Though you probably don’t want to admit it, it’s getting to that time of year again. Black Friday 2019 - 29th November - is nearly upon us and that means only one thing; blind panic.
By now, you should be embracing all the joys of Smart Shopping; time saved through automation, better results through improved optimisation. But can it cope with the huge demand experienced on the year’s biggest shopping days? Will Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the lead up to Christmas kill your Smart Shopping campaigns?
Thankfully, the answer to those questions are yes and no, respectively. Having said that, if you’re to make the most of Black Friday 2019 you’re going to need to do a little prep. So, whether you’re flogging trees or hoping trainers run off your shelves, here’s 7 tips to get your Smart Shopping campaign ready for the festive season.
7 Smart Shopping Tips for Black Friday
1. Avoid Segmentation
Volume is everything for the Smart Shopping algorithm. If you don’t have enough data for it, it won’t learn, so don’t make your campaigns too granular. Ideally, let everything run through one campaign, but you can split out if you have the volume. Google suggests that this is possible if spend through one area is over £1,000.
2. Push Up Your Budget Carefully
A large budget change sends the algorithm back into its learning period, so don’t do it. If you start now, you’ll be able to incrementally increase your budgets week by week in the build up to the peak period. Do this no more than 20% at a time. This approach allows the algorithm to learn with increased volumes of spend going through the campaign
3. Uncap Your Budgets
If you have the budget freedom to uncap your budgets, do it. It will give your campaign the best opportunity to run at full capacity without anything holding it back. We recommend doing this as early as possible to give the algorithm the time to learn before crunchtime on the 29th November.
4. Lower Your ROAS Targets
Don’t squeeze these too tight. Set a ROAS slightly lower that what your target actually is (600% target, set it at 500%). If you set this too high, you won’t get the volume and the algorithm won’t learn. As we said, volume is essential
5. Turn Off The Noise
The Smart Shopping algorithm prioritizes over your current normal shopping and dynamic prospecting and remarketing campaigns – so turn them off, let it do its thing.
6. Optimise That Feed
Feed optimisation is key – an optimised feed is a happy feed. Remember all content for your Smart Shopping campaign comes from the shopping feed, so make sure your product titles and descriptions are as relevant as possible to the keywords you want to appear for. All imagery should be clearly illustrative of your products
7. Get Your Promotions in Early
Don’t forget to get your promotions into Google early. Everyone running shopping activity will be submitting their promotions into Google to get them approved and ready for Black Friday. This usually causes a backlog in the build up to the weekend. Submit your promotions as early as possible to avoid yours getting stuck in the queue.
A Final Word
If you only take three points into consideration, then let them be volume, time and feed optimisation. Allow the volume through your campaign, give it time to learn and provide it with a well-optimised feed to work from and you’ll be laughing when the shoppers come bustling through your doors on November 29th.
Of course, there’s plenty of time to get ready for Black Friday right now, but that’ll soon change. If these aren’t changes you’re happy to make yourself, just get in touch and we’ll do our best to help. Click here to get started >>>
