Times are tough for online retailers. After many luxuriated in bumper sales throughout 2021, competition has been fierce so far in 2022, and advertising costs are rising across the board. On top of that, efforts by the likes of Google, Apple and Facebook to protect individuals’ privacy have made it more difficult for e-commerce businesses to get their ads seen by the right audiences at the right time.

And so, retailers could be forgiven for wondering whether they should divert their paid media pound to alternative channels. 

Indeed, Airbnb famously slashed its marketing costs by more than half during the first part of the pandemic, and still managed to generate 95% of the same online traffic year-on-year. The majority of the reduction was in search marketing. So, should other businesses take Airbnb’s lead? As a rule, no: not unless their brand names have achieved the ubiquitous status of Airbnb – “a noun and a verb in pop culture”, according to co-founder Brian Chesky.

Google commands a large slice of the paid media pie, and will continue to do so while it isn’t restrained by a body like the Competition and Markets Authority. Because of that, retailers and their competitors will carry on advertising on Google’s search results pages, if they don’t want to lose their share. As a result, online brands should use all of the tools at their disposal to capture and grow their proportion of the market. Below, we detail some of the best ways to take advantage of the new features and solutions available to paid search marketers.

Google Performance Max campaigns

Late in 2021, Google made their new campaign available to all advertisers, after launching it in beta in October. In an uncharacteristically swift move by Google, it was announced that Performance Max (PMax) would replace their Smart Shopping campaigns entirely by the end of September 2022, with a one-click upgrade tool for advertisers to move to PMax from April.

This single campaign type is designed to simultaneously serve a broad range of objectives across Display, Search, Discover, YouTube, Gmail and Shopping Ads. And of course, Performance Max has automation and machine learning at its heart. 

Advertisers should start using Performance Max immediately. Not only does that mean they’ll be more prepared once Smart Shopping goes away for good, but they may also benefit from improved performance. At the Google Marketing Live conference that took place on May 24th 2022, Google shared that advertisers using PMax saw an average of “13% more incremental conversions”. In today’s climate, that’s an opportunity not to be passed up, particularly if you get on board before your competitors.

Many paid media specialists have been alarmed by the apparent lack of control across creating, optimising and measuring PMax campaigns. Google tried to address these grumbles surrounding the absence of data transparency at Google Marketing Live, by announcing the addition of Experiment tools and additional Insights features.

These measures won’t go far enough for many complainants, but the Google train doesn’t stop rolling. And so, if PMax is to become the main campaign type of the not-too-distant future, advertisers would be astute to embrace it – warts and all.

Google’s new customer acquisition goal

Previously only available in Smart Shopping campaigns, the new customer acquisition goal was added to Performance Max this spring, and is coming to other campaign types later in 2022. The goal gives advertisers the ability to bid higher in the ad auctions in which Google predicts this will lead to the acquisition of a customer who is new to the brand.

Should advertisers place a value on building their brand by introducing new customers, this feature is a no-brainer to test. Additionally, if a retailer wants to maintain their return on advertising spend (ROAS) and focus on new customers only, it may also be the right choice for them.

Google’s visual product feed

Another important Google Marketing Live announcement for retailers? Changes to visual search results for clothing on mobile. The feed will offer a more immersive experience, blending paid and organic listings.

Images (taken from advertisers’ merchant feeds and uploaded images) will be larger and swipeable, with the new ad formats available via Search and Performance Max campaigns. Shoppers will be able to filter these visual-first results by style, fit and brand.

Google said: “These will be clearly labeled as ads and will be eligible to appear in dedicated ad slots throughout the page. We’re also rolling out new ways to showcase multiple product images within Shopping ads in the U.S., along with information such as product descriptions, reviews, and product availability, with no further action required of advertisers.”

What happens at Google US is usually followed in the UK within a matter of months.

For retailers selling apparel, we recommend monitoring feedback on these changes in the US, so you can make the most of them when they arrive on European shores. 

First party data first policy

Until recently, prospecting and remarketing in paid media have relied on third party data to provide advertisers with the ability to discover their audiences and track and understand user behaviour, including measurement of those all-important conversions. Over the last couple of years, considerable challenges have surfaced in that area.

Firstly, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency directive has resulted in a large number of users of iOS 14.5 or later devices opting out of being tracked, while Google will block third party cookies from its Chrome browser from some time in 2023. These are good for individual privacy, but a blow to brands who must now put first party data use at the front of their ad strategy, if they don’t want to fall behind.

Two ways for advertisers to use first party data to plug (if only partially) that data gap within ad platforms is to integrate Facebook’s Conversions API and Google’s Enhanced Conversions. Both of these are available to all advertisers, and they work by sending web events directly to servers rather than browsers, therefore protecting customer data. In addition, Facebook has integrations that make setup easier for Shopify and WooCommerce, while Enhanced Conversions has connectors for multiple customer data platforms like HubSpot and Adobe.

The power of omnipresence

When we search the Internet for a product, we’re not generally conscious of the signals we consume in microseconds. However, these go on to inform our decisions on whether to click a link and they also influence judgements on the validity of an advertiser.

By seeing a brand’s adverts dominating the top of the search results page, we often begin to form a subconscious opinion that the company is a leader and their ubiquity is a positive signal – indicating any number of qualities from authority to trustworthiness.

That can make the mix of brand presence in text search and shopping ads subtly persuasive and powerful – particularly when combined with a top-of-page organic presence. Retailers should consider this when it comes to their ads strategy: less isn’t always more.

Optimising paid search solutions

So, while search marketing is no bed of roses for online retailers in 2022, they’re continually supplied with innovations. Here at Organic, we’re not advocates of the ‘wait and see how other advertisers fair’ approach. Instead, we recommend e-commerce businesses ringfence budget to test what’s new and available to them, because that kind of calculated risk can pay significant dividends when it comes to acquiring customers and revenue with efficiency.

If you’re an e-commerce brand and would like more information or advice regarding paid search and outshining your competition, get in touch – we’d love to help you on your digital journey.