Our third speaker, Kirk Williams, shared some words of wisdom on online shopping ads. Do you do ecommerce? Yeah, then you need to know what Kirk has to say. Setting a bid max and letting it ride isn’t going to work out.
- “Things are going, whether we like it or not, toward paid search in ecommerce.”
- “Don’t stop doing SEO. Don’t be too obsesed with SEO that you’ll start missing some things.”
- Paid search is growing massively. “Shopping ads more and more are going to be taking over in … ecommerce SERPs.”
- Who likes photos? Everybody. “People like shopping ads. They like clicking on them.” The key with images is to stand out. Do you have the same stock image as every other company? Think of a way make it look different.
- Google has increased impressions for shopping in all kinds of places, like image search. And now even on YouTube! Kirk said apparently YouTube has “a few visitors every day.” We’ll take his word for it.
- People can skip retailer landing pages and buy straight from Google.
- But what about generic terms, like dresses? Still squishy. “They’re still trying to figure out ways to make generic queries better.”
- “Ecommerce is going more and more in SERPs to shopping. Mastery is increasingly important.”
- The biggest problem with shopping ads: bidding. Normally you’re bidding on a word. “In shopping, you’re setting a bid by product. There’s no communication there.” Solution: query bidding.
- What happens if you have too many SKUs? “I agree, but just because it takes a lot of work, does that mean it shouldn’t be done?”
- Transition slowly. Don’t just turn everything off and start over.
- Try doing the non-brand and the brand in two campaigns.
- Bid higher on just those converting terms.
- “Figure out what works for you.”
- What is the deal with photo requirements? A white background is required. No logos. No text.
Other things we learned:
- Kirk loves Doctor Who and has excellent taste in shoes.
- You can read all the links from Kirk’s presentation here.
Connect with Kirk
