Onefeed PLA Campaigns using the API

There were a number of issues we identified in the New Google Shopping Campaigns recently. It is now being offered as an extra campaign feature for the majority of our clients. I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight what we can do and why working with Onefeed is the best solution to managing the Google PLAs as opposed to using the Google Shopping Campaigns. Here are 10 reasons why Onefeed is the system to use for this:

1. Total API connectivity and Automation.

One of the major frustrations with the Google Shopping Campaigns is the inability to automate a lot of what was going on. All bid changes are required to be done directly through the AdWords interface. Furthermore adding new products at a product level has to be continually broken out as new products invariably get added daily. Essentially, having an account broken down at a product level is a continual exercise that is required to be done daily. For larger accounts, this is next to impossible. The Onefeed platform connects entirely through the API, all PLA campaigns are updated automatically without the need for new products to be added manually. The API allows for total automation with the Onefeed platform the driving force for bid changes and optimisation. The new Shopping campaigns have no API access whatsoever so you are totally reliant on using the Google interface for everything. Good luck trying to change bids on 300 products in different categories

2. 100% Accurate click stats

As mentioned above if you are wanting to report on click costs for the Shopping campaigns you’re going to struggle, if like us, you like to have 1 interface to manage all your online activity then using the Shopping campaigns and another tool is going to rely on guesswork to understand what is going on. Nobody likes to guess what is going on and it will inevitably lead to discrepancies and errors in optimisation. We take all the clicks stats, impression data etc directly through the API so we can report exactly at a product level what each product is doing, with no errors.

3. Product Level Reporting

Another flaw with Shopping Campaigns is the lack of any search facility or even an ordering option (one that works at a product level). As we can download the API stats directly from Google we can then feed everything into our own reporting grids, so you can order / search / find and filter on everything. If you want to know what has spent the most money then just order the cost column and you’re sorted. This may seem pretty trivial, but this isn’t something you can do easily in Google and for merchants with large data feeds it’s a nightmare to even look at the product level click stats. As with everything we do, all click data is at the product level with no approximations.

4. Product Level Graphs

Leading on from the point above another very useful feature of the new Onefeed platform is the facility to see a graph of what is going on. With the facility to map 3 different values on the same chart you can now see a direct correlation between changes you make to the feed and impact on clicks and sales. A real world example would be changing the bid on a product; you can see when that bid change was made and the impact on clicks and sales. This kind of reporting is vital in spotting the sweet spots for your bids, whereby you are maximising the sales without spending too much. We also record the pricing of all your products daily as well as all the other stats for comparison. By plotting them daily it gives you a much better feel for what the market is doing.

5. Set bids at the product level

As has been mentioned above, using the Google API directly for our bid changes means that you can change your CPCs directly through the Onefeed interface which is then fed directly to Google. All changes can be done through the same interface. With the highly polished level of reporting at your disposal, you can make sweeping bid changes to a number of items speeding up the time it takes to optimise things. With the PLAs it’s vital to set individual CPC bids at the product level to adjust your positioning and telling Google which products you wish to give priority to.

6. Auto-optimisation

Onefeed also has an auto-optimisation tool. The real impact of the optimiser is reducing spend on items that are not converting well or are spending too much. Our tools identify, at the product level, which items are going beyond pre-set rules and then removes them. This really makes a big difference when you have a large feed and can’t always keep on top of every product.

7. Competitor Price Analysis

One of our newest features in the Onefeed interface is the facility to monitor your competitor’s prices. We scrape the pricing data from Google and give this information back to you in the reporting. So now you can see first-hand whether you are competitive for your products before you bid them up. Within the reporting, we’ll show you the cheapest competitor price as well as the difference in your pricing.

8. Measurable Impression Stats and CTR

Due to using the API and creating product level adgroups in AdWords, we can now pull back impression and CTR stats at the product level. This info is really useful to see how effective your products are.

9. Product Title A/B testing

Leading on from the point above we can now offer the facility to add a different product title to your feed and directly compare the results between each title. This is great for understanding what keywords are being picked up and generating orders.

10. New products added automatically

Whenever a new product gets added to your feed we’ll automatically create an adgroup for the item in your PLA campaign. There’s no need for our customers to get involved at all in creating anything once the setup process has been completed. All our clients need to concentrate on is optimising the bids and we take care of the rest.