Setting Initial Shopping Campaign Bids
When setting up Shopping campaign serving parameters, bidding is the central issue. We will usually manage Shopping campaigns with manual bidding at the product group level for the first week. Manual bidding at launch is the best way to force Shopping campaigns to develop serving momentum quickly, so enough data can be accumulated to nurse the campaigns onto automated bidding.
The manual bidding period provides a baseline to optimize against going forward. It also provides confirmation that we are bidding up to the benchmark Shopping bid level.
Using Serving Schedules After Launch
When setting up serving schedules, our preference is usually to allow the campaigns to initially run 24x7x365. Many campaigns perform well at surprising times, including days of the week and hours of the day you might not expect.
Adjusting Schedules for B2B eCommerce Markets
In some B2B eCommerce markets, we will run campaigns on weekdays only and perhaps not overnight. There are time zone spans to consider, especially in the U.S., where East Coast campaigns may need to stay on late enough to show up for West Coast end-of-day business traffic.
Serving Parameters and Campaign Management
Serving parameters help guide the early launch phase of Shopping campaigns. By reviewing bids, product group activity, schedules, time zones, and early serving momentum, campaign settings can be adjusted before moving more fully into automated bidding and ongoing PPC campaign management.
