODUCT SUB-GROUP
e.g. Season: Winter
1.1 Funnel system product grouping.
Note: You can only create up to 7 sub-groups
4
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
A product can only ever belong to one
product group. This differs to the regular PLA
where one product could belong to Brand X,
best sellers and summer season at the same
time. Nevertheless, a product can repeat in a
different ad group or campaign, with a different
bid. Google also added the possibility to prioritize campaigns, so the ad group with the higher
bid on the product must not be the winning one
any more.
You want to adjust your bids according to the
performance data, assigning higher bids to those
products that are performing well. You can for
example determine your 10 top selling brands,
from which you can create customized
campaigns, adjusting the bids according to the
performance for the individual products or
products categories within those brands groups.
Products with a higher conversion rate should
get a higher bid so that they have more
impressions. Conversely, you will want to lower
the bid those products that are not converting.
The segments you choose will be guided by
historical performance metrics, derived from data
provided by your Google conversion tracking.
This retail-centric way of managing and grouping
your products is meant to replicate how goods
The best overview you will get is within Analytics, are categorized and sold in a brick and mortar
which must be linked to your AdWords account.
store.
There are 10 types of attributes that you can base your product groups on:
1.Brand
2.
Item ID (product identifier, e.g. SKU, EAM, etc.)
3.
Google Product Category (based on the Google product taxonomy)
4.
Product Type (a merchant’s own categorization: e.g. rimless sunglasses)
5.
Condition (new, used, refurbished, etc.)
6.
Custom label 0
7.
Custom label 1
8.
Custom label 2
9.
Custom label 3
10. Custom label 4
Similarly, to AdWords Labels, custom labels
allow you to tag your products according to
attributes that are relevant to you.
Examples include margin, best seller, season,
colour (e.g. red for a Valentine’s Day promotional
special), model, manufacturer, price ranges, and
so on.
Regular PLA management allows you to include
as many attributes as you want in your AdWords
label column, as long as these are separated by
commas.
With the new PLA set up, however, you can only
include 1 attribute per column. With a maximum
of 5 custom label columns a product can have
up to 5 custom labels.
If you have been using AdWords labels until now,
you will need to convert the information in this
column into the new custom label columns.
5
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
3. Advanced reporting on per product level
The advanced reporting that has been integrated into the new Shopping campaigns gives you a
quick overview of which product groups are performing better than others. Performance metrics are
linked to the lowest sub level of your product group, not the group as a whole.
This allows you to adjust the bidding according to the performance of each product group. You can
break it down to get quite specific. For example, based on your report you may decide to up the
bidding on Brand X blue collar shirts for men.
4. Competitive metrics
The new Shopping campaigns provide competitive benchmark figures for CTR and Max CPC of
similar products from other advertisers, helping you select the right bid for your products. The data is
anonymous and displays an aggregated estimated average. The impressions share feature helps you
identify missed opportunities to reach customers.
To view this data you add benchmark columns in the “product groups” tab, which is where the
product data from your GMC feed is visible.
Even better,
Google recently introduced a very
handy bid simulator tool which
estimates the performance for a
given bid, showing you how bid
changes impact your clicks, costs
and impressions.
You can find a link to it right next
to your product groups.
6
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
Overview of differences:
Regular / Old / Traditional PLA campaigns
New Google Shopping campaigns
Product Targets
6 feed attributes
Product Groups
10 feed attributes
1.
Product ID
2.
Product Type
3.Brand
4.Condition
5.
AdWords Grouping
(a custom defined grouping of
products, e.g. the year/model)
6.
AdWords Labels
(like AdWords Grouping but it accepts
multiple values, separated by commas)
1.
Item ID
2.
Product Type
3.Brand
4.Condition
5.
Google Products Category (based on
the Google product taxonomy)
6–10. Custom Labels (five individual columns, labelled 0 to 4. Only one value per
column, thus a maximum of five custom labels per product)
A product can be in multiple product targets
A product can only belong to one product
group, but multiple ad groups or campaigns
Merchant Center or Productsup must be
referenced for product data
Merchant Center product data directly visible
in AdWords
7
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
What will your ads look like?
Exactly the same as before! You will still see your product search ad with richer product information,
such as image, price, brand and merchant name, appear in the same place as before.
Your
uct
prod
ads!
8
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
What does this mean for your product feed?
The new Google Shopping campaign structure deals with setting up your PLA. But first you need to
submit a perfect product feed to the GMC. This is where Productsup comes in, providing you the
most intuitive and intelligent product data management platform. The cloud-based software enables
you to create and manage complex product feeds quickly and easily, so that you can submit high
quality, tailored and optimized feeds to the GMC. This product data will subsequently be available in
AdWords under in the new Shopping campaigns Product Tab.
The five set attributes that Shopping campaigns work with should be available and correct in your
data feed, so it is probably you revisit these and make sure all is in order.
If you also want to make use of the custom labels, additional columns need to be added to the data
feed because the original AdWords label column no longer applies to the new structure.
Thankfully, with Productsup this can be done in less than a minute.
See example of custom labels inserted below:
9
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55
End note
Google is continuously working on optimizing the shopping experience for its users. There is no
doubt that we can be expecting further changes and new features to be introduced in the coming
months.
What’s important is that you don’t lose focus and stay up to speed with this constant change.
We recommend you start looking into the new PLA structure sooner rather than later, and
start slow. You can begin by gradually setting up your campaigns and pause them until you are
ready to activate them, so as to avoid a sudden change all at once.
Note: Both the traditional PLA structure as well as the new Google Shopping campaigns can run
at the same time. If you’re already running regular PLA campaigns be sure to pause these before
starting new google shopping campaigns, so that you don’t have your campaigns competing with
one another.
Especially at the beginning, we’ve noticed that it takes some time before generated orders are
accurately reflected within AdWords. So don’t get discouraged by a seeming lack of orders initially.
Have you been looking for a quick and
easy way to manage your product feeds?
We’d love to hear from you! Pop us a mail and we’ll get back to you soonest.
To all our valued customers,
if you have any queries about editing your product data feed to suit
the new Google Shopping campaigns our support team is happy to help.
www.productsup.io
book a free demo
Email us
Phone +49 (0)30 60 98 53 55

Download Report