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Google shopping VS Smart shopping Campaigns
Hey!
My company hired a new agency about a year ago to run our google campaigns. They recommended changing from google shopping to smart shopping, something we did. But the new smart shopping is performing worse than my old shopping campaign, and i really want to change back.
Do you guys have any experience with comparing the old shopping campaigns with new smart shopping? The agency insists that smart shopping is the way to go, and that it is the future.
What are your thoughts?
edit: Some data for january 2019 (old) and january 2020(smart)
Smart shopping: CPC: 0,29$, Conversion value 51k$, cost 6,3k$, Conversions: 300, CR: 1,23%
Old shopping: CPC 0,238$, Conversion Value 70k$, cost 9k$, Conversions: 541, CR: 1,42%They are using the same feed, which i streamlined for google shopping (old)
Our presentation share is down from 63% to 33%
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5 Replies
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Google Smart Shopping usually works but the catalog needs to be optimized.
Also, you have to provide some numbers in order to get a better answer eg cpc, conversion value/cost etc
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Well, there are a lot of opinions on this one!
I for one dislike the smart campaigns as they strip all possibilities of controlling your campaign. However, they usually perform really well if you customize your feed for it!
An agency see this as a golden opportunity to leave the dirty work of optimizing their ads to Google and freeing some resources!If possible you could ask them to run a catch all smart shopping campaign along with a normal shopping campaign that allows you at least some control!
Hope it helps a bit!
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Your ROAS is pretty similar between the two campaigns but you drove a lot more revenue with the old one. That indicates the older campaign was performing better. But, and it’s a big but, market conditions may have changed substantially in one year so it’s really hard to have a fair comparison.
In our experience, Smart Shopping works for higher volume stores, i.e. a lot of conversions per SKU, and when you have a fully optimized feed. It has a way to go yet for lower volume conversion stores.
I would consider pausing SS for a few months and see what you can achieve with the original shopping campaign. If performance isn’t any better, or worse, go back to SS.
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Competition may have changed since 2019 and you should take a look at that.
You could take a look at the old shopping campaign and enable the groups that were better performing, just for a test drive. Also you need to adjust for seasonality [if any].
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Lets the data speak for itself. Smart shopping does well and it can outperform what humans do. However, it usually includes remarketing and brand terms and if those are not in your old shopping campaign… won’t be fair comparison. Smart shopping may be the future but it does not mean it’s right for your brand. Your agency may want you to do it because then they don’t have to manage anything and can collect their fee each month.
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