Back in September 2020, Google made the controversial move to limit search term reporting, removing reports on 24% of search terms. This had a large financial impact on advertisers, preventing them from optimising their PPC campaigns and leaving them in the dark when it came to insights on search queries.
The changes Google made in September 2020 here.
After receiving a lot of feedback from the community who were largely upset by the change, Google has decided to provide more data to advertisers, albeit for a short while…
What has Google changed?
Google has given an estimated 6.5x more search data on average from both Search and Dynamic Search Ads campaigns. This is an attempt to provide advertisers with more data after the changes made in September 2020.
Any historical search data prior to September 1st 2020 that doesn’t comply with Google’s current privacy thresholds will be available in search query reports until February 1st 2022. This should help advertisers gain some valuable data for their campaigns to improve effectiveness.
Google also plans to share more data with advertisers on the Insight page, in an effort to help users see how they were found by shoppers on search.
What does this mean for retailers?
Although this update isn’t a total reversal of the change made in September 2020, this is a welcome update for advertisers who can now use this data to better optimise their campaigns, helping retailers get reports on more data than before.
With the additional search term data, advertisers have the opportunity to pinpoint what about their campaigns is failing to attract the right audience. It also gives the chance to work on negative keyword lists to improve overall campaign efficiency.
Why data is crucial to optimising your Google Shopping campaigns
Giving advertisers the ability to retrieve data populated from September 2020 will help users identify relevant keyword themes, allowing them to optimise ads to a higher extent. While this isn’t a return to data transparency, it is still a welcome improvement for advertisers and will help in keyword research.
How Bidnamic are dealing with the situation?
Here at Bidnamic, our technology platform uses a unique purchase intent engine. This allows us to predict search terms and then maximise revenue on the most valuable and relevant search queries for each of our clients.
We also set bids for individual SKUs on a granular level, allowing you to bid the perfect price for search queries.
Following Google's changes to withhold data from advertisers, machine learning is increasingly becoming a vital tool in competing with other retailers.
For clients joining us in the near future, we can make use of all historic data until February 2022, which means we can inform campaigns with current, recent and historical search data.
If you’re interested in the service we offer, book a free consultation with one of our Google Shopping specialists today, and take a look at our FAQs and news page for more updates from Google.
