Months ago, 2014 was predicted to be “the year of Product Listing Ads”, when Google’s cost-per-click campaign would take off with mainstream appeal. As we approach the end of the year it seems that PLAs are still gaining ground, long after replacing Google’s free comparison shopping listings in October of 2012. So what are the best practices for managing PLAs? After experiencing an 87% increase in performance growth after just 6 months of PLA optimization, Blinds had some advice to share regarding the do’s and don’ts of management at the digital marketing conference Clickz. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom they shared, plus a few that we added on. Tips for Optimizing Your Brand’s Product Listing Ads DO feature a “glamour” shot of your product images that is attractive, in focus, and captures all the right angles. DON’T distract from your photos with watermarks, product packaging or busy backgrounds. DO provide the most important information at the very front of your product title, including brand name and/or size. DON’T expand your title beyond 70 characters, or else it will be cut off; also, don’t use all caps or repeat information. DO include all the basic product descriptors, including color, size, cut or style, materials and more. DON’T miss out on potential customers because your product’s name includes obscure colors or other variants; enrich your feed using common synonyms that users are searching for. DO include as many products as possible in your merchant feed so that the products most relevant to users’ queries can be featured. DON’T continue to maintain pages for products that are out of stock, as this will drive visitors away and hurt your website’s bounce rate. DO create separate campaigns and ad groups (although it may be wise to keep an “all products” campaign, just in case). Doing so will help you to better maintain your budget, evaluate performance on the category or brand level, and calibrate Google’s automatic targeting. DON’T allow your product targets to overlap when using more than one. DO test and experiment with every facet of your CPC strategy, from the text and images used to the campaign in its entirety. DON’T allocate the same funds across the board or make it a guessing game. Instead, utilize a bid management tool that will disperse the proper dollar amounts among various products, brands and categories to make the most of your CPC budget. DO include a rel=canonical link element to your product pages, so that Google can match the URLs in your feed with the pages discovered by their crawler. DON’T neglect to submit rich snippets to increase click-throughs. According to an Internet Retailer survey released in October, 40% of respondents said that their search marketing budgets increased within the last year, and 53% plan to increase PPC search spending in 2015 to increase number of impressions, brand awareness and sales. As the landscape for organic search becomes more and more congested, it’s safe to assume that a solid portion of many retailers’ PPC budgets will be dedicated to creating and enhancing Product Listing Ad campaigns.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 21:42:35 +0000
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