Bye Bye PLAs. Hello Shopping Campaigns. Here’s What This Means to You…
Back in February, Google opened up Shopping Campaigns to all advertisers, thus setting in motion a calculated process of integration that would lead to this culminating inevitability: bye bye Product Listing Ads (PLAs), hello Shopping Campaigns.
By late August 2014, Google’s asking that all PLA advertisers upgrade to Shopping campaigns (see blog post). And for those last final holdouts – your campaigns will automatically upgrade. With just a few months before the switch, isn’t it time you started getting familiar with Shopping campaigns?
No one should be surprised by this switch. Soon after the Shopping Campaigns availability was launched, the AdWords API support was released. Bit by bit, Google’s been showing off how “cool” and more intensive Shopping Campaigns are for advertisers, thanks to features such as:
- Bid Simulator, which helps you estimate how bid changes impact your impressions, clicks and costs
- Multiple Ad Groups
- Increased Options to Create a Shopping Campaign, such as creating a campaign from scratch, or using an existing PLA campaign to create similar product targets, negative keywords and more
- Great Access to Competitors’ Data
- Browse Inventory within Adwords, and create product groups with attributes from your data feed
- Custom Labeling
Advertisers Love It, So It’s Here To Stay
According to Google, PLA advertisers can’t stop gushing over Shopping Campaigns, including how easy it is to set up, the transparency of data, and one of the most liked attributes: the ability to group products into logical categories and then manage the product level.
Of course all of these bells and whistles mean very little unless there’s some data to back it up. But it appears the numbers do walk the walk. Because of the access to data, and the ease of use, many clients are seeing an increase in ROI as well as a decrease in costs and spending. That’s because Shopping Campaigns are significantly reducing the amount of time spent on product-specific bidding and optimizing.
In fact, although Shopping campaigns were just rolled out in February, if you do sell products online, you should already be using these campaigns because of how effective they can be for your clicks and conversions.
And, in perfect Google fashion, the search engine monster has promised even more features and benefits in the near future, meaning your already improved campaigning experience is sure to get better in future months.
Managing Your Shopping Campaign Upgrades
Among the many added features and benefits rolling out before the August deadline, Google will help make it “easier” for retailers to upgrade to Shopping Campaigns. Still, there certainly is plenty of room for error during this transition, which is why OperationROI has created a Shopping Upgrades Team who focus on helping retailers make the switch in time for Google’s August deadline. Our upgrade specialists won’t just make sure your PLA to Shopping switch is error-free, but that it’s also designed and created in a manner that increases your ROI today, and tomorrow. Contact us today at 1-888-277-5429, or fill out our contact form, to learn more about how we can help you make the most out of your Shopping campaigns.
