Mercent, a company that manages search advertising for retailers, helped several of its clients test Product Ads on the Yahoo Bing Network during the beta launch. Product Ads automatically pull product images, descriptions, and prices directly from retailers' catalogs to display on search results pages. Data from the first quarter of 2014 showed that Mercent customers experienced lower cost-per-click, higher conversion rates, and nearly double the return on ad spend compared to regular text ads on the Yahoo Bing Network when using Product Ads.

1. When Product Ads were introduced on the Yahoo Bing Network, many of the search advertisers under Mercent’s
management were involved in the beta test. By creating and delivering millions of customized ads, Mercent’s
proprietary technology helps brand-name retailers such as the Home Shopping Network and GUESS? reach online
shoppers through both paid search and display advertising campaigns.
Product Ads
case study
Easily create richer ads- directly
from your product catalogs
Product Ads include an image, description, and price of a product on the
top and right sides of the search engine results page, where they gain
maximum attention. Retailers don’t need to write copy or create keywords,
because Product Ads automatically pull content from their existing
product catalogs.
Lower cost-per-click,
higher conversion
Based on data from the first quarter of 2014, Mercent customers using
Product Ads enjoyed lower costs per click, higher conversions, and a better
overall return on investment versus non-trademarked text ads on the
Yahoo Bing Network:
COST PER CLICK (CPC)
29% lower
COST PER ORDER (CPO)
52% lower
RETURN ON AD SPEND (ROAS)
98% higher
CONVERSION RATE (CR)
49% higher
“With Product Ads,
our customers
experienced Return
on Ad Spend that was
almost double what
they received for non-
trademark text ads.
Product Ads proved
to be a more efficient
way to advertise: the
cost-per-click is lower
and the conversion
rate is higher.”
Anthony Guarino
Director of Shopping
Partnerships, Mercent
Microsoft partnered with Mercent to compare Product Ads to text ads on the Yahoo Bing Network, [4 advertisers involved in the study], Q1 2014.

2. Tips for optimizing performance
Mercent shared insight into their strategy for getting better results
with Product Ads:
• Structure campaigns carefully and accurately. Because Product Ads are built
dynamically from product catalog data, ensure that this data is up-to-date and
that campaigns use logical combinations of brands, categories, price bands, and
other criteria. “We recommend starting broad and gradually building out layers of
hierarchy, ensuring that granular product targets—narrowly defined subsets of your
catalog—have substantially higher bids than broader groupings to direct traffic to
more specific targets,” Guarino says.
• Focus on data quantity as well as quality. “It goes without saying that product
data needs to be accurate; you need to know that you have a certain model of blue
women’s running shoes in stock before you feature them,” Guarino says. But it’s
also important to list more product attributes than less, to help Bing discover your
products. If someone is searching for a men’s lightweight trail-running shoe in size 6,
you want all those attributes in your Product Ad data feed. You should also update
your product feeds at least daily to ensure that prices and inventory status are
up-to-date. If pricing or offer data is incorrect, customers will have a bad shopping
experience, which erodes brand trust.
• Align product ad strategy with overall retail objectives. Retailers should use
margin data to inform their campaign structure and bid strategy: keep in mind the
brands, categories and individual products that yield high margin and give them
additional weight. They can designate product targets based on margin contribution
to steer the program toward overall profitability. Additionally, ensure that Product Ad
messaging is consistent with other marketing messages. A tool like Mercent Retail can
schedule and automate ad copy changes to reflect your promotion calendars.
LEARN MORE: bingads.com/productads
CONNECT WITH US TODAY:
Product Ads are
continually evolving,
and we expect
customer returns to
only grow stronger.
Product Ads give
retailers an exciting
new way to surface
their products in
a noisy marketing
environment.
Anthony Guarino
Director of Shopping
Partnerships, Mercent
Product Ads
case study
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