Wouldn’t it be nice to know what your competitors were doing this quarter? Well, we’ll let you in on a little secret. Your competitors have been determining what plays they will use to generate more sales and exposure in Q4. If these plays are executed well, it’s your competitors that will be generating all the buzz for the holiday season – not you.
Fortunately, it’s not too late to develop a strategy of your own for Q4. Here are some of the things that your competition will be doing, and you should be, too.
Improved Brand Reputation
You get about 3-8 product ads and 3-6 paid ads on Google Shopping, which is a good chunk of the page. Still, getting visibility can be a challenge. What you need to do is highlight your brand, store and product features to generate more click-throughs, impressions and sales. To help in this department is a variety of Google programs, such as Google Special Offers, Google Seller Ratings and Google Product Ratings.
Revisit Feed Optimization
Although data feed changes are tedious and time-consuming, they can have a huge impact on conversions and click-through rates. Make it a priority to sit down and revisit feed optimization for your AdWords campaign. Enrich all product information, including Product Title, Product Description, Recommended Columns and Custom Label Column. Also make sure you are aware of the Shopping Campaign updates made by Google.
Utilize Big Data
When running Google Shopping campaigns, the best way to learn about your campaign is through Google Shopping Campaigns tools. Useful tools include Bid Simulator, Impression Share and Max Cost Per Click. Create an ad schedule for Google Shopping Campaigns using 4-hour blocks of time. Also run AdWords Performance reports for PPC, including Ad Performance, Campaign Performance and Search Query Performance. Be sure to look at performance across the board: individual campaigns, ads and the campaign as a whole.
Implement Mobile
Mobile is part of a smart Google strategy. Even though the conversion rate on mobile traffic has been historically low, mobile is the fastest growing segment of e-commerce. Start tracking geographic performance when you switch to Google Shopping Campaigns and decide which regions to target based on your site, audience and performance goals. If your site is not mobile optimized, start with a bid of -25 to -50 for mobile traffic.
The holidays are just around the corner. Will you be ready?
