The Science of Optimization for Shopping Campaigns

The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping Table of contents

Introduction to data feeds 3 for Shopping Campaigns

Shopping feed parameters 12 and best practices

Optimize that feed 24

FAQ 31

The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping TheThe Science Science of of Data Data Feed Feed Optimization Optimization forfor ShoppingShopping 2 Introduction to data feeds for Shopping Campaigns

3 The Science ofof DataData Feed Feed Optimization Optimization for for Shopping Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 4 This is what product ads look like Product Ads surface the top information consumers are looking for while “showrooming,” putting the shopper closer to an online purchase. Data feeds, shopping feeds and the advertisers who love them

Product ads on Bing or are managed via your Shopping Campaign. Your product ads are created from a data feed that consists of both static and custom values. We call this your shopping feed.

For your customers, product ads stand out because they include an image – and images are processed in the brain 60,000x faster than text ads. This makes product ads very successful for advertisers.

has

retail searchers not 50 Million reached on Google Source: comScore qSearch (custom), US, March 2016 advertise.bingads..com/en-us/audience

5 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 6 Elements of the product ad:

Product Image

Product Title Product Price Advertiser/Store Name

The product ad format is all derived from a shopping feed. Without a feed you will not be able to serve any ads.

7 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 8 This is what a shopping feed Data from the shopping feed looks like becomes your product ad

Product ads are still a Shopping feed tips CPC-based auction The best way to view a shopping feed is in excel – delimited.

Each column represents a parameter.

Each row represents the attribute that makes a feed.

There are two possible formats for the file:.txt and .. The most commonly used format is .txt.

9 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 10 Shopping feed parameters and best practices

The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 12 Creating a Shopping Feed: Required Fields

Item SKU Item SKUMen’s jacketMen’s jacketBrooks Brooks $89.99 $89.99Blue suedeBlue suede men’s jacketmen’s jacket

Item SKU ItemMen’s SKU jacket Men’sBrooks www.store.com/jacket293jacket www.store.com/jacket293Brooks $89.99 $89.99Blue suedewww.store.com/jacket_image.gif Bluewww.store.com/jacket_image.gif suede men’s jacket men’s jacket

Cheat sheet for requiredwww.store.com/jacket293www.store.com/jacket293 fields www.store.com/jacket_image.gifwww.store.com/jacket_image.gif ID Image Link Unique identifier for an item (50 character limit) HTTP of HTTPs URL of an image of the item also known as MPID (merchant product ID) Brand Title Item’s manufacturer, brand, or publisher Title of the item (150 character limit) Price Description Price from the of your offer must Item description (10,000 character limit) be the same price as indicated in the feed Link Direct URL of the item’s landing page

13 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 14 Best practices for required fields

Title Links Other than the image, the title is one of the first parts of the Must link directly to the landing page for the product. ad a customer sees. Products will be disapproved if they have inaccurate links. Show the customer the most important information in the title to improve CTR. Try to put the most important Often a lag time after a URL change of any kind. information within the first 35 characters since the add cuts off. The backend system must recrawl the links.

Title length often constrains advertiser from showing Image relevant terms (color, brand, gender, size, etc.). Apparel often performs best with images of the item on a Description model. Crawled by search engines to determine whether or not it is Other products (i.e. a laptop) perform better with a shown for given search query. standalone image of the product.

Include important information about the product, especially Like links, often a lag time when switching the image URL will if not included in the title. require a recrawl of the image links.

Description optimizations are often tedious due to the amount of content in them.

15 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 16

Creating a Shopping Feed: Recommended Fields

Software>ComputerSoftware>Computerinstock 20.99instock 201620.99-‐7-‐01T08:152016-‐ -‐7-‐01T08:15-‐ New New 05:00/2016-‐8-‐01T05:00/2016-‐8-‐01T 09:30-‐05:00 09:30-‐05:00 m.contoso.com/product.aspm.contoso.com/product.asp Best Sellers, HighBest Sellers, High XYZ123 XYZ123 ROAS, Spring ROAS, Spring

Software | ComputerSoftware Software | Computer Software http://www.contoso.com/shoes/http://www.contoso.com/shoes/

17 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 18 Cheat sheet for Condition Condition of the item recommended fields BingAds Redirect Category Redirect URL that overrides the URL given in the Predefined product category/taxonomy (Bing and Google “link” attribute share the same taxonomy) Item Group ID Product Type Used to group items that may vary by color, material, Advertiser’s own internal category/taxonomy pattern, or size Mobile Link Mobile landing page URL Best practices for Availability recommended fields Availability of item Sale Price Product Type Item’s sale price Product type must be separated with a “>”.

Up to advertiser to decide what makes most sense based on Sale Price Effective Date account structure. Item’s sale price start and end date Adding product type will allow more filtering for an accounts Custom Label 0-4 structure. Typically, the more granular your product types go Use to identify products for ad campaign filters the better off you are.

19 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 20 Continued... BestRedirects practices for Link field that must redirect to the landing page listed as Custom Labels recommendedthe product URL. fields These labels give you the ability to target attributes You can use this field to add tracking parameters to important to you, but not specified within the Bing UI. monitor performance across different platforms. Product Categories Common uses: high margin products, sale items, seasonality. Use the Redirect field to properly track the landing page beforeAlso separated the links get by rejected. “>” For anything under 1000 unique values, custom labels are great. For anything over 1000 unique values, append to Used by Bing to determine path to search queries product type. associated with products Product Categories The more specific, the better (i.e. Vehicles & Parts > Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Motor Vehicle Parts Also separated by “>”. > Motor Vehicle Engine Parts, is better than just Vehicles & Parts). Allows the advertiser to match at a Used by Bing to determine path to search queries associated more specific targeting category with products. Work with the advertiser when adding categories. The more specific, the better (i.e. Vehicles & Parts > Vehicle Often times the advertiser has a better idea of what Parts & Accessories > Motor Vehicle Parts > Motor Vehicle Engine Parts, is better than just Vehicles & Parts). items or group of items match better to the category

Allows the advertiser to match at a more specific targeting category.

21 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping TheThe Science Science of of Data Data Feed Feed Optimization Optimization forfor ShoppingShopping 2222 Optimize that feed

Accuracy of the Data

Check for:

Duplicate IDs

Incorrect Pricing

Inaccurate format ($, URL)

The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 24 Product Images Title Image size: minimum size 220px by 220px. Make sure your Product Titles are as robust as possible, include: Have a “Pop” effect, use a white background. • Brand + Product Name + Product Type + Gender + Size + Color (if applicable). No promotional text in the images.

Men’s down jacket size medium

Keyword searches trigger your ad based on the words in the title

Description Make sure the descriptions match up with the landing page descriptions. For example – the women’s shoes product details and benefits should be included in the description.

25 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 26 Image Optimization Product Type/Category We only accept .bmp, gif, exif, jpg, and png extensions Match the product type that best fits Bing’s taxonomy. for images. Remember the only delimiter that can be used for product Images should not have any watermarks. type and category is “>”.

Image link is case-sensitive. Changing the casing in the URL Product Category is limited to 255 characters. will cause a recrawl. Product Type is limited to 750 characters.

An example of how the product category and product type are best used: Electronics > Audio > Headphones.

Custom Labels 0 - 4 Add Custom labels 0 - 4 as a best practice. Custom Labels will allow the advertiser to group items by whatever they see fit for their business goals.

27 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 28

Bing Merchant Center Mobile Under Catalog Summary - Here you can download the most Mobile Bid modifiers: up to date uploaded feed along with the published report and rejections report. • Start investing on Mobile • Use the device type modifier under your BSC campaign settings to adjust your mobile percent bid. • BSC is fully serving on mobile.

Download Feed link - will download the advertiser’s uploaded feed via FTP, HTTP, and manual upload *can not download the full feed if API uploaded. • Most cases the feed is in .txt or csv, open in notepad and copy and paste to excel.

Download Report link - this link is next to the published items, which will download a report of all the items that are eligible to serve.

Download Summary | Download Details links - these links next to rejected > Download Summary will provide a report summary (aggregated) of how many items are rejected due to a error or editorial flag. Download Details report will give you a report by line item ID detailing the rejection reason.

29 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 30 Q: What should I be testing within the feeds on a regular basis? A: The only testing we recommend are on the title, description, and image, but we don’t encourage it unless there is a clear business need.

When performing these tests it will trigger a recrawl of the feed which can take up to 48 hours to crawl.

For example an advertiser can test their title by switching around top search queries for their products to the first 35 characters. FAQ Images can be tested by switching out images with different angles or backdrops.

Q: What tactics could we deploy to help drive more efficient CPCs? A: Add the highly recommended attributes such as Category, Product Type, and Custom Labels 0 – 4.

These attributes will allow you to create custom targets with specific bids – allowing the advertiser to break out and target more granularly.

31 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 32 Q: What are the main differences Q: Do I have time to manage Shopping between Google’s feed and Bing Campaigns on both platforms? Shopping Campaign Feed? A: Google Shopping Campaigns are easily imported into A: Bing will accept Google’s feed at 1:1 level your Bing Ads account. Once they are set up, Bing Shopping Campaigns are easy and efficient to manage All of Google’s required fields and most of their as the structure and capabilities are consistent across recommended fields transfer over to Bing when the ad platforms. importing feeds.

A difference - GTIN (Global Trade Item Numbers) is now required in Google’s feed. We currently don’t require the Q: How do I track conversions for my GTIN – but are exploring new features where it may be product ads? required. A: You track product ad conversions the same way you track text ad conversions, by using Bing Ad’s Universal Event Tracking, or your Third Party tracking solution. Q: How should I go about making bulk changes to the feed efficiently? (i.e. - if all the titles need updates, do I have to Q: What are the requirements for manually do that myself or is there a tip or trick I running Shopping Campaigns? could use to do it more efficiently?) A: Retailer / e-commerce store A: Making bulk changes to the feed can be tricky but for those who do not have a feed provider tool – we Claim domain in Bing Webmaster tools recommend using excel and using a combination of find Create a store in Bing Merchant Center & replace functions along with “if then” statements. Upload a to Bing Merchant Center Create a Shopping Campaign in Bing Ads UI

33 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 34 Content contributors Stay in touch

MJ DePalma Bing Ads : SEM Pro Channel Manager http://aka.ms/bingadsblog Bing Ads, Microsoft @mjdepalma Help page: http://aka.ms/startbingshopping

Cady Condyles Sr. Product Marketing Manager #AskBingAds Microsoft Use this on Twitter with your @cadycondyles questions - we answers monthly

Dan Croop #BingAdsWebinar | @mjdepalma | @ecouch11 | @rparkdatafeed Sr. Shopping & Feed Manager Elite SEM

Richard Park Program Manager Bing Ads, Microsoft @rparkdatafeed

35 The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping The Science of Data Feed Optimization for Shopping 36 The Art of Advertiser Science series from Bing Ads brings you deep insights, creative methodologies, and powerful tools that you can put to use right away.

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Bing37 The Network. Science of Data Be Feed there. Optimization for Shopping