Google RLSA for Shopping Ads
As we approach the holiday shopping season, Google has introduced a new targeting enhancement to optimize Search and Shopping campaigns.
Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) is a feature we wrote about back in September when the Shopping program was still in beta.
Now, Shopping remarketing lists can be applied in AdWords accounts globally. All retailers can customize their Search and Shopping ad campaigns for people who have previously visited their site, and tailor their bids and ads to these visitors when they’re searching on Google.
Remarketing lists located in Google Analytics are now available in the Shopping campaigns so retailers can target and / or bid on users from those specific lists.
The Impact of RLSA for Shopping Ads
RLSAs allow greater targeting control & bid adjustments based on URL or tag rules created within the Google remarketing tag.
Most likely, marketers are probably familiar with these audience lists from their remarketing campaigns or from some of their text ad campaigns that they were already leveraging RLSAs for. Now, this feature is available for Google Shopping as well.
“RLSAs for Shopping being open to all advertisers is great if you are already familiar with what RLSAs can do and how powerful they can be when you want to target previous site visitors such as Cart Abandoner’s, Previous Buyers, or even specific Product/Categories viewers on your website”, Jason Bell Senior Account Analyst at CPC Strategy said.
“If you aren’t familiar, this would be a great time to start experimenting with these and get the Remarketing pixels up so you are primed and ready for the meat of Q4 in November & December.”
RLSAs allows to retailers to “bid only” & “bid and target” shoppers.
Bid Only: This feature allows retailers to add lists or categories to set bids (but still shows ads when other targeting methods match)
Example: If retailers add a bid only for cart abandoners, they still might want to be able to see traffic for new viewers, people who’ve previously visited the site, product viewers, and certain category page viewers. The power of bid only is it allows retailers to adjust bids up or down based on the users of that list.
Bid & Target: Show ads only to people associated with these lists or categories (with the option to bid on them)
Example: If you wanted to create another campaign or an ad group just for cart abandoners you would use a “bid & target” so that you are only focusing and getting data on users who have actually cart abandoned.
RLSA for Shopping Ads Strategy
With RLSA retailers can bid on keywords that they don’t normally bid on just for people who have recently visited their site, or have converted on their site in the past. This can help retailers increase sales.
For example, a retailer could bid on more generic keywords only for people who have previously purchased from their site.
Retailers can also optimize bids for their existing keywords for visitors on your remarketing lists.
For example, you can increase your bid by 25% for those who previously viewed their website in the last 30 days. Or, they could show a different ad to site visitors who have placed items in a shopping cart but have not purchased them.
“Being able to target 1-3 day Cart Abandoners more aggressively than say 15-30 day could be a very important tactic to employ during this Holiday Season especially if you want to continue to entice users to come back and purchase from you during the busy Black Friday weekend,” Bell said.
“Outside of the Holiday season RLSAs still provide a huge benefit to throttle up or down your bids on specific users. If you sell perfumes, for example, you may know on average it takes a user 60 days before they need another bottle. Would you like to be more aggressive with your high converting Google Shopping traffic on these users?”
“This is just one of the many use case scenarios where RLSAs can benefit you. Even just collecting data on these types of users without making active bid adjustments can be enlightening and help you learn more about your customers.”
For more on RLSA for Search and Shopping, email [email protected]
Additional RLSA Resources:
Remarketing Lists for Search Ads Available in Google Shopping