Kenshoo has released some impressive key performance metrics for Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs), based on 270 million+ global impressions and clicks aggregated from merchants managing PLAs through Kenshoo.
The results versus text search are pretty impressive:
- Click-through rate (CTR) was 73% higher.
- Conversion rate (CVR) was 35% higher.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS) was 46% higher.
- Average cost-per-click (CPC) was 36% lower.
Those figures were for a one-month period following the release of Kenshoo’s PLA functionality. Kenshoo of course claims even more staggering figures for those retailers who used its custom PLA bid policies, of 89% improvement in ROAS, and 31% lower CPC, and an additional 34% conversion rate.
Google transitioned Google Product Search into Google Shopping in July this year, when it dropped its free service and began requiring merchants to pay for PLAs. Ranking in Google Shopping is based on a combination of relevance and bid price. Google Shopping moved to an all paid model in the US in mid-October, meaning only merchants who use PLAs will be present in the search results
Will this mean "Death To Paid Search?" MediaPost News asked in September. In that article, Adlucent CTO Michael Griffin claimed that some brands had doubled conversion rates for less than the price of paid-search ads; the photography site Adorama (supported by Adlucent) saw revenue from PLAs grow 63% in Q2 2012.
