Advanced Google Shopping: data insights from behind the scenes

#SMX #11B @AndreasReiffen
Data Insights from Behind the Scenes
Advanced
Google Shopping

About…
• Data-driven online advertising strategist
• Online retail expert
• Entrepreneur
• Over €3 billion in customer revenues
last year
• SaaS product for Google Shopping &
Search
• 130 true experts in their field
• Offices in Germany & UK, new office in
NYC
… me … crealytics & camato

Topics we will cover today..
Economies of
Google shopping Role of price Image testing
Product title
testing
How does price
influence
performance?
How big a role
does price play in
product ranking?
CPCs have
decreased!
What will happen
next?
How can you test
images properly?
What is the effect
of image
changes?
Can you
manipulate titles
and get more
relevant user
queries?

Global Shopping growth 2016 Shopping Click Share 2014 - 2016
In 2016 Shopping clicks kept increasing while CPCs decreased –
why?
Clicks CPC
-15%
36%
*Alphabet earnings report
74%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Q2Q1
2016
Q2 Q4 Q4Q4Q3 Q3 Q3Q2Q1
2015
Q1
2014
Shooping
TextAds
*Internal data US + EU

Click Share by device YoY
Increasing mobile click share
As predicted by Google, mobile click share
in Shopping has increased massively over
the past few years, so that since 2016 the
majority of clicks is generated by mobile
rather than desktop
100
84
16
49
51
30
2016
100
70
100
62
38
100
2015
Desktop
20172014
Mobile

Ad space pushing organic space Resulting in stronger growth
More advertising space
Paid
+78%
+16%
Organic

Impression volume for generic terms (M)
More Shopping results for generic queries
In 2016 Google started
increasing the amount of
Shopping Impressions for
generic terms, leading to
an overhead in available
queries.
Q4
2015
Q3
2016
66
Q4
2016
Q3
2015
Q1
2015
Q2
2016
8
Q1
2016
10
9
6
7
4
Q2
2015
2
6
2
Q1
2015
5
Q4
2015
Q3
2015
3
Q2
2016
5
Q2
2015
2
Q1
2016
Q4
2016
Q3
2016
5Category termsDesigner terms

Paid sessions per user YoY
Navigation happening on Google rather than website
46% shopping conversions have 3+
shopping clicks
29% text ads conversions have 3+ text ads
clicks
Google
Website
Purchase
1.39
1.48
1.73
2014
+17%
2016
1.41
TextAds
Shopping

Shopping vs Text Ads CPC & RPC CR by device
Shopping more profitable despite higher overall CPCs
100100
162
121
+21%
+62%
RPCCPC
TextAds
Shopping
97%
TextAds Mobile
61%
189%
Shopping
Mobile
TextAds
Desktop
Shopping
Desktop
100%

Your key take aways
Strong ongoing growth
of ad inventory supply is
leading to CPC deflation
Be faster than your
competition!
Move budget to
Shopping now!
CPCs still higher than
on Text Ads but due to
high CR Shopping
more efficient than
Text ads

Pricing

Impressions and clicks in Google Shopping are often very
sensitive to price changes
Clicks drop off after product price increase Chart Info
5% price increase coincides
with a 60% decrease in
clicks
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Pricein£
+5%
clicksown price Google product category:
Apparel & Accessories >
Shoes > Sneakers
Brand:
Days
Clicks
Price

Cheap products generate the lion‘s share of total traffic
Traffic of similar products within one shop Key insights
Cheap products generated
much more traffic despite
similar number of products
in both groups
Imps
134%
4.282.611
1.828.412
103.803
135%
Clicks
44.122
2.047
9%
# of
products
1.876
expensive products cheap products

Despite getting more traffic, the performance of the cheaper
products is much more efficient.
Performance of similar products within one shop Key insights
Number of orders through
cheap products almost 3
times higher.
Higher CR resulting in CPO
being ~30% lower
40
28
-29%
CPO Conversions
1,042
+280%
274
61%
0.6%
CR
1.0%
expensive products cheap products

Price is very important in terms of ranking but there are
other factors as well
$
Retailer Rating
New retailers will be rated
down, seller ratings help
Performance History
More history leads to more
impressions
Price
Users favor cheaper
products, so these achieve
better positions on google
Bid
Bid is important but can be
outweighed by product
price
According to Google, price is not an explicit factor in their algorithm,
but maybe taken into account through machine learning if users favor lower prices

Position of cheapest offer
Product price has a massive impact on position!
Pos 1
Pos 2 14%
65%
Cheapest
Pos 5 +
Pos 4 4%
7%Pos 3
11%
* Data from price comparison provider based on > 3000 queries
Is Google shopping a price race to the bottom?
In 65% of all cases in our sample, the
product with the most competitive
price was ranked on position 1, no
matter the retailer!

The way out: We analysed what people actually bought
when they clicked on a product ad
Same Designer Different Designer
purchaseclick
34%
16%
14%
15%
21%
36%
Different
Category
SameCategory

Your key takeaways
Don’t overbid on
expensive
products, rather
consider price
changes
Price and bid
management will
be merged one
day
Discounting only a
few select
products could be
a killer strategy
$.47$.47-50%

Image Testing

Challenges to image testing
Do I have cassified
images? Time lag
SERPs vs shopping
tab
A B Shopping tab:
Products
clustered into
one offer list.
Not necessarily
your image!
Time to index new image:
• Up to 72 hours when URLs
are changed
• Up to 6 weeks if URLs
remains the same (server-
side image swap)
Know when you measure “A”. More data required. Long testing cyle.
Change images consistently fromA to B across entire category

About the data
1
2
3
2 fashion retailers: 1800 images changed in total
> 40m impressions
Products were ignored if not available at all times
target metrics: CTR (user), impressions (Google)

Change images in “test“, use “control“ as baseline.
Compare KPIs throughout test to eliminate seasonality.
Test
Control
Before During After

Model image 2.6% stronger CTR Model image 27% stronger CTR
Two tests, only one has a clear positive result
100.0%
127.0%100.0% 102.6%
Images
CTR
Images
CTR *
Not significant Significant
* CTR test vs control, with original image set to 100%. First test > 5m imps, second test >40m imps.

Image test seems to work when image sets you apart
Images
Competition
Images
Competition
Image type varies  no effect Stand out  positive effect
BA BA

Your key take aways
Image testing can have
an effect:
Stand out when many
offer the same product
There are areas where testing
can have a more significant
impact and the return on effort
is much bigger.
Images are important
for Google to match
queries
mountain

Feed Title Optimization

In feed optimisation, titles are most promising.
Product titles Google CategoryProduct description
Evening dress
by TFNC…
before destroyed
100% 98%
Baseball cap
by Nike…
Shoes > …
> Athletic Shoes
118%
100%
destroyedbefore
Clothing > …
> Rain Suits
Lipsy Lace Dress
Navy blue..
Party Dresses
Navy Blue Lipsy…
title
changed
original
100%
960%
Imps Imps Imps

Testing further strategies to determine impact of title
changes
1
2
3
4 accounts from 3 clients & 3 verticals
16.8k titles changed
5.2m Impressions generated in total

What we found out:
Unrelated Terms
Terms with volume on google but no
relation to product - therefore don’t
show up in product titles.
Seasonal terms: Christmas/ Black Friday
General terms: gift/ fashion/ online
 Google is too smart: Unrelated terms
have no impact
Existing Queries
High share of voice existing queries,
not included in titles.
Synonyms: Laptop  Notebook
Trainers  Sneakers
 Slight impact but not worth the
effort.
Under-Represented
Queries
1. Low share of voice existing, not
included in titles.
2. High trafficText Ads terms, not
receiving Shopping Impressions
 Success: Significant increase in
volume

Under-represented queries – Strong positive impact
100100
111
134
+34%
+11%
Account LevelQuery Level
After
Before
Impressions
This strategy has proven to be the most
successful.
As the high text ads traffic on these terms
already indicated, the impression volume
on Shopping had potential for growth.

Low/mid-level traffic queries with market potential are the
best choice
Title change:
+Designer Trainer
Share of available
volumeImpressions on query
Reebok Z Pump Fusion Training - Men
DesignerTrainer by Reebok Z Pump
FusionTraining
across 39 products KW planner Traffic /
m before
Traffic /
m after
Example
100100 116
7.100
Query Level
+16%
+7.000%
Account Level
After
Before

Including existing queries can be succesful
Jordan 1 Flight 4 Premium Space Jam
Jordan Kids - Jordan 1 Flight 4
Premium Space Jam
across 26 products
Example
100100
120
167
Query Level
+20%
+67%
Account Level
After
Before
KW planner Traffic /
m before
Traffic /
m after
Title change:
+Jordan Kids
Share of available
volumeImpressions on query

Your key take aways
Title optimisation works.
Up to 30% more
Impressions!
Don’t overwrite
important terms!
(it will eat up your gains)
Focus on
product-related
and
low share of voice

For a detailed step by step guide on how to
define which terms to add to your titles,
visit our blog at:
www.crealytics.com/blog/title-changes-
how-to/

Thank you!
Subscribe to our blog
blog.crealytics.com

Advanced Google Shopping: data insights from behind the scenes

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