SMX London – Reverse Engineering Google Shopping

May 20, 2015
Reverse
Engineering
Google Shopping
Andreas Reiffen
CEO crealytics
@AndreasReiffen

searchmarketingexpo.com
@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
About …
Search Shopping
… me
Andreas Reiffen, Founder & CEO, crealytics
Data-driven online advertising strategist
Entrepreneur
100 employees in Germany and the UK
$750M in client sales
125M ads per week delivered
3 of the Top 10 European fashion retailers
20+ languages covered in-house

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
1. How does bidding impact the click volume, search query impressions,
traffic quality and ROI?
2. How do Google Shopping campaign priorities influence your performance?
3. Should you really spend time optimising product descriptions in your feed?
4. How important is the correct categorisation of your products (Google
Product Category) in the feed?
5. How does Shopping react when you rewrite your product titles?
Reverse Engineering Google Shopping

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
The impact of bid changes

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
We raised bids by 200% and evaluated traffic
Diesel
(Designer)
Chi Chi London
Lace Midi Prom Dress
Birkenstock
Arizona Black
1,127
0.50 1.50
1,018 +11%
0.75
0.36
5,534
0.50 1.50
+2,613%
204
1,500
+650%
0.50 1.50
200
0.72
0.28
CPC 0.76
0.29
Impressions
Bids
These results do not seem
consistent at all. And now?

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
740
204
actual
increase
cannibalised
impressions
+363%
4,400
5,140
nominal
increase
baseline
0.72
0.28 0.30
Impressions increase on the product
… but cannibalise search query impressions of other products
Net impression increase (after cannibalisation) Explanation
Higher bids attracted
the generic query,
birkenstock, that
matched to other
products before.
A large part of traffic
increase was internal
cannibalisation.

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Impressions before / after
Increase all Diesel bids by 200%
Key insights
44.1
20.4
(32%)
bid = 1.50
64.5
bid = 0.50
11.2
10.3
designer terms
generic terms
Raising bids leads to
significant increase of
impressions for
designer terms.
However, the share
of generic terms
increased from 8% to
32%, thereby
affecting traffic
quality and ROI.
CPC
0.33
0.86
0.68
0.38
(k impressions)

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Increase all Chi Chi London bids by 200%
Key insights
0.6 0.7
bid = 0.50
5.4
2.1
1.3
bid = 1.50
0.4
4.3
designer only term
designer terms
generic terms
The designer-only
term, chi chi london, is
stable in impressions.
CPC for the same
queries increased by
+186%.
Spike in generic
queries affects traffic
quality and ROI.
CPC
0.22
0.85
0.09
0.40
0.63
0.25
(k impressions)

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Increase all adidas bids by 200%:
Key insights
bid = 1.50
19.8
15.0
0.7
1.2
bid = 0.50
4.7
adidas + category
designer + product name
Adidas products are
now eligible for a
massive number of
product specific
queries.
They account for
76% instead of 58%
of traffic.
CPC increases but
traffic quality as well!
CPC
0.36
(k impressions)
0.62

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Increase all Birkenstock bids by 200%
Key insights
3.9
bid = 1.50
2.1
33.0
bid = 0.50
22.3
21.0
1.9
8.5
26.8
pure designer
designer + product name
designer + category For the pure designer
term, birkenstock,
CPC increases from
0.30 to 0.91 for
almost the same
traffic.
The cluster
designer+category
(birkenstock sandals)
gets only a little bit
more traffic.
CPC
0.30
0.31
(k impressions)
0.35
0.91
0.81
0.67

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Search
High elasticity in a very small range
Shopping
Revenue
Budget
Revenue
Budget
bidding bidding

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Birkenstock
adidas
Different tipping points for different products
Tipping points might also vary for different queries
Shopping query elasticity CPC and impression change
Budget
Revenue
bidding
+147%
CPC
+23%
Imps
+1,475%
+139%
CPC
Imps

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Like in search, you get more traffic with higher bids.
Above a certain tipping point, raising bids leads to higher
CPCs without increasing traffic.
There is a minimum bid to be eligible for certain queries.
With higher bids, you can direct traffic to certain products.
This traffic will partly cannibalise traffic from other products.
In contrast to bidding on exact match keywords, conversion
rate tends to decrease with higher bids on products.
Conclusions of our elasticity tests

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Different intents,
but identical bid on product
Compare conversion rates
by specificity
Different intents disrupt bidding by product
2.5x
[designer +
product name]
[designer +
category]
1.4x
[category]
base CR
Typical differentials:
[nike +
mercurial]
[nike + shoes]
[shoes]
Examples:
£1.00
A
B
Nike Mercurial Superfly
Soccer Shoes

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Bid higher for the best performing queries
Segment your
shopping campaigns by
specificity of search
queries.
Use campaign priorities
and negatives to
allocate traffic.
Bid higher for your
best queries.
£2.50
£0.45
Designer
Queries
Generic
Queries
Segment traffic by designers vs generics
How to
game AdWords?
A
B
Nike Mercurial Superfly
Soccer Shoes

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Segmentation leads to much better results
We kept sales stable and decreased CPO by 27% in week 3
10.4
8.4
-27%
Week 2 Week 3
10.2
14.0
8.1
7.3
Week 1
control test
CPO (£) on campaigns split up by specificity Explanation
Segmentation allows
us to set bids beyond
product averages.
Queries with a high
conversion probability
get more exposure.
We save money on
low quality queries.

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Segment your Shopping Campaigns by specificity of search
queries to get much better results.
To identify the tipping point start with the highest bid you are
willing to afford and then decrease your bids gradually.
Constantly monitor CPCs and search query impressions to find
out where the cliff is.
Key take-aways

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
The influence of campaign priorities

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Best queries assigned to low priority
Does this affect performance?
Generics
Designers
Designer + Product Name
Negatives
Priorities
Campaigns
high
medium
low
Designer names
Product names
Product names
n/a

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Campaign priority itself has no impact
Priorities allow you to direct traffic to specific campaigns
Traffic per campaign setting Test method
We scheduled
campaigns to run
intermittently
throughout the day.
Only a single
campaign was
running.
We set different
priorities.
Medium
101.4%
Clicks
100%
Low
99.8%
High
100.0%

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
But Google takes liberties with priorities
When bid differentials are high, priorities do not take effect
red dress impressions maxi skirt impressions
966
276
594
0.31 0.17
0.67
CPC
1,046
3,776
860
0.24 0.19
0.82
partial traffic shift
Designer queries
LOW Priority
Generic queries
HIGH Priority

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Campaign priority itself does not impact traffic.
Priorites come only into play when running multiple
campaigns.
High bid differentials can disrupt your campaign priority
settings.
Google jumps over the priority if you bid so low that you are
not eligible any more for a given auction.
Conclusions of the priority tests

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
The impact of product descriptions

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Product and description
Wrong descriptions did not affect performance
Original:
Dress by TFNC made from
a sequinned fabric…
Improved:
Evening dress by TFNC made
from a sequinned fabric…
Destroyed:
This baseball cap has been
constructed in wool…
741
758
702
destroyed
improved
original
Impact on clicks

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
The impact of the Google product category

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Category changes
The product category seems to not matter
Original category:
> Shoes
Category destroyed:
> Clothing > Outerwear > Rain Gear > Rain Suits
There were no occurences of rain gear in the search queries
110%
destroyed
93%
original improved
100%
Category improved:
> Shoes > … > Athletic Shoes
Impact on clicks

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
The impact of product titles

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Title before:
Lipsy Lace Panel Body-Conscious Dress - Navy
Title after:
Party Dresses Navy Blue Lipsy Lace Panel Body-
Conscious
Include top performing queries in titles
Do search query impressions related to
party dresses increase?

@Andreas Reiffen
#SMX #14B
party dresses queries volume increase
The title rewrite had an immediate impact
Key insights
22,138
18,552
18,971
title changed
4,023
original
18,115
419
on other products
on product
Title modification
allows you to
direct traffic to
specific products.
Adding search
queries to titles
improves the
overall traffic.

@AndreasReiffen
#SMX #14B
Product titles play a major role and allow you to …
• influence which product will be shown for certain queries
• increase the traffic on relevant queries
• increase shopping revenue and ROI significantly
Conclusions of our product title tests
Make sure that top search queries
are included in multiple product titles!

@Andreas Reiffen
#SMX #14B

SMX London – Reverse Engineering Google Shopping

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