White Paper:
Google Shopping
& Adwords
Google Shopping & AdWords
– The 10 Most Important Players –
Authors:
Marcus Tober, Daniel Furch, Jan Grundmann
Abstract
This paper will dive into two advertising formats in Google search results: AdWords and Google Shopping (Product Listing Ads).
Our goal is to answer the following questions:
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of both formats? • What’s the market share of both ad formats in Google SERPs? • Who are the top players in Google Shopping (PLA)?
• Who are the top players in AdWords?
AdWords, primarily text-based, have been around for years and are one of the most important sources of revenue for Google. Product Listing Ads, on the other hand, have only started to expand since the beginning of 2013
.
AdWords
• Primarily text-based, AdWords ads are placed above and to the side of organic search results, and are Google’s largest source of revenue. • Any website owner can purchase AdWords ads on a pay-per-click
model via the “Google Display Network” once they’ve registered for a Google account for their domain.
• AdWords campaigns are defined via keywords.
Shopping / Product Listing Ads
• PLAs are photo-based ads displayed in results for product searches, and they include the product name, price, product photos and a link to the reseller in question.
• Google shopping has been based on a paid model in the USA since mid-2012. Resellers have to pay for clicks on their Product Listing Ads, or PLAs, in search results.The ads are not ordered based on price and are displayed above and to the right of the search results.
• In place of keywords, PLA campaigns are targeted on the basis of product groups, which advertisers can set. Google itself determines the
reseller ad that will be displayed for specific keywords.
In place of keywords, PLA campaigns are
targeted on the basis of product groups
1. What’s the difference between AdWords & PLA?
PLAs and AdWords above the search results
PLAs and AdWords alongside the search results
$
$ $ AdWords PLA PLA AdWordsThe cost and results from PLAs vs. AdWords ads vary. Studies on desktop results1 show that PLAs are more expensive but yield better results than
AdWords:
CTR
In the second quarter of 2014, the average click-through rate for PLAs was 5.91%, whereas AdWords ads had a CTR of 4.91%.
Price
These differences are also reflected in the prices: the average advertising
costs for a PLA click was $1.63 and the CPC for a text ad for product-rela-ted searches was $1.07.
1http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2361311/product-listing-ads-an-evaluation
LEARNINGS: PLA vs. AdWords
• PLAs cost more than AdWords but they have a higher CTR. • AdWord campaigns are based on keywords. Shopping/PLA
campaigns are based on product groups.
2. PLA vs. AdWords – What delivers more money?
This year’s Searchmetrics 2015 study on Universal Search also includes an analysis of PLAs and AdWords integrations.
The Most Important Findings of PLAs and AdWords:
• Since their launch, PLAs have grown rapidly, both in respect to the ab-solute number of integrations as well as the number of keywords with PLA integrations.
• On top of the rise in the number of absolute PLA integrations, the share of SERPs displaying PLAs has more than doubled in the course of 2014 from 7.5% to 16% of all search results.
• In the case of AdWords, the numbers have stayed constant: at the end of 2014, 63% of all search results included at least one AdWords ad, a fairly constant share of the search results over the entire year.
• Google served PLAs in significantly fewer search results in June
and July 2014 than in the rest of the year. This trend is the same for AdWords. This Summer slump is even more apparent considering the relative growth of integrations, which includes the overall number of PLA and AdWords integrations.
LEARNINGS: Market Share of AdWords vs. PLAs
• PLAs have increased markedly (+118% in 2014 alone)• AdWords have a higher SERP market coverage: 63% of all SERPS had an AdWords integration at the end of 2014. 16% of all
searches had a PLA integration.
3. The spread of AdWords & PLAs
Universal Search Integrations 2015
Share of keywords with at least one integration of PLA or AdWords.
Relative growth of the total number of PLA and AdWords integrations.
63% of all search results included at least
one AdWords ad; 16% had PLA integration.
Product Listing Ads have had a meteoric rise since their beginning. The sharp increase in PLA integrations is obvious already in 2013, again refer-ring to the overall number of individual Product Listing Ads that Google displayed in shopping-related search queries.
The upward trend for PLA integrations is clear to see in the second half of 2013. And from February 2014 onwards, the integrations reached a high point, which, after a summer slump in June, July and again at the begin-ning of September, stabilized at the original level at the end of 2014.
4. PLAs: Overview
4.1 Top 10 Websites in PLA Visibility 2014
We determined PLA Visibility on a weekly basis in 2014 and then assemb-led the data. The following top 10 is based on this data. This PLA Visibility data shows you the companies whose ads were most visible in the Goog-le Shopping box in the SERPs.
Rank Advertiser PLA Visibility (cumulated)
1 ebay.com 7591817 2 walmart.com 6198399 3 rakuten.com 2289424 4 macys.com 1486746 5 etsy.com 1267870 6 bhphotovideo.com 864901 7 swansonvitamins.com 437159 8 bizrate.com 433958 9 vitacost.com 322339 10 soap.com 262688
DID YOU KNOW
Advertising networks and tracking sites are not observed in this list, whereas they reached several positions in front. The most important ones are Google’s own DART Search & Channel Intelligence network, followed by Adlucent, Mercle, Mercent, Netmining and Marin Software.
Ebay.com and walmart.com are the
domains with the highest PLA Visibility
5. AdWords: Overview
In the PPC research section of the Searchmetrics Suite we provide data on the Visibility of AdWords ads in search results. Using this data as a basis, we determined the monthly data and assembled it. Then, we extracted the sites with the highest PPC Visibility throughout the year.
The curve for PPC, or AdWords, is very similar to PLA. After a slow start in January, the Visibility reaches a high point in February. On this plateau, the Visibility remains throughout the whole year – despite the Summer slump in July and August.
Cumulated PPC Visibility of the Top 20 sites throughout 2014
5.1 Top 10 Websites in PPC Visibility 2014
The following table shows the 10 websites with the highest PPC Visibility throughout the year 2014. PPC is Searchmetrics term for the AdWords slots in the search result pages; so these domains were the most visible ones in AdWords ads on Google SERPs.
Rank Advertiser PPC Visibility (cumulated)
1 amazon.com 9381597 2 wow.com 6577132 3 ask.com 6366023 4 webcrawler.com 3013297 5 about.com 1769772 6 local.com 1482599 7 target.com 1430896 8 booking.com 1400133 9 zappos.com 1387534 10 bestbuy.com 1289807
Amazon.com, wow.com and ask.com are
the domains with the highest PPC Visibility
DID YOU KNOW
Google uses AdWords itself: Many PPC ads are from Google. com and they advertise their own products and apps for cor-responding search terms.
Google Shopping / PLAs
• CTRs for PLAs?
PLAs are advertisement integrations in Google organic search results. There are usually four advertisement slots available when PLAs are shown in search results. The content of the ads are a photo of the pro-duct, the name, a link to the shop and the price.
• Market share of PLAs?
Google displays at least one PLA integration in 16% of all search queries.
• Development of PLAs to date?
Product Listing Ads have grown rapidly since their launch. Their intro-duction is probably linked to competition with Amazon. Google itself cites Amazon as its largest competitor in the web search space2. PLAs
let Google better monetize specific product search queries.
• Biggest PLA players?
Ebay.com and walmart.com had the highest PLA visibility in the USA for 2014. Rakuten.com, macys.com and etsy.com follow at some dis-tance. In addition, numerous online marketing networks were found in the analyzed domains.
• PLA pricing?
Investment in PLAs can pay off for advertisers, because the market is still relatively cheap at the moment, mainly due to the higher CTR com-pared with AdWords ads. The relatively inexpensive market for PLAs could change, especially if Amazon enters the market. In the latter case, the prices will likely rise. Currently, however, Amazon is almost exclusively engaged with AdWords.
2
http://searchengineland.com/googles-eric-schmidts-berlin-speech-biggest-search-competitor-ama-AdWords
• CTR for AdWords?
Compared to PLAs, AdWords are having slightly lower CTRs. On search engine result pages, AdWords ads are placed above and to the side of organic search results. AdWords appear as text-based or image-based ads.
• Market share of AdWords?
Google displays at least one AdWords ad in the search results in 63% of all keyword searches studied.
• Development of AdWords to date?
AdWords ads are one of Google’s most important income sources. About 16.1 billion dollars of its 18.1 billion total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2014 came from online advertising. Google derived the ma-jority of the revenue (12.4 billion dollars) from its own sites.
• Biggest AdWords Players?
Searchmetrics determined the domains that had the highest visibility in the AdWords sections in Google SERPS: amazon.com, wow.com and ask.com ranked in the top three positions in 2014 annual analysis.
• AdWords pricing?
The CPC for a text ad for product-related searches is less expen- sive than the average PLA pricing. In general, the pricing is a dynamic keyword-based model.
6. Conclusions PLA & AdWords
Subject t
o change without prior notice. Published June 2015
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