As Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) approach, businesses are preparing for one of the most significant shopping events of the year. In the previous parts of our ten-part series, we've explored the tools required for pricing success, the importance of getting your market position stable and correct before heading into BFCM, how to improve Google Shopping visibility, and the metrics guiding your competitor-led pricing decisions. Now, in Part 5, we're about to dive into an approach that uses your competitor price position to optimise your Google Ads Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) during BFCM. With Adwisely reporting a 2x-5x spike in CPA during this promotion period, anything you can do to make your money work harder will mitigate against the spike, and ensure you come out on top, and spend where it will make the greatest benefit to your business.
Assigning Competitor Market Position Tags
To enhance your advertising efficiency and make the most of your advertising budget during BFCM, we recommend assigning competitor market position tags to your products. These tags help categorise your products based on their competitiveness in the market. The three primary tags we suggest are:
- 'Below Market': Products where your prices are lower or cheaper than the market average (benchmark) price.
- 'At Market': Products where your prices are in alignment with the market average.
- 'Above Market': Products with pricing that's not competitive in the market.
Integrating BlackCurve with your Google Merchant Account
One of the most effective ways to assign these market position tags is to integrate BlackCurve directly with your Google Merchant Account. This integration streamlines the process and ensures that your tags are automatically applied in real-time to a custom label of your choice. BlackCurve continuously monitors your competitor product pricing and instantly updates the market position tags as needed. If a competitor changes a price, its tag changes accordingly.
Alternatively, BlackCurve can generate a live Google Sheet that reflects the current pricing and market position of your products. This sheet can then also be linked to your Google Merchant Account and updated in real-time. This method is typically adopted by digital marketers, who are using multiple data points to determine a bidding strategy, and/or where all the custom labels (Google only gives you 5 for some reason!) are taken up by other systems.
Your Performance Max campaigns should then be configured to make automated bidding adjustments based on these custom labels. Products tagged as "At Market" or "Below Market" can have more aggressive bidding strategies, while "Above Marked" tagged products can be bid on more conservatively or not at all as it will take considerably more spend to get the number one position and the conversion.
Expected Results
The integration of BlackCurve's market position tags with your Google Ads strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) can yield significant improvements in your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and overall advertising performance. Based on BlackCurve Insights 2022, here's what you can expect:
- Improved CPA: By using market position tags to optimise your advertising campaigns, you can potentially achieve substantial improvements in your CPA. BlackCurve's data suggests that CPA improvements of up to 50% are attainable. This means you can acquire customers more cost-effectively, making each advertising dollar work harder for you.
- Increased Click-Through Rates: By focusing your advertising spend on products tagged as "At Market" or "Below Market" which are more likely to resonate with your target audience, you can expect higher click-through rates. These products are competitively priced and align with customer expectations.
- Enhanced Budget Efficiency: Precise tagging and automation of bidding adjustments ensure that your advertising budget is allocated where it has the most impact. You won't waste resources on products with pricing misalignment, leading to better budget efficiency.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the integration of BlackCurve's market position tags with Google Ads can lead to significant improvements in CPA and various aspects of your advertising performance during BFCM. By making your advertising spend more precise and strategic, you can enhance your competitiveness and achieve better results during this critical shopping period.