What are your advertisers bidding on?

While Amazon and Walmart enable advertisers to bid on keywords and other ecommerce sites enable bidding on products (offering to set different bids for each product in the campaign) we thought it would be interesting to know which bidding option works best.

Here are some stats aggregated from several big ecommerce sites that are using our white label Sponsored Product Ads platform and offering the 2 bidding options.

In fact there are 4 bidding options that we will be comparing:

  • Manual bidding on keywords
  • Manual bidding on products
  • Automatic bidding (targeting the desired ACOS) with automatic KW selection.
  • Automatic bidding (targeting the desired ACOS) with manual KW selection.

So which bidding option works best for the advertisers and the store?

Let’s find out.

 

CTR

The average CTR of the manual bidding on KW campaigns is 30% higher than the CTR of the manual bidding on products campaigns.

However in the automatic bidding campaigns (where the advertiser selects the desired ACOS and the bidding is done automatically) with manual keyword selection the CTR is even 2X higher!

 

Conversion rate

The conversions rate of the keyword bidding campaigns is 12% higher than the rate of the Product bidding campaigns.

When we add the automatic bidding campaigns (with manual keyword selection) we find that these campaigns get even better conversion rate (40% higher than the manual bidding on products).

 

 

ROAS and ACOS

The Return on Ad Spent of the keyword bidding campaigns is ~60% higher than the ROAS of the Product bidding campaigns.

 

CPC

The average CPC in the Keyword bidding campaigns is ~10% higher than the CPC in the Product bidding campaigns.

So generally we see that bidding on Keywords works better for the advertisers but also for the store as it generates more clicks.

Still in some cases the advertisers will prefer to do product bidding campaigns and set a higher or lower bids for certain products in the campaign (based on their margins, availability etc.).

 

All options are on the table

So if you need to select only one bidding option for your ecommerce site you should definitely go for the keyword bidding.

But if you want to make all your advertisers happy and engaged there is no reason to limit them to one bidding option. Let them decide what they bid on and if they want to do it manually or automatic.

If you want to know more – info@mabaya.com.

 

About Mabaya

Mabaya offers a white-label self-service Sponsored Products Ads platform for online retailers and marketplaces that enables sellers and brands to bid in order to ensure their products are listed in premium locations in the online store.