Google began testing Shopping campaigns with a limited set of advertisers last year with the aim of streamlining the often cumbersome task of Product Listing Ad management. Today, after just over a 3-month beta period, Google is rolling out Shopping campaigns to all users globally.
Google Shopping campaigns give users access to inventory and product feed information directly in AdWords. Based on feedback during the beta period, Google has added the ability to bulk edit product groups at scale. API support and a bid simulator will be coming soon.
Rich Brown, Head of PPC at Farfetch, said in the announcement, “The transition was very easy. We quickly created product groups for the top 25 brands and a ‘top sellers’ strategy and saw a 6% reduction in CPC and a 13% increase in conversion rate. The combined benefit of these two improvements alone has meant our CPA has reduced by 20% since we launched Shopping campaigns.”
It’s important to note that with this change, advertisers will need to approach their PLA campaigns differently. As Search Engine Land columnist Rick Backus wrote earlier this month, the new campaign type “fundamentally changes campaign management for Product Listing Ads”. He offers several points of guidance for advertisers moving to Shopping campaigns and ways to avoid making key mistakes in Shopping campaigns.
Product Manager for Bidding Strategies within Google Shopping, Santiago Andrigo, will be discussing the new Shopping campaigns at SMX West.
A quick update to clarify: Advertisers can run both traditional PLA campaigns and new Shopping campaigns simultaneously. Additionally, Shopping campaigns have a new “campaign priority” setting for advertisers can designate which campaigns they’d like to receive serving priority.
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