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Ultimate Guide to Dominating Black Friday PPC in 2023

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Ultimate Guide to Dominating Black Friday PPC in 2023

Black Friday is a special day for PPC. Normally, we’re able to launch new campaigns and carefully mold them into perfection so we can reap the rewards for months, if not years to come.

Black Friday in Google Ads is different. You have a very short time to make the absolute most out of what you do. The wrong ad, bid, or settings can ruin your results.

No matter your strategy, the tips below will help you maximize your potential. We’ll be covering exactly what you need to do to adjust your bids and budgets, ad text and extensions, display and remarketing ads, keyword strategy, Shopping campaigns, and more.

Quick note: Whenever I refer to Black Friday, I’m actually talking about the entire Black Friday weekend. Some advertisers treat Black Friday differently from the rest of the weekend, while others see it as a five-day sale, starting on Thanksgiving and ending with Cyber Monday.

Table of contents

How to prepare your Google Ads campaigns for Black Friday

In order to prepare for Black Friday, it’s essential to understand what promotions you’ll be running. It’s taking it back to ecommerce 101, but defining what promotions you’ll run will make a lot of sense as I go through the rest of the tips.

So first of all, find out:

  • What will your offers be?
  • Will you have enough stock?

If you don’t have a large stock, consider being less aggressive in your bidding or just pushing the product via Shopping or Search – whatever works best for you.

If you’re not sure you’ll have enough stock for a specific promotion, make sure you have a backup offer ready for your more generic keywords.

🎁 Get more holiday marketing tips here!

Review last year’s performance

I’ve written extensively about getting more success with PPC during seasonal swings, so I won’t dig too much into looking at historic performance.

The gist is that it’s crucial not to pretend this year is a single event. Despite the changing landscape in PPC, there are several areas that you can learn from based on historic performance. Some of these are:

  • What did you learn from the ads you ran? Did any generic messaging perform better than others?
  • Did ads that described the product benefits/features do better than the ads with price, shipping, and other specific info?
  • What bid did it take you to get into the first position?
  • Did any keywords or product categories turn out to be hard to advertise in?
  • How did the sections of your account that didn’t have a promotion do?
  • How big of an increase in spend did you experience? (Note, if you were capped out by your budget, then this is an important step for you to review)
  • Was your Display Remarketing a bust or did it succeed on the day itself?
  • What happened in the days after Black Friday and Cyber Monday? How much do you need to lower your bids in the immediate days after the promotion to avoid losing money?

And so on. Learn from what happened last year and you’ll be able to get more out of this year.

Define your rules of engagement

Before we get into the nitty-gritty I want to touch on one more non-PPC matter.

Chances are you’re not the boss. And even if you’re the boss, then this section will be healthy for you to prepare in advance.

Consider the following scenario: You’re expecting to spend $5,000 on Black Friday and aiming for an 800% ROAS.

However, Black Friday comes along and by 1 p.m. you’ve spent the entire $5,000 and have a ROAS of 1,100%. What do you do?

All the PPC managers yell: INCREASE THE BUDGET. But how much? What can the business afford? How much stock is left? And what if the ROAS was 700%? Should you still increase the budget? If you don’t have any stock left, do you have a backup promotion ready?

Having your rules of engagement set for the day can be incredibly powerful. You might think you’ll deal with that dream scenario if it happens, but what if on that same day your site starts loading slowly because of the high traffic AND your boss needs to pick up his sick daughter from school?

All of a sudden, you can’t get an answer until it’s too late.

Rules of engagement have the potential to save you a huge headache and give you a better opportunity to get the most out of the sale weekend.

Budget and bidding tips for Black Friday PPC

Bidding is one of the trickiest areas to work with. Not necessarily on Black Friday itself, but afterward. If you run any type of automated bidding, you’ll have to run bids manually for at least 1-2 weeks after Black Friday due to the influx of data.

I haven’t personally found a bidding system where I can tell the system to ignore data generated in a specific time frame when it runs its algorithms. This poses an issue, as you’ll convert much better on Black Friday than in the weeks after. Depending on your industry, this might be a big issue.

To solve this, I typically do the following:

Download your bids the week before Black Friday

If you’re running automated bidding in Google, then remove the bids and look in Google Ads interface to see what the bids are. There are a few issues you should watch for, though.

Depending on the day and time you download your bids, you might get a different bid than the one that’s running the rest of the time. Especially with Google’s own ROAS and CPA bidding, automation changes dynamically based on day of the week and time of day (amongst other factors).

Therefore, there is a chance you might not get the actual bid you should reinstate after Black Friday, but it’s the best chance you have. It’s much better to reinstate a previous bid that might be 20-30% off than continue running the bids you had for the Black Friday weekend.

Increase your budget, significantly

It goes without saying that you have to increase your budget quite a bit on Black Friday.

For example, searches for smartphone deals go up 10X.

black friday ppc - google trends smartphone search volume example

While searches for toys increased by 50%:

black friday ppc - google ads trends results for toys

Ad writing tips for Black Friday

Writing ads for Black Friday is similar to writing ads for promotions throughout the year. Make sure they are relevant to the sale and use an adequate amount of ad space so users are aware of the promotion you’re running.

There are some specific factors you need to take into account for Black Friday, though.

I’ve split up the tactics in Mandatory and Recommended. If you’re new or this is your first Black Friday you can choose to just follow the mandatory tactics. But if you’ve been around the block, make sure you invest the extra time to do the additional Recommended tactics.

Mandatory for all:

  • Set up a Promotion asset
  • Add Black Friday references in your ads

Recommended for intermediates:

  • Consider changing your sitelinks to specific products that will be in high demand.
  • Consider adding Inventory References

How to set up Google Ads promotion assets

The promotion asset should be an essential part of your ad writing strategy moving forward. Your ads for Black Friday are no exception.

Promotion assets look like this:

black friday ppc - google ads black friday promotion assets 1697840763 370 Ultimate Guide to Dominating Black Friday PPC in 2023

The extra line of ad text can really help set your ads apart from your competitors. The fact that it highlights a Black Friday sale is just the icing on the cake.

On top of this, you should also set your promotion to only run in a specific time frame. For Black Friday, this might be from Friday to Sunday.

This will give your ad additional space and add a sense of urgency to your offer.

Just remember, all ad assets aren’t necessarily guaranteed to show. It’s not enough to solely rely on the promotion asset to highlight your promotions.

Add Black Friday references in your ads

One of the oldest best practices is to make sure your ads are relevant, and one of the best ways to do that is to reference current events like Black Friday.

You can keep it simple, for example:

black friday google ads - search ad with black friday copy

If you want the biggest impact for the least amount of effort, you can just change the second headline in all your ads to text referencing your Black Friday offer. This can be done super quick in the Google Ads interface.

For a higher CTR, better conversion rate, and ROI, I do recommend spending the time to write more specific ad copy for your most important products and categories.

Remember, Black Friday is a high-volume day. Any time you invest in writing better ads will pay off more than any other time of the year (with the exception of the Christmas season) – even if the ads only run for that day.

Change your sitelinks to specific, high-demand products [recommended]

Sitelinks are usually not the biggest focus area when writing ads. Most advertisers just take a minute or so to put in a couple of random sitelinks.

On Black Friday, it might be worthwhile to add a bit of extra finesse to your sitelinks. One idea is to include the specific products you run promotions for in your sitelinks.

So, let’s say you are running a campaign for Bluetooth speakers. Normally, you might have sitelinks like these:

  • Most popular BT speakers
  • Newest BT speakers
  • BT speakers on sale
  • All BT speakers

On Black Friday, consider adding sitelinks that are more specific to the offers you’re running:

  • Soundlink: 33% Off Now
  • 20% Off All Bose
  • 25% Off Bose Headphones
  • All Black Friday Sales

The reason why I advise going a bit broader than normal is because during Black Friday you are more likely to convince consumers to buy something they weren’t really out to get.

Many of us will just start searching for various products to see what deals are out there. Just because someone specifically searches for Bluetooth speakers it doesn’t mean they can’t be interested in headphones or other types of speakers if there is a good deal to be had.

Add inventory references [recommended]

Let’s say you create a killer promotion for Bose speakers. It’s right in the middle of being a sought-after product, at the right price with an exceptional promotion.

You start selling it and you can see that it’ll sell out by noon. Boom!

But you could have taken advantage of this in your ads. By indicating how many products are left, you can create even more scarcity.

Just make sure you have backup promotions for when you run out of a specific product.

Tag your current ads with the label “evergreen”

Running PPC for clients always makes you think of ways to do things more efficiently. Especially in eCommerce, as there are times of the year when the workload increases significantly.

Black Friday is that day.

Before you start your Black Friday ads, you should take all the ads in the ad groups where you will be adding the Black Friday promotion and add the label Evergreen.

That way you can easily pause the ads and reactivate them again when the sale is over.

The same way, you should label all your Black Friday ads with BF. You should probably add the year to your label as well. So for 2023, you’d add the tag BF-2023. That way you don’t accidentally activate last year’s ads next year.

black friday ppc - google ads label feature

Write your ads at least a week in advance

You know those annoying emails you get from Google Ads about your paused ads being disapproved?

There’s a reason behind the madness, and it’s for days like Black Friday.

When you prepare your ads in advance (and upload to your Google Ads account) you’ll make sure that they get approved, or disapproved, well in advance of you actually needing them to run.

It’s a common mistake to write, or upload, your ads the same day that you need them. You’ll lose valuable time.

Use an automatic rule to pause and activate ads

The exact way you should build the rule is like this:

automated rules for black friday

Just in case, I recommend checking the ads in your account and live in the search results. Even though I’m a big fan of automation, I’ve seen these things go wrong for the stupidest reasons.

While it’s not fun, you can normally live with ads not being live for half a day or even a couple of days, but on Black Friday you can’t afford to lose out on one hour of downtime.

How to maximize your Black Friday Google Shopping returns

Shopping campaigns are tricky when it comes to Black Friday. You have a lot less control than your regular Search campaigns, but Shopping campaigns still account for more than 50% of the revenue in most e-commerce Google Ads accounts, so you need to get this part right.

Create a new Shopping campaign

There are a couple of angles you can take with Google Shopping campaigns on Black Friday, but my go-to approach is the following:

  • Create a new Shopping campaign for your most important products
  • Use a “SPAG” structure (single product ad groups)
  • Start it at least one week in advance, preferably two weeks

Depending on how many products you have, it can be super easy for individual products to slip through the cracks in your Shopping campaign.

By creating a new campaign, you’ll be able to keep an eye on the specific products you’re expecting will perform very well on Black Friday.

Just remember that if you’re using a tactic like segmenting your Shopping campaigns based on search query, then you should continue this with this campaign. You can quickly get in trouble with your ROI if you change that strategy for your key products all of a sudden.

Add storewide promotions to your new Shopping campaign

Okay. So you have a promotion that runs storewide with 20%. I get it.

It still doesn’t mean that all your products are equally important. If you look at your orders from the last 60 days, you must have a list of 10, 20, 50 products that vastly outsell the rest of your products.

Add these to the new Shopping campaign.

How to prepare your Shopping feed for Black Friday

This is where you need to make a decision. Do you run with a promotion that requires a coupon code (as listed above), or do you lower pricing in your feed and see it reflected in the ads?

Often, this decision will be made for you either by the strategy you take as a business (coupon or no coupon) or by the restraints of your platform.

If you run with the coupon code, then it’s crucial that you set up Promotions in the Merchant Center. Otherwise, your price in your Google Shopping ads will not reflect the actual lower price and it will undoubtedly decrease your CTR.

Lowered prices need to be reflected in your feed

It’s crucial that your feed contains the same price as on your website for each individual product. For two reasons:

  1. If your price isn’t lower in your feed, then your ads will show your original price, which will severely cripple your success on a day like Black Friday.
  2. There is a strong likelihood that Google will catch the price discrepancy and disapprove your product.

Again, from the time you catch this to the time the product gets approved by Google might take 4-6 hours. This is time that you can’t afford to lose. And that’s if you catch it at all!

I recommend regenerating/updating your feed and sending it to the Merchant Center right after you update the prices on your website. This might be midnight or it might be the day before. The second the prices on your website are updated, you should update your feed.

This is especially important as products go out of stock throughout the day.

Update your feed more frequently on Black Friday

Usually, you set your shopping feed to update every 24 hours. Typically at night.

On Black Friday I highly recommend you update it more frequently. Especially as products go out of stock or as you change your promotions.

Black Friday tips for remarketing

Most ecommerce stores run Dynamic Remarketing, but on Black Friday sending generic messages will not break through the digital noise.

I advise creating a new audience list solely for Black Friday. This means you’ll create a brand new audience the day before Black Friday that doesn’t include previous visitors:

remarketing on black friday

This way you can set a more aggressive bid for the people who’ve visited your site on Black Friday and another bid for the people who visited your site before Black Friday.

Bonus tip: decrease remarketing bids after Black Friday

Lower your remarketing efforts in the days after Black Friday. Most users will have bought what they needed, or they simply weren’t interested in the first place.

Consider static image ads for your remarketing

I would highly recommend some sort of static images in your remarketing mix on Black Friday. Your regular dynamic display remarketing ads most likely look something like this:

black friday display ads

Again, usually, this works great. But on Black Friday you’ll want something that pushes through the noise and delivers a message that adequately reflects the scarcity of the day.

Having some banners designed in the most popular sizes can be an easy win, and it shouldn’t cost you much if you use a site like Upwork to find a designer. If your store has an in-house designer, then spending some time on the designs in exchange for a pizza is well-worth the results you’ll most likely get.

The only thing I will add, which will complicate things, is to try to segment your retargeting when you do this. Meaning if a user visits the speaker section, then you’ll show a Black Friday display ad that contains your speaker promotion, etc.

You can try a general, generic banner, but it’ll be more effective if you put in the extra effort and create better-targeted ads.

Again, if your store is beyond a certain size this might prove impossible to do in practice. When you work at scale, you have to somehow limit your efficiency with hands-on tactics for the sake of getting out to as many people as possible.

Black Friday PPC keyword strategy tips

Your keywords should more or less stay the same for Black Friday.

I would highly recommend adding or reactivating keywords that have previously been paused for products you’re running promotions for. On Black Friday, most of your keyword portfolio will convert better than it will the rest of the year, which means you can afford to re-enable those keywords you paused due to low performance.

The exact opposite is also true. With keywords increasing three to four times in search volume, you want to consider pausing parts of your Google Ads account that you are not running promotions for.

Here’s an example of a search term that increased significantly when comparing to the same day a week before Black Friday:

black friday ppc - google trends in november screenshot

With the added volume and the fact that your competitors will run promotions, which consumers are likely chasing, then your standard pricing will most likely not do anything to incite them to buy from you instead.

Advertise for “black friday + my keyword

Yes, definitely.

You’ll already show up when someone searches for your keyword, so you might as well control the search by adding black friday to some of your keywords.

However, it will not make or break your success. In big markets, though, you want to be able to control it better. Let’s say that you’re selling Bose speakers, and you show up fine for searches on the keyword bose speakers, but you’re in position six for bose speakers black friday deal.

This search term might convert much higher than your regular keywords, so if your market is big enough it’s an excellent tactic to add black friday to your keywords.

Don’t advertise for the keyword “black friday

It’s too broad for you to target effectively.

The exception is to create a campaign only targeting your remarketing lists that target the word Black Friday. Find your largest list. Say, anyone who’s visited your site in the last 6 months. Anyone who’s bought from you, well, ever. Add all of them to a remarketing list for search ads campaign with the Targeting targeting setting:

using rlsa on black friday

By doing this, you’ll show an ad to anyone who has ever visited your site and searches for Black Friday deals.

Since they’ve already visited your site once before, or possibly even bought from you, we can assume that they have some interest in the products you’re offering, despite them not showing any intent outright. (Remember–brand affinity dramatically increases CTR and conversion rates.)

Black Friday scenarios to be prepared for

Here are some considerations you’ll want to be ready for on Black Friday in Google Ads:

Scenario #1: Low average position on key products

Make sure you review the early stats when it comes to your average position on Black Friday. If you’re coming in low for some of your key products, consider increasing your bids.

Throughout the day you can decrease or increase as you normally would based on ROAS, but you need to make sure your keywords have a fighting chance in a proper position.

Your position should preferably be in the 2-3 average position range. This will depend a lot on your ROAS, but the higher position your get, the more ad extensions and CTR you’ll get–which all results in more sales.

Scenario #2: No sales of key products

You need to be ruthless about admitting to yourself if you’ve been beat. It might not even be related to your Google Ads efforts.

Does your competitor run a better offer than you?

If so, then you might want to mimic their promotion or cut your losses. It’s incredibly difficult to beat a competitor that’s severely beating you on price under normal conditions.

On Black Friday with zombie-like consumers chasing deals like that kid on the Walking Dead, it’s almost impossible.

If you’re not getting anything out of your Black Friday efforts in some of your campaigns, consider solely focusing on remarketing. That way you’ll only show your ads to people who’ve visited your site before. With this strategy, you’ll bank on the fact that these consumers know who you are, which has been proven to impact your conversions significantly.

Scenario #3: Budget maxed out

You should routinely check in on your budget. Make sure that you’re not maxed out, or about to max out. If you are maxed out, consider adding more budget based on your rules of engagement that you’ve established.

What to do after Black Friday?

Make sure you do the following in your PPC account once the Black Friday madness is over:

  • Reinstate your old bids
  • Pause Black Friday ads
  • Re-enable your evergreen ads
  • Do an after-action report
  • Have a beer and enjoy sending out all those orders!

When you review your performance in the days after Black Friday, make sure you don’t take these days into account. For many advertisers, the days after Black Friday can be a time to lose a lot of money.

Wow, Black Friday PPC is… a lot…

If this was more than you could handle, I don’t blame you. It was a bit of a brain dump.

I created a checklist version of this article that you can print out or save for later. Get your simplified Black Friday checklist here.

I’ve also summarized the most actionable Black Friday PPC tips below:

For Bids

  • Download your bids a week in advance, so you can reinstate them after Black Friday
  • Increase your budget, significantly

For Ads:

  • Set up the promotion extension
  • Add Black Friday references to your ads
  • Consider changing sitelinks
  • Consider adding inventory references

For Shopping

  • Add a new campaign with your most important products (or the products you run promotions for)
  • Use Merchant Center promotions, OR include sale_price in your feed
  • Upload your updated prices in your feed around midnight

Remarketing

  • Focus your bids around your most recent visitors
  • Decrease your bids significantly in the days after Black Friday, or exclude Black Friday

Keywords

  • Add previously paused keywords that cover products that are on sale
  • Increase bids for low-position keywords that cover products that are on sale

Whatever you do, it’s crucial that you set yourself up for success on Black Friday. Take the time and acknowledge that you can’t just be in maintenance mode.

Get out of your comfort zone and start making some changes in your account.

Want more Black Friday tips? Find out how to drive results from your Black Friday Facebook ads!

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The Important Takeaways from Google I/O 2024

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Google I/O 2024

Google I/O 2024, the Silicon Valley giant’s annual developer conference, brought a bunch of exciting updates and advancements across various Google platforms and services. signalling a new era of intelligent, creative, and responsible technology.

Here’s an in-depth look at the key announcements and features unveiled during the event.

Google Search Gets Smarter

No surprises that one of the biggest stories to come out of Google I/O 2024 is about the enhancement of Google Search. AI Overviews are now being rolled out to all users in the U.S., providing deeper insights with just one search query. This feature leverages Google’s latest AI model, Gemini, allowing users to ask complex questions and receive comprehensive answers.

For example, users can now search for “best yoga or pilates studios in Boston” and not only receive a list of studios, but also specific details such as introductory offers and walking times from their location. This level of detail and integration aims to make search results more actionable and relevant, and improve user experience.

Enhanced Brainstorming Capabilities

Google Search is also becoming a tool for creativity and inspiration. The new brainstorming feature helps users find tailored suggestions for various needs. For example, if someone searches for “anniversary celebration dinner places Dallas,” they will elicit personalized recommendations, complete with categories to explore, such as types of cuisine, ambiance, and special offers.

This enhancement transforms Google Search into more than just an information retrieval tool—it becomes a creative assistant, helping users plan and make decisions with ease and confidence.

Interactive Video Search

Another ground-breaking update is the introduction of Interactive Video Search. This feature allows users to search within video content to find specific insights. Imagine watching a cooking video and being able to search for a particular step or ingredient explanation within the video. This capability deciphers complex video content, making it easier to locate and understand the information presented.

Interactive Video Search is expected to be a game-changer for educational content, tutorials, and entertainment, providing a more dynamic and user-friendly way to engage with video media.

Gemini Tools for Developers

Google is also empowering developers with new tools. The Gemini 1.5 Pro and Flash models are now available in over 200 countries, offering advanced capabilities and integrated collaboration features within Workspace apps like Gmail and Docs. These tools is to enhance productivity and innovation in the development community.

The integration within Workspace means developers can collaborate more effectively, leveraging AI to streamline coding, debugging, and deployment processes. The global rollout ensures developers everywhere have access to the latest technologies to build and improve their applications.

Generative Media Models

Content creation is set to become more intuitive with the introduction of generative media models. Google unveiled Imagen 3 and Veo, tools that allow users to create images and videos from text prompts. This technology is especially useful for marketing campaigns, social media content, and other visual storytelling demands.

With Imagen 3, users can generate high-quality images simply by describing them, while Veo enables the creation of compelling video content from text-based descriptions. These tools lower the barrier to professional-grade content creation, making it accessible to individuals and businesses alike.

Responsible AI Initiatives

Amid all these advancements, Google says it remains committed to the responsible deployment of AI. The introduction of SynthID is a significant step towards easier identification of AI-generated content. SynthID embeds a subtle but detectable watermark in AI-generated images, ensuring transparency and authenticity in digital media.

Additionally, LearnLM is another innovative tool aimed at promoting responsible AI use. It provides educational resources and best practices for developing and deploying AI models, helping developers understand the ethical implications and technical standards required for safe AI usage.

In Summary

Google I/O 2024 showcased a range of innovations that not only enhance user experience but also push the boundaries of what’s possible with technology. From smarter search capabilities and creative brainstorming tools to advanced developer resources and responsible AI practices, Google continues to lead the way in making technology more accessible, intuitive, and ethical.

These updates reflect Google’s ongoing commitment to leveraging AI for the betterment of society, ensuring that their technological advancements are both innovative and responsible. Users and developers alike can look forward to a more connected, efficient, and creative future with these new tools and features.



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Ultimate Guide to Product Data Feed Management

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Ultimate Guide to Product Data Feed Management

From the early days of simple online catalogs to today’s dynamic, data-driven shopping experiences, the e-commerce landscape has seen a monumental shift, driven by advances in technology and changes in consumer behavior. This transformation has not only expanded the reach of retailers but also heightened the competition and complexity of selling online.

Overview of the E-commerce Landscape

The current e-commerce landscape is a vast, interconnected ecosystem. It is one where businesses of all sizes compete to capture the attention and loyalty of digital consumers. 

Ecommerce spans various channels, including online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. It involves social commerce platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. It is conducted by countless individual online stores powered by platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce

Each of these channels offers unique opportunities and challenges. Each demands a particular approach to engaging with potential customers.

As the digital marketplace continues to grow, so does the importance of maintaining a strong online presence. 

For businesses, this means more than just listing products online. It involves creating comprehensive, engaging, and personalized shopping experiences that resonate with consumers across multiple touchpoints.

The Evolution of Online Shopping and the Role of Data

The evolution of online shopping is a story of technological innovation and changing consumer expectations. 

Initially, online shopping offered a convenient alternative to physical stores, allowing consumers to purchase products from the comfort of their homes. 

Over time, the advent of mobile technology, social media, and advanced data analytics has transformed online shopping into an immersive and interactive experience. 

Today, consumers can receive personalized product recommendations, see targeted ads, use augmented reality to “try on” products, and enjoy seamless omnichannel shopping experiences that blur the lines between online and in-store.

At the heart of this evolution is data. 

Data fuels the algorithms that predict shopping behavior, tailor marketing messages, and optimize the online shopping experience. 

Effective product data feed management plays a crucial role in this ecosystem. It involves not just listing products online but strategically managing and optimizing product information, ensuring it reaches the right audience, at the right time, in the right way. 

This process is vital for improving product visibility, enhancing customer experiences, and ultimately driving sales in a crowded and competitive digital marketplace.

As we delve into the intricacies of product data feed management, it’s important to recognize its significance as the backbone of successful e-commerce strategies. 

By understanding and leveraging the power of data, businesses can navigate the complexities of the digital marketplace and create meaningful connections with their customers.

What is Product Data Feed Management?

The ability to efficiently distribute, update, and optimize product information across multiple online channels is paramount. Product data feed management facilitates this critical function. It is a process that stands at the core of successful online retailing.

Definition and Explanation of Product Feeds

A product feed, fundamentally, is a structured file—often in formats like XML, CSV, or JSON—that contains detailed information about the products in an online store’s catalog. 

This file serves as a digital product list, designed to be ingested by various e-commerce platforms, search engines, social media channels, and comparison shopping websites. 

Product feeds include essential details such as product titles, descriptions, images, prices, stock levels, and more—each attribute meticulously organized to meet the specific requirements of different digital channels.

Product data feed management encompasses the creation, maintenance, and optimization of these product feeds. 

It involves regular updates to ensure accuracy of product information, strategic modifications to enhance product visibility and appeal, and careful adherence to the data standards and specifications of each target platform. 

The goal is to streamline the process of listing and advertising products across the web, ensuring that potential customers encounter consistent, accurate, and engaging product presentations, no matter where they find them.

Importance of Product Data in E-commerce

We cannot overstate the significance of product data in e-commerce. In an online marketplace where consumers rely heavily on product information to make purchasing decisions, the quality and presentation of this data directly impact sales performance. 

High-quality product feeds enable:

  • Improved Visibility: Optimized product data feeds help products to surface in search results and feature prominently in comparison shopping engines, directly influencing discoverability.
  • Enhanced Customer Experience: Detailed, accurate product descriptions and high-quality images help build consumer trust and reduce the likelihood of returns. They provide the necessary information to aid consumers in making informed purchasing decisions, enhancing the overall shopping experience.
  • Increased Conversion Rates: By ensuring product listings are optimized for relevance and appeal (including SEO-friendly product titles and descriptions, compelling images, and competitive pricing), merchants can significantly improve their chances of converting browsers into buyers.
  • Streamlined Operations: Effective data feed management simplifies the process of listing products on multiple channels, reducing manual effort and minimizing the risk of errors. This efficiency is crucial for businesses scaling their online presence across various platforms.

In the context of today’s online shopping environment, where customer engagement and satisfaction are key drivers of success, the role of data feed management extends beyond mere product listings. 

It is about crafting a narrative for each product that resonates with potential buyers, leveraging data to tell compelling stories that captivate and convert. 

As such, product data feed management is a critical component of any e-commerce strategy, ensuring that products are not just seen but also chosen, liked, and purchased.

Why Product Data Feed Management is Important

In the digital marketplace, where competition is fierce and consumer attention is fleeting, the strategic management of product data feeds emerges as a crucial lever for e-commerce success. 

Its importance is multifaceted, impacting everything from how products are discovered to how they’re evaluated by potential customers.

Impact on Visibility and Sales Across Channels

A well-managed product data feed is instrumental in amplifying a product’s visibility across various online channels. 

Each e-commerce platform, marketplace, and comparison shopping engine has its own unique set of requirements for listing products. By meticulously optimizing product feeds to meet these specifications, businesses ensure that their products are not only listed but also positioned favorably within these channels. 

This optimization can include keyword-rich product titles and descriptions, high-quality images, and competitive pricing information, all tailored to align with the search behaviors and preferences of the target audience.

The direct result of increased visibility is, quite naturally, an uplift in sales. 

Products that are easy to find and presented compellingly are more likely to attract clicks and, subsequently, purchases. 

Furthermore, optimized product feeds contribute to more effective and efficient advertising campaigns. By targeting the right consumers with the most relevant and appealing product information, businesses can significantly improve their return on investment (ROI) in marketing, driving both sales and profitability.

Role in Improving Customer Decision-Making and Satisfaction

Beyond the immediate benefits of visibility and sales, product data feed management plays a vital role in enriching the customer’s shopping experience. 

In an online environment devoid of physical touchpoints, product information is the primary means through which consumers interact with and evaluate offerings. 

Detailed and accurate product feeds help bridge the gap between online browsing and the tangible experience of shopping in a store. They provide customers with the information needed to make informed purchasing decisions, reducing uncertainty and the likelihood of dissatisfaction.

High-quality product data feeds also allow for the personalization of the shopping experience. By leveraging data insights, businesses can tailor product recommendations, ads, and promotions to match the specific interests and preferences of their audience. 

This level of personalization enhances customer engagement and loyalty, as shoppers feel understood and valued by the brand. It also streamlines the shopping process, making it easier and more satisfying for customers to find products that meet their needs and desires.

Moreover, effective management of product data feeds ensures consistency across channels, further improving customer trust and confidence. 

When product information, pricing, and availability are synchronized across all platforms, it creates a cohesive and reliable brand experience. This consistency is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction and fostering long-term loyalty.

Optimized product feeds are a powerhouse for e-commerce marketing, offering substantial benefits for ad campaigns and search relevancy. These advantages are pivotal in navigating the competitive landscape of online retail, where the ability to capture consumer attention at the right moment can make the difference between a sale and a missed opportunity.

Benefits for Ad Campaigns

For advertising campaigns, particularly those running on platforms like Google Shopping, Facebook, and Instagram, the quality and optimization of the product feed directly influence the campaign’s effectiveness. 

A well-optimized product feed ensures that ads are not only displayed but also resonate with the target audience. This optimization includes accurate and enticing product descriptions, high-quality images, and the right use of keywords and categories that align with what potential customers are searching for.

An optimized feed allows for more targeted and personalized ad campaigns. 

By segmenting feeds based on product categories, price ranges, or even customer behaviors, businesses can create tailored ad experiences that speak directly to the interests of different audience segments. 

This targeted approach increases the relevance of ads, improving click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates, thereby maximizing the ROI of advertising budgets. 

Furthermore, dynamic remarketing campaigns, which display products that a visitor has previously viewed or shown interest in, rely heavily on the precision and detail of product feeds to re-engage potential customers effectively.

Data feeds play a pivotal role in the integration and success of paid search campaigns on platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising

Understanding how these feeds interact with paid search platforms can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your advertising efforts, leading to better targeting, higher conversion rates, and improved ROI. 

Here’s an in-depth look at how data feeds work within the context of paid search platforms.

Fundamentals of Data Feeds in Paid Search

At the core of paid search advertising, especially for e-commerce, are product data feeds. 

These feeds serve as the foundation for creating dynamic and highly targeted ads based on the product information stored in your e-commerce platform. 

For platforms like Google Shopping and Microsoft Shopping Campaigns, your product feed is uploaded to their Merchant Center, where it’s used to generate Shopping ads that are displayed across search results and other Google or Microsoft properties.

Structure and Optimization

A product data feed for paid search is typically structured in a CSV, XML, or a Google Sheets format, containing detailed attributes of each product such as title, price, image URL, product ID, and stock status. 

Optimizing these attributes is crucial for the success of your campaigns. 

Effective titles and descriptions that incorporate relevant keywords can improve the visibility of your ads, while high-quality images enhance click-through rates. 

Additionally, accurate pricing and availability information helps to reduce the bounce rate and increase consumer trust.

Dynamic Ad Creation

Paid search platforms utilize the information in your product feed to automatically create ads that are tailored to the search queries of potential customers.

This process involves matching the keywords and product categories in your feed with the terms users are searching for. 

As a result, when someone searches for a product that matches an item in your feed, the platform can dynamically generate an ad that showcases the product, complete with its image, title, and price.

Targeting and Personalization

Data feeds enable sophisticated targeting and personalization options in paid search campaigns. 

By analyzing the data in your feed, these platforms can serve ads to users based on their previous interactions with your website, search history, and purchasing behavior. 

For instance, remarketing campaigns can target users who have viewed specific products on your site but did not make a purchase, showing them ads for those very products as they browse the web or use social media.

Performance Tracking and Optimization

Integrating your product feed with paid search platforms allows for detailed performance tracking at the product level. 

You can see which products are generating clicks, impressions, and conversions, and adjust your feed and campaign settings accordingly. 

This might involve pausing ads for underperforming products, increasing bids for high-value items, or optimizing product titles and descriptions for better performance.

Continuous Updates

To maintain the relevance and effectiveness of your paid search campaigns, it’s vital to keep your product feed updated. 

Changes in product availability, pricing, or promotional offers need to be reflected in your feed in real-time or as close to it as possible. 

Many platforms offer the option to schedule regular feed uploads or enable direct API connections for continuous updates, ensuring that your ads always display the most current information.

Enhancing Search Relevancy

For search engines and online marketplaces, the relevancy of product listings plays a crucial role in visibility. 

Optimized product feeds contribute to higher search relevancy by ensuring that product information is comprehensive, accurate, and keyword-optimized. 

This means that when consumers search for products, the chances of your listings appearing in their search results are significantly increased.

Moreover, detailed and well-structured product feeds help algorithms better understand and categorize your products, making it more likely for them to show up in relevant searches and for related products. 

This alignment with consumer search intent not only boosts visibility but also drives more qualified traffic to your listings—consumers who are actively seeking what you’re offering.

Optimizing product feeds for search relevancy also involves updating feeds regularly to reflect changes in inventory, pricing, and product details. This consistency ensures that search engines and marketplaces have the most current information, further improving the accuracy of search results. 

It reduces the likelihood of customer frustration caused by outdated information, such as discontinued products or incorrect prices, enhancing the overall shopping experience and fostering trust in your brand.

Who Needs to Conduct Product Data Feed Management?

While product data feed management is a universal necessity in e-commerce, the scale and approach can vary significantly based on several factors.

Differentiation by Business Size, Catalog Complexity, and Sales Channels

Small Businesses and Startups: Small businesses, especially those with a limited number of products, may initially manage their product feeds manually or with minimal automation. 

However, even small operations can benefit from basic product data feed management practices to ensure their products are accurately listed across preferred sales channels. 

As they grow, the complexity and time investment required to manage feeds manually can quickly become impractical.

Mid-sized Businesses: For mid-sized businesses with larger catalogs and sales across multiple channels, the complexity of managing product feeds escalates. 

These businesses often deal with dynamic inventories, frequent promotions, and the need to optimize product listings for different platforms. 

At this stage, the efficiency, accuracy, and scalability provided by a dedicated product feed management solution become increasingly critical.

Large Enterprises: Large enterprises with extensive product catalogs, global markets, and sales across numerous channels face significant challenges in maintaining consistency, accuracy, and optimization of product data feeds. 

Advanced product feed management solutions, often customized and integrated with other enterprise systems, are essential to manage the scale and complexity of their operations effectively.

Indications Your Business Needs a Data Feed Management Solution

Expanding Product Catalog: As your product range grows, so does the complexity of managing each product’s data. A solution that can automate updates and optimize listings becomes invaluable.

Increasing Sales Channels: Selling across multiple platforms (e.g., your website, Amazon, eBay, Google Shopping) introduces specific requirements and complexities for each channel. Managing feeds for each platform manually can become overwhelming.

Time and Resource Constraints: If updating product listings is consuming a disproportionate amount of time or if errors are becoming more frequent due to manual updates, it’s time to consider a more streamlined approach.

Marketing and Sales Challenges: If you’re finding it difficult to effectively target or retarget potential customers through ad campaigns due to poor data quality or if you’re unable to leverage dynamic pricing and promotions effectively, a product data feed management solution can offer significant advantages.

International Expansion: Selling in multiple countries requires tailoring product information to different languages, currencies, and cultural nuances. Managing these variations without a robust feed management system can limit your ability to scale globally.

Inventory Management Issues: Difficulty in synchronizing inventory levels across different channels, leading to overselling or stock discrepancies, indicates a need for better feed management.

How to Do Product Data Feed Management

Effective product data feed management is a multifaceted process, requiring attention to detail, strategic planning, and the right tools. Here’s a comprehensive approach to managing your product data feeds efficiently and effectively.

1. Assess Your Current Data Feed Status

  • Audit Your Product Data: Begin by evaluating the quality and completeness of your current product data. Identify gaps, inaccuracies, or areas lacking optimization, such as missing product descriptions, poor-quality images, or inadequate use of keywords.
  • Understand Channel Requirements: Each sales channel has its own set of requirements for product feeds. Familiarize yourself with these specifications to ensure your product data aligns with each channel’s format, data fields, and quality standards.

2. Optimize Your Product Data

  • Enhance Product Titles and Descriptions: Make them descriptive and keyword-rich to improve search visibility and relevancy. Tailor content to match the search behavior of your target audience.
  • Improve Image Quality: Use high-resolution images and ensure they accurately represent the product. Consider multiple angles and use cases to provide a comprehensive visual overview.
  • Standardize and Enrich Data: Ensure consistent use of categories, types, and attributes across your product range. Add any missing information that could enhance the listing, such as dimensions, materials, or special features
  • Map Your Product Attributes to Channel Specifications: Create a mapping document that aligns your product attributes with the requirements of each sales channel. This ensures that critical product information is translated correctly and efficiently into each channel’s specific format, minimizing the risk of errors and omissions.
  • Utilize High-Quality Data Sources: Ensure your product information is being pulled from high-quality, reliable sources within your organization. This might involve integrating with your ERP or inventory management system to access the most up-to-date and accurate product data.
  • Implement Rich Media: Beyond standard images, consider incorporating videos, 360-degree views, and other rich media into your product feeds. This can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates by providing a more immersive product experience.
  • Optimize for Mobile: Given the increasing prevalence of mobile shopping, ensure your product feeds are optimized for mobile platforms. This includes mobile-friendly images, concise and impactful product titles, and descriptions that are easy to read on smaller screens.
  • Adopt Schema Markup: Utilize schema markup for your online store’s pages to help search engines better understand and display your product information in search results, potentially increasing visibility and click-through rates.
  • Ensure Cross-Channel Consistency: Regularly review your product feeds across all channels to ensure information is consistent and up-to-date. Discrepancies in pricing, availability, or product details can erode customer trust and hurt your brand’s reputation.
  • Regularly Refresh Promotional Content: Update your product feeds to reflect current promotions, seasonal offers, or limited-time discounts. This keeps your listings fresh and encourages repeat visits and purchases.
  • Implement Dynamic Pricing: Where possible, use dynamic pricing strategies within your product feeds to remain competitive. Adjust prices based on market demand, competitor pricing, and inventory levels to optimize sales and margins.

3. Select the Right Product Feed Management Tool

  • Evaluate Features and Compatibility: Choose a tool that not only offers feed creation and optimization features but also integrates seamlessly with your e-commerce platform and preferred sales channels.
  • Consider Scalability: The tool should be able to grow with your business, handling an increasing number of products and complexity without performance issues.
  • Look for Automation Capabilities: To save time and reduce errors, opt for a solution that automates routine tasks like feed updates and inventory management.

4. Implement Feed Management Best Practices

  • Regularly Update Your Feeds: Ensure your product feeds are refreshed frequently to reflect inventory changes, price updates, and any modifications to product details.
  • Monitor Feed Performance: Use analytics to track how your products are performing across different channels. Identify trends, such as top-performing products or channels, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
  • Test and Optimize: Continuously experiment with different aspects of your product data (e.g., titles, descriptions, images) to see what resonates best with your audience and leads to higher conversion rates.
  • Conduct Competitive Analysis: Regularly review your competitors’ product listings on key channels to identify trends and strategies that may be effective. This could include promotional tactics, use of specific keywords, or presentation styles. Understanding what works for competitors can offer valuable insights to refine your own product feed strategy.
  • Engage in Continuous Learning: Stay informed about the latest trends and best practices in e-commerce and product data management. Participating in webinars, following industry blogs, and joining professional groups can provide ongoing education and insights into how to manage your product feeds more effectively.

5. Stay Compliant and Up-to-Date

  • Keep Abreast of Channel Updates: Sales channels often update their feed requirements and algorithms. Stay informed about these changes to ensure your feeds remain compliant and optimized.
  • Adapt to Market Trends: Be responsive to shifts in consumer behavior and market trends. Update your product data to highlight relevant features or benefits that meet evolving customer needs.

Product Data Feed Management Tools and Services.

There are many companies who offer some form software that aids the potentially laborious process of product data management. Some only work for certain marketplaces, others are limited to certain ecommerce platforms like shopify or woocommerce.

Amongst them you should be able to find a suitable partner to manage your product data feed though.

Feedonomics (https://feedonomics.com/) offers a leading full-service data feed management platform that optimizes and syndicates product data across a wide range of digital marketing channels and marketplaces. 

Their service emphasizes improving feed quality for better ad performance and e-commerce success.

Adsmurai (https://www.adsmurai.com/) provides advanced marketing technology solutions with a focus on optimizing social media advertising campaigns. 

They offer tools for creative management, campaign automation, and performance analysis across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

FeedSpark (https://www.feedspark.com/) specializes in data feed optimization and management, helping businesses improve their online presence and sales through better product visibility across shopping channels and search engines.

ShoppingIQ (https://www.shoppingiq.com/) offers a technology platform geared towards optimizing e-commerce operations, particularly in managing and optimizing product feeds for shopping comparison engines and marketplaces to enhance ROI.

DataFeedWatch (https://www.datafeedwatch.com/) is a comprehensive data feed management tool designed to help merchants and agencies optimize and customize their product feeds for over 1000 shopping channels and marketplaces to improve campaign performance.

WakeupData (https://www.wakeupdata.com/) provides a powerful feed management platform that allows e-commerce businesses to transform, optimize, and automate their product data feeds to increase sales and performance across multiple marketing channels.

Channable (https://www.channable.com/) offers an e-commerce tool for feed management, PPC automation, and order synchronization, helping online retailers and marketers streamline their sales and advertising operations across various platforms.

Feedoptimise (https://www.feedoptimise.com/) provides services for managing and optimizing product feeds for e-commerce businesses, focusing on maximizing product visibility and performance across shopping channels and marketplaces.

SellerApp (https://www.sellerapp.com/) specializes in e-commerce analytics and intelligence, offering tools and services that help sellers optimize their presence and sales on platforms like Amazon with data-driven insights and strategies.

Scale Insights (https://scaleinsights.com/) is platform focused around Amazon PPC which helps their customers scale and automate their advertising campaigns on the mega successful ecomerce marketplace.

Arthy (https://www.getarthy.com/) is another Amazon focused tool. It’s broader than just feeds offering functionality around managing reviews, inventory etc.

Adverso (https://adverso.io/) is a platform to manage, optimize and track your Amazon campaigns smoothly with a solution designed for Amazon teams & agencies

ExportFeed (https://www.exportfeed.com/) specializes in creating and managing product feeds for e-commerce businesses, ensuring their products are listed across multiple shopping channels and marketplaces efficiently.

Lengow (https://www.lengow.com/) provides an e-commerce automation platform that helps merchants optimize their product listings and manage their sales across various online channels, including marketplaces, comparison shopping engines, and affiliate platforms.

Rithum (https://www.rithum.com/) came about from the combination of CommerceHub and ChannelAdvisor and claim to be a company providing end-to-end platform and network capabilities that create more durable, sustainable, e-commerce businesses to the leading brands, retailers, and suppliers of the world.

Baselinker (https://baselinker.com/) offers an integrated e-commerce platform that connects online stores with marketplaces, couriers, and sales support tools, automating sales processes and order management to increase efficiency.

Versafeed (https://www.versafeed.com/) provides a managed service for optimizing and managing product data feeds, focusing on enhancing product visibility and performance on search engines and shopping channels.

GoDataFeed (https://www.godatafeed.com/) offers a cloud-based feed management platform designed to simplify and automate the process of syndicating product data across a multitude of shopping channels, improving reach and efficiency.

AdNabu (https://www.adnabu.com/) specializes in Google Ads automation, offering software solutions that help e-commerce businesses optimize their Google Shopping campaigns for better performance and higher returns.

Relayter (https://www.relayter.com/) Simplify your marketing production for promotions and products. Automate creative work and streamline content workflows.

Adcore (https://www.adcore.com/technologies/feeditor/) provides a suite of marketing automation tools designed to help advertisers streamline their digital advertising efforts, with a focus on simplifying campaign management and optimization. Feeditor is there feed management tool.

Productsup (https://www.productsup.com/) offers a leading cloud-based platform for product content integration, syndication, and feed management, empowering businesses to manage and optimize their product data across various e-commerce channels.



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PPC

Advanced Google Ads Techniques To Master In 2024

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Advanced Google Ads Techniques To Master In 2024

We’re nearly halfway through 2024, and already we PPC heroes have experienced a plethora of changes to get our heads around. How can we cut through the noise and focus on the specific tactics that will make an impact for the better?

Today we’ll take a look at a few advanced Google Ads techniques tips and tricks to master in 2024 – everything from making account management easier to tailoring your messaging at scale, and making your campaigns as effective and efficient as possible.

1. Auto-apply (some) recommendations

Fighting those pesky ‘optimization score’ reminders can be time-consuming – especially when they’re not always applicable. With targets to hit and maintain for Google’s partnership and support, it’s important to keep our optimization scores high at 80% or above.

Google’s optimization recommendations are split into the following categories:

  • Ads and assets
  • Automated campaigns
  • Bidding and budgets
  • Keywords and targeting
  • Repairs
  • Measurement

Each of these will have a unique score that will affect your overall optimization total for each of your accounts. Repairs are usually critical fixes, while minor keyword tweaks may come further down the priority list. (You can dismiss recommendations if they’re irrelevant, but I recommend reading the details behind each of them before rejecting them.)

To save time on manual campaign management, you can ask Google to auto-apply some of these tweaks for you – with a thorough ‘auto-applied recommendations’  history as well as optional email alerts. 

I recommend adding these four as must-have auto-optimizations:

  1. Removing redundant keywords (keywords that have a close match within the same ad group and bidding strategy that performs better)
  2. Removing non-serving keywords (keywords with no impressions over a set period)*
  3. Updating keywords bids to meet ‘top of page’ bids etc. (You can still set an upper limit on this)
  4. Use optimized ad rotation (to show the best-performing ads more often instead of all ads within the same ad group equally, despite performance)

*As of June 2024, Google will automatically pause low-activity keywords: “Positive keywords in search ads campaigns are considered low-activity if they were created over 13 months ago and have zero impressions over the past 13 months.”

To opt-in to certain auto-applied recommendations:

  1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon 
  2. Click Recommendations.

At the upper right-hand corner, click Auto-apply, and select which recommendations to auto-apply.

2. Drive personalization through audiences

One way to drive personalization via search ads is by leveraging Google’s audiences. While marketers of yesteryear used to rely on keywords and geotargeting, today Google has a multitude of interested audiences to exploit across search, performance max, display, video, and demand gen campaigns. Don’t forget, audiences can be applied with both the observation setting and the targeting setting. Consider adding audiences to the observation setting first, adjusting to targeting once you have sufficient data.

By applying the following audience types to your campaigns and ad groups, you can double down on efforts to reach your target audiences through search.

Custom audiences

Create your own custom audience based on signals such as interests, behaviors, website viewing history (by URL), and app history. Think competitor brands or products, industry-related websites and apps, and recent relevant Google searches.

You could use custom audiences to personalize your ad copy on campaigns where you’re targeting customers of your competitors. For example, by encouraging them to ‘switch’ to your brand, product, or service, rather than treating them like a first-time purchaser. You could focus on the benefits of your product or service over the one they currently have, rather than focusing your ad copy on educating the audience from scratch.

In-market audiences

In-market audiences are a must-have in 2024. Curated by Google, these audiences actively research a specific product or service and are actively considering their options ahead of purchasing. 

While there isn’t a master list of in-market audiences (because many of these are hidden!), head to the Audiences tab on your current Google Ads campaigns. Click “Edit Audience Segments”, then the Browse tab, and navigate to In-Market Audiences. You can look at all available groupings by industry, and add the most relevant ones to your campaigns. You can also use this function to type in keywords under the Search tab, and type in relevant keywords to find relevant in-market audience suggestions to apply.

Knowing these audiences are already convinced of the benefits of the general product or service you’re advertising, you can use your ad copy to highlight the USPs of your brand.

RLSAs

While the use of RLSAs (remarketing lists for search ads) has dropped since their arrival in 2013, they still have a place in an effective PPC strategy in 2024. By creating an RLSA, you can personalize your ad copy at scale.

The use of RLSAs is particularly applicable for brands with lengthier sales cycles, or longer customer consideration and comparison stages. Your brand could be 1 of 5 that a consumer is considering buying a hot tub from – it’s uncommon that a hot tub is an impulse purchase decision. A user may use Google to search multiple times for generic hot tub terms, and may whittle this down to certain brands based on their needs. Once a user who is actively looking for a hot tub has visited your website without converting, upon their next Google search, your ad may contain a coupon code, a complimentary gift item, or other differentiating ad copy to encourage them to purchase through your website.

It’s important with RLSAs to ensure that you have separate ad groups or campaigns. Also to separate RLSA audiences from other custom, in-market or demographic-based audiences.

Remember to test all new audiences by adding them as ‘observation’ audiences, before switching to the ‘targeting’ setting.

3. Harness your data

One of the more critical elements of a top-performing PPC campaign is data. You can have the best keywords, ad copy, and landing page in the world, but you need the right data to meet your goals.

A big data piece for 2024 is the perfection of conversion tracking, conversion events, and key events. With enhanced conversions also forcing their way to the fore, Google is no longer letting a lack of data confuse the attribution story.

At one time it was best practice to aim for a single conversion goal across all campaigns. In 2024, it’s important to measure a mixture of lighter conversion events too. For example, measuring PDF downloads and highly engaged video views on the path to a lead form submission. Or tracking customers who have abandoned their carts. Not only do these signals give you a clearer picture of the path to conversion, but these lighter goals can better guide Google’s machine learning and automated bidding strategy efforts.

Not only is conversion tracking crucial to success, but your conversion settings are key. Review the conversions list on your Google Ads account and check each goal for whether it’s a primary or secondary, or account default conversion setting. Having multiple account-default primary conversion goals will make it harder for Google to auto-optimize conversion-based bidding strategies. Choose one or two must-haves to keep as your primary conversion goal, and set the rest to secondary conversion goals.

4. Stop working on your Google Ads in isolation

One of the most valuable traits of a top-performing PPC manager is their knowledge of where PPC fits within the marketing funnel and wider marketing mix. Traditionally, PPC tactics have been assigned a bottom-of-funnel or lower-funnel position in the marketing mix. 

In 2024, we need to adapt our thinking. Google Ads is no longer a BOF-only strategy. In fact, Google Ads can generate upper-funnel, mid-funnel, and lower-funnel results with the right strategy, campaign type, and goal tracking in place. 

Not only that but Google Ads can support a multitude of cross-channel activities. You can use Google Ads to:

  • Drive brand awareness and consideration on YouTube and other video partner platforms
  • Capture brand demand generated from activity on social platforms such as Meta, TikTok, or Snapchat
  • Similarly, capture brand demand generated from offline or traditional channels such as TV advertising, billboards, or print media
  • Remarket to website traffic (from all sources) to generate conversions
  • Boost brand loyalty, cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities using current customer data

This is another reason why data-driven attribution is a must-have in 2024. Today, Google Ads can influence multiple customer touchpoints. Last-click attribution is no longer an effective, representative, or scientific way of measuring the success of Google Ads activity.

5. Perfect your exclusions

For peak efficiency, exclusions are a must-have throughout your account. Particularly with the increased push for automated campaigns and campaign management that we’re experiencing. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re only running search or performance max activity. Exclusions are almost always a part of an efficient campaign structure. The exclusions on your account might include negative keywords, specific audience exclusions (such as remarketing and already-converted audiences), brand exclusions, geotargeting exclusions, or placement exclusions.

Common negative keywords to consider may include:

  • Free
  • Jobs
  • Download
  • Cheap
  • How to
  • YouTube
  • Amazon
  • Facebook
  • Sample
  • Guide
  • Logo
  • Resource
  • DIY

Without exclusions, you may find your ads are appearing to the wrong audiences, next to questionable or harmful content, or even that your ads are being triggered by irrelevant search terms entirely. 

Summary 

In 2024, there is a lot of noise in PPC advertising. By getting to grips with the above fundamentals of a healthy Google Ads account – targeting, personalization, data, simpler campaign management techniques, and adding relevant exclusions – you’ll be able to successfully navigate the complexities of managing your accounts at an advanced level.



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