Get ready to rock the holidays with instant conversion data in DoubleClick Search
October 14th, 2013 | Published in Google DoubleClick
Keeping up with your retail search campaigns is no easy task. On top of monitoring sales, profits, inventory levels, and the competition, you also want to seize every opportunity during short-lived periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
At DoubleClick Search, we've been focused on delivering the speed you need to maximize performance during the holiday season. So, today we wanted to shine a light on our investments in instant conversion data and the benefits it delivers.
Meredith Spitz, Sr. Analyst with Starcom, tells us why fresh and accurate campaign metrics are important:
“Knowing how we’re performing throughout the day has allowed us to take advantage of more opportunities, instead of relying on stale data. We’ve been able to hit our goals more accurately because of instant conversion data.”
Immediate insights, 32% conversion lift in volatile search landscapes with near real-time data
Real-time data can power performance in two key ways. First, as real-time data flows into DoubleClick Search reports, your talented search team has the information they need to make campaign optimizations on the fly, and drive performance. Up-to-the-minute insights make the difference between success and failure, while also saving time.
And when it comes to automated bid optimization, DoubleClick Search uses the same real-time data to update bids frequently - up to four times per day - using fresher data to more closely track to your goals.
At iProspect, they’re already seeing the benefits of faster bid optimization, as shared by Account Supervisor Jessica Dearien,
“We’ve been able to test DoubleClick Search bid optimization with real-time data and we’ve already seen fantastic results. That’s even more critical moving into the high-volume shopping days of the holiday season.”
The below graphic illustrates how updating bids four times a day helps track closer to a $5 CPA goal than updating bids only once per day. Please note the $5 CPA is for example purposes only - your goal CPA will vary based on the characteristics of your business.
Our team conducted an internal study to understand just how helpful, in aggregate, changing bids more often could be. We found that in volatile search landscapes, 4x daily bid changes improved conversion volume an average of 32% over 1x daily bid changes, while also keeping CPA slightly lower for a given CPA goal.*
*(Google internal study data)
In addition to bidding more frequently, DoubleClick Search’s bid optimization technology keeps your campaigns in top shape with capabilities like:
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Near-real-time trend detection: We use both past and current data to predict future trends. Our bid optimization takes into account seasonality, holiday periods, and sudden spikes in demand due to offline events like weather, accounting for fluctuations in traffic around external events.
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Performance-based spend allocation: DoubleClick Search intelligently allocates budgets dynamically to various keywords, based on their performance. It considers the opportunity cost of each keyword and allocates spend accordingly.
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Portfolio bidding for low-volume keywords: These keywords are often overlooked by manual or simple bid optimization methods, as they provide little or no data to use. However, ignoring long-tail terms can add up across the board—leaving opportunity on the table. DoubleClick Search groups similar keywords together and bids on them as a whole.
To get the most out of your search campaigns this holiday season, rely on instant conversions from DoubleClick Search for the real-time insights and optimizations that will help your team succeed. For more information, check out our instant conversions video and bid optimization white paper.