Zalando is a large online fashion retailer based in Europe that partners with Channel Intelligence to optimize its product data feeds for Google Shopping campaigns. Channel Intelligence helped Zalando align its data with Google's policies, resulting in a 158% increase in impressions for Zalando's largest product category and 14.4% revenue growth. Channel Intelligence works closely with Zalando to quickly implement feed optimizations, new product additions, and insights from testing to improve sales and lower costs. This partnership has helped Zalando deliver more relevant product recommendations to customers.

1. About Zalando
Zalando started as a convenient and simple
way to buy shoes online in 2008. Today, they
offer clothing, shoes, and accessories for
men, women and children. zLabels is their
private-label brand. Zalando operates in
15 countries from headquarters in Berlin.
To learn more, visit
www.corporate.zalando.com
Zalando at a Glance
Results
• Improved alignment with Google Shopping
policy on all data feeds
• 158% impression share increase for
largest product category
• 14.4% revenue growth from sales driven by
Google Shopping
Online fashion company Zalando proudly proclaims that they are “the clear,
pure-play online fashion leader in Europe.” Over 15 million active customers,
130+ million website visits per month, 150,000 product choices, and 1,500
brands make Zalando Europe’s leading online fashion platform.
“Customers are our absolute core focus, and clean, high-quality data is a
fundamental element in helping them find the products they’re looking for,” says
Lukas Sercu, Zalando search engine advertising (SEA) team manager and lead
of the Special Ads team. Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are
essential to the enormous success of the company’s customer-centric ecommerce
approach. Seeking a partner who could help take existing product-catalog data
and create additional opportunities, Zalando turned to Channel Intelligence (CI).
The online retailer takes a very hands-on marketing approach and manages
their own campaign budgeting and bidding for Google Shopping campaigns.
Zalando wanted Channel Intelligence’s help with their data-feed management.
“Zalando chose CI to help us apply feed optimisations in a quick and agile
manner, acting as an extension of our team,” Sercu explains.
“Zalando chose CI to help us apply feed optimisations in a quick and agile
manner, acting as an extension of our team.”
—Lukas Sercu, SEA team manager, Zalando
Speed, flexibility and collaboration
Zalando has an especially large and complex product feed. They have always
known that high-quality product data was key to improving the performance of
their Google Shopping campaigns and invested in excellent data and content
marketing.
“As a service provider, Channel Intelligence ensures that all agreed feed
topics—such as key categories and basic standardised feed optimisations—
are delivered with speed. They react to trends with flexibility and collaborate
as a partner to implement ideas quickly,” Sercu says. For example, this might
include harvesting brand and size for items specifically searched by shoppers, or
identifying new opportunities of additional search queries related to a particular
product. “CI helps us innovate and be a ‘first mover’ when it comes to product
data quality,” Sercu adds.
CI also introduced defined feed experiments as part of Zalando’s PLA strategy.
The experiments tested impact of large scale optimisations such as colour
normalisation and niche optimisations, e.g. seasonal products. The results
provide valuable insights into shoppers’ interactions and behaviour when using
the PLA format.
Zalando provides high-quality product choices
to European fashion shoppers through
Channel Intelligence
Case Study | Zalando

2. Channel Intelligence is a subsidiary of Google
© 2015. Channel Intelligence, Inc. All rights reserved. www.channelintelligence.com GSHOP_CI-CS-1501
Greater relevance for shoppers
Zalando began working with CI in October 2014. CI set up a technical and
account management team, created a new feed infrastructure, refined
Zalando’s Google Product Category with CI mapping technology, and enriched
product titles to make them more relevant to fashion shoppers. CI also took
considerable time before the launch to understand Zalando’s PLA strategy
and performance marketing goals in order to recommend customised feed
optimisations.
“The close, teamwork-like collaboration between feed and campaign
management is key to aligning with our PLA goals, which are to optimise sales
by showing relevant products with an attractive cost per order,” Sercu says. CI
devised quarterly and annual action plans for Zalando, including specific feed
optimisations and new-product (beta) implementations.
Higher impression share, lower disapproval rates
The Zalando-CI teamwork produced huge, measurable results. Zalando saw
a growth in products available at auction. “This rise can be attributed to an
effective combination of improved data behind the ads and our internal bidding
tools that picked up the increase in available PLA traffic volume. The result:
more shoppers see more relevant products they were looking for,” Sercu says.
CI’s actions have contributed to Zalando’s quarter-on-quarter revenue growth
from sales driven by Product Listing Ads by 14.4 percent, along with lower
downtime by continuously reducing the number of products being disapproved.
More insights, knowledge and plans
Zalando is extending their partnership with CI to other European markets. CI
uses the knowledge gained from current tests and experiments to help Zalando
improve data feeds in these markets.
The two partners meet regularly for data-quality workshops to exchange
insights, knowledge and plans. Together with the CI team,
the online fashion company will continue to study trends, data insights
and ensure that Zalando delivers the best results for its customers.
“CI helps us to innovate and be a ‘first mover’
when it comes to product-data quality.”
—Lukas Sercu, SEA team manager, Zalando
About Channel Intelligence
A subsidiary of Google, Channel Intelligence
(CI) helps companies sell more by bringing
retailers and consumers together through
optimised online experiences. CI’s Shopping
Engine Services increase return on ad spend.
To learn more, visit
www.channelintelligence.com