Showcase Ads – Our Thoughts So Far

Adam Kilby runs through some key statistics we’ve come across since this release.

Key Statistics

Over the past 15 months, and with a very limited range of products, we have driven approximately £80k in revenue for one of our clients, at an ROAS of 10.46, with CPCs of £0.15.

Google is continuing to increase the number of SERPs that present Showcase Ads, so the volumes of ads should increase. Google expect volumes to rise over Q4, which links to them starting to roll-out Showcase for desktop. Originally, it was just across mobile and tablet.

How To Set Up Showcase Ads The Simple Way

The simplest way is to create a showcase campaign in the new AdWords Interface. AdWords will then guide you through how to complete this process.

However, the quickest way that we have found is to download your account into AdWords Editor, then copy your existing shopping campaign. Once that’s done you can change the copied campaign name to something showcase-related, and change the ad group type from default/shopping to showcase.

Delete the Shopping Ads and reset any product group bids to default. Then, you just need to create the showcase ads while having your existing shopping structure and audiences intact.

To create a showcase ad you will need an image that has the dimensions of 1080 × 566px. Once you have a relevant image, you just need to fill in the following:

• Name
• Headline (optional)
• Description (optional)
• Display URL
• Final URL

It is worth noting that due to Showcase being a CPE based model, all bidding is set at ad group level instead of product group level, like shopping campaigns.

So you may want to use custom labels to select only your best-selling products, so these are shown as a priority over other products within your shopping feed.

What Are The Benefits of Showcase Ads?

The main benefit of showcase ads, apart from the strong performance that’s initially been seen, is that they will make sure you are visible on upper funnel terms.

They give you a way to control your bid for these terms without having to alter your existing shopping structure. This gives you the opportunity to quickly change your paid strategy depending on whether you want to be aggressive, or more conservative.

Showcase ads also allow you to highlight particular products to users who are very early in the conversion journey, in an effort to try and entice them into buying (very much appealing to the impulse buyers).

If you want to find out how our Paid Search Management experts can help to maximise your ROAS and apply industry-leading knowledge to your paid search strategies, get in touch today.

Alternatively, you can check out our free download for more Paid Search information.