Google Responsive Display Ads – How they really work. 4 Format Remarketing. This is part one of Conversion Path’s Remarketing Demystified Series. Summary – It’s not about responsive sizes or magical native ads. Google has figured out that a variety of low-quality creatives drives click-through better than a few high-quality creatives. In the Summer of 2018 google simplified display advertising with “smart” and “responsive” display campaign types. Google made this new format mandatory. It became the only way to make dynamic remarketing campaigns within the interface. Gone were the template ads of the past. The new format is to upload a couple of logos, a nice promotional image, and some value proposition text. Those simple elements tied to the output of an ecommerce merchant feed will magically create all the ads you need. The result does not look great to everyone, but in practice, they are pretty successful. Google’s internal testing…

The Pros and Cons of Google Manufacturer Center Google launched the Google Manufacturer Center in 2015 to enable manufacturers to provide Google with product data.  Google claims there are three incentives for manufacturers to consider doing this. Improve upon product data that is submitted by retailers using Google Merchant Center Obtain analytics about your products online selling performance Potentially increase click volume to manufacturer listings Google Manufacturer Center is not the same as Google Merchant Center.  Google Merchant Center is where your retailers (and you if you sell direct and advertise) upload product data with the purpose of enabling advertising using through Google AdWords.  But there is substantial overlap in the data that is provided to both Google Manufacturer Center and Google Merchant Center. Google mentions the benefits to manufacturers of this tool in the thinly detailed description offered here https://adwords.googleblog.com/2015/07/introducing-manufacturer-center-tool-to.html.  They have produced a more substantial 30-slide PDF that we’re happy…

Google Smart Shopping Campaigns – Good or Bad for You? On May 4, 2018 Google announced a new Shopping campaign type called “Goal Optimized Campaigns” rebranded from “Universal Shopping Campaigns”. Recently, for the third time in three months, these campaign types were rebranded again to “Smart Shopping Campaigns”. We discuss what they are, what they claim to do, and why you should think twice before implementing them. What Are Universal / Google Goal Optimized / Smart Shopping Campaigns? Google’s Smart Shopping campaigns are fully automated campaigns have been in development for months now as Google’s “Universal Shopping” campaign beta, but now will be making their way into AdWords Next accounts over the next few weeks. The release of Google’s Smart Shopping Campaigns (SSCs) marks another step towards Google’s focus on automation and machine-learning. SSCs effectively merge Google Shopping campaigns with Google Responsive Remarketing ads, opening up the reach of your Google Shopping ads to…

Why We Don’t Love Automated Bidding Summary Automated Bidding is popular, especially for larger ecommerce firms with extensive products to advertise.  It promises the benefits of reduced labor requirements, and more rapid bid adjustments in response to changes in ad performance.  But at Conversion Path we aren’t bullish on Automated Bid Management (ABM). ABM only automates one facet of the many that drive success The byproduct of ABM is that it reduces the amount of evaluation as to the reasons for performance changes that is needed to identify and drive further action to improve sales Detail To properly optimize an ad account requires an analyst to look at performance changes, evaluate and understand “why” performance changed, and then execute the next steps to improve profitable sales performance.  Sometimes adjusting bids is THE best next step, sometimes it is ONE of several best next steps, and other times it is unnecessary. …