be seen.
Google’s Shopping Campaigns
for Apparel Retailers:
A Tailored Approach to Increasing ROI
Toward the end of 2014, Google completed the transition to Shopping campaigns, a new, more granular way of
managing Product Listing Ads (PLAs). By now, it’s likely that you’ve brushed up on Shopping campaigns, added
your products to the programme and are now wondering what’s next.
Apparel retailers face challenges that other retailers don’t. For instance, apparel shoppers often browse for
products by specific size, colour, pattern or style. This makes pushing products to the forefront especially
challenging, since you need to understand shoppers’ queries at a granular level. And the Shopping campaigns’
pay-for-play model adds a layer of complexity, requiring additional product details to make the apparel shopping experience rich
and intuitive.
To help you navigate the nuances of listing your merchandise on Google, we’ve compiled the below tips especially
for apparel retailers.
1
Make Sure Your Keywords Are in Your Product Data and Descriptions
Think of your inventory feed as ad copy. What’s in your titles and descriptions will drive placement on Google.
3 If you’re taking the brand approach to product groups, it’s especially important to include category information in
your product titles. For example, a watch retailer with 25 product groups by brand will want to include the word
“watch” in all individual product titles.
3 Mine your customer keyword queries and make sure that those keywords are in your product data. You can do
this by looking at search terms data on your keywords in AdWords, perusing your on-site search logs and thinking
about synonyms (e.g., if “bathing suit” is your term, try “swimsuit” and “bikini”).
3 Be sure to note any seasonal patterns in queries, and add these keywords to product descriptions at the
appropriate time of year (e.g., “green” or “red” for Christmas Day-appropriate apparel).
2
Conduct a Data-Quality Check
The quality of your data can make or break your success on Google Shopping — especially if your quality is poor
and your products aren’t listing due to errors. Google tends to set the data-requirement bar higher for apparel
retailers. We’ve found that meeting the recommendations instead of just the minimum requirements can make a
difference. For example:
3 Are your images correctly sized and unique?
• Required image size is 250 x 250 pixels for apparel retailers, but the recommended size is 800 x 800, and
retailers must submit an image for each colour, material or pattern variant of a product.
• PLAs are largely image-based ads. If other sellers also supply your product, consider differentiating your ad
from the pack by forgoing stock images and providing your own, high-quality ones.
3 Product category, colour, size, gender, brand and age group are required for apparel items. Retailers must also
submit pattern and material data for product variations when available.
• It’s not required, but Google recommends using the Sale Price attribute when your products are on sale, instead
of changing your prices in the regular Price attribute.
• Do you have the correct size values?
Make sure sizes are consistent across your data feed.
Consider how shoppers search (e.g., Use the word “Large” instead of an “L”).
• Are your custom colours searchable?
People are usually not searching for a “mustard” or a “plum” coloured sweater. Make sure your custom
colours are expanded to include the colour family (e.g., “mustard yellow” and “plum purple”).
3
Experiment with Product Group Structure
As a refresher, product groups (formerly known as product targets) are products that you can bid on at once. For
example, if you want to run a sale on only one of the brands you sell, you could do so by sorting them into a product
group. Google allows you to group products based on a variety of product attributes, with brand and category
being the most commonly used, but we strongly encourage apparel retailers to think outside the box and test other
approaches, including the new Custom Labels.
3 If you’re a reseller of multiple brands, consider creating product groups by brand. This can be especially effective
for well-known brands that shoppers are likely to include in queries.
3 Small shops with a handful of unique, best-selling products may want to consider grouping products by SKU.
3 If you’re a brand, consider product groups by category (e.g., a women’s clothing seller could segment by “skirt,”
“dress,” “trousers,” etc.) or a combination of brand and category.
3 To help reduce the time and effort it takes you to set up product groups in Shopping campaigns, we’ve
developed the Product Group Generator. This tool automates the segmentation process, saving you hours of
work and letting you easily experiment with different campaign structures.
4
Keep Your New Releases and Seasonal Attire in Sync
You want to make sure that you’re adequately promoting popular seasonal items, as well as your newest releases.
To get started, consider creating separate product groups for these types of products so that you have more control
of their visibility and bidding. In the past, some retailers have avoided this step because it could mean hours of
additional work. But instead of spending your valuable time manually developing the structure of each of these new
groups, let the Product Group Generator do the work for you. In addition to quickly building campaign structure, this
tool automatically syncs all your products included in your feed, even the new ones, with the rest of the campaign’s
structure.
5
Implement a Product Group and Bidding Strategy
When getting started with Shopping campaigns, you may have set one cent bids for all your products. Now it’s time
to revisit your data to bid up competitive product groups.
3 Create a separate product group for your best-performing products or brands, and then bid those up from the
rest of your products to increase their visibility.
3 Group products with similar margins or similar marketing goals and bid those up together.
3 ChannelAdvisor’s Automated Bid Manager will adjust product group bids based on performance and overall
goals.
6
Review Your Performance at the Product Level
One of the quickest ways to make changes to your Shopping campaigns is by using ChannelAdvisor’s Actionable
Reporting to quickly review which of your products are doing well or not doing well. Actionable Reporting allows
you to drill down to see which products are driving performance within each product group and quickly make any
necessary adjustments. This means that you can easily check performance, even down to the individual SKU level,
for insight into online traffic, revenue, costs and orders. You can then determine which products are driving large
volumes of queries and clicks, yet not converting, and assign those items to a lower-bid product group if necessary.
7
Don’t Neglect the Promotional Text
Google Merchant Promotions allow you to include promotion codes, applicable dates and custom promotion titles in
your PLAs at no additional cost. This messaging is an easy way to stand out from your competitors and own the “last
touchpoint” with customers. In the past, a customer may have seen your ad, then performed an additional search for
a coupon code — and may have become distracted along the way.
8
Implement Google’s Tools
With the rollout of Shopping campaigns, Google introduced a few tools that can help you track performance
and gain a competitive edge. Use these tools as a general guide, as they compare similar product types but not
necessarily the exact same SKUs.
3 Impression Share: The Impression Share feature allows you to see the percentage of impressions you received
out of the total impressions you would be eligible to receive. This data can show you areas where you have the
potential to spend more budget.
3 Benchmark Max CPC (Cost Per Click): This tool provides insight into how much other advertisers are bidding on
products similar to those in your product group. You can use this information to help determine how competitive
your bids are with certain product types.
3 Benchmark CTR (Click-Through Rate): With Benchmark CTR, you’ll see how your click-through rate compares
with that of other competitors with similar product types. Think of this tool as a warning light: If your CTR is low, you
may need to increase your bids or clean up your data feed.
Next Steps
For more tips and insights on how you can improve the visibility of your apparel products using Google’s Shopping campaigns,
contact us at [email protected] or 1300 887 239. And for the latest e-commerce news and tips delivered straight to
your inbox, subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter, ECOMmunicator.
Copyright 2015 ChannelAdvisor Corporation. All rights reserved.
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