Going into the Holidays it’s important to reassess your bidding strategy on the comparison shopping engines, also known as the CSEs. In an earlier post we discussed the important concept of Breakeven CPC and how to calculate it. Review the change in conversion rate and average order size that happened from mid November to mid December in 2007 and use that as a baseline to project what the increases in conversion rates will be this year. Sales may be softer… but your conversion rate and AOV will still increase dramatically month over month.
This means you’ll need to adjust your minimum product listing bids or product category bids. Some of the specialty shopping channels raise their rates by 25% percent during the holidays and this also affects the minimum bid levels in most cases. So even if just to understand the impact of the CPC rate increases you need to estimate your Holiday 2008 breakeven CPCs.
Note: If your product level bids are below the category minimum bid or minimum ratecard CPC then your ads may not show… or they will default to the increased Holiday minimums. Read the shopping channel holiday rate card postings carefully.
Generally adjusting bids CSEs are a tactic in pursuit of common marketing goals
CSEs with product level bidding in their data feed
CSEs wth category level bidding
Note:Â these bids are placed in the UI not in the data fee.
Comments? Let me know your thoughts below. We’d all benefit by a good discussion.