How Upp Uses AI to Drive Google Shopping and Performance Max

Though Google Shopping is essential and valuable to the ecommerce world, online retailers miss out on visibility and the generation of critical data insights. Online retailers have long since recognised the need to employ third parties to fill these critical gaps, whether they be tools, agencies, or a combination of both. But these solutions are being called into question again thanks to the concern surrounding the upcoming rollout of Performance Max.

 Performance Max is the next level of automation for Google. It builds on:

• Google Shopping Standard, which offers complete control to SKU level but is time-consuming and challenging to manage
• Google Smart Shopping, which uses automation but at the cost of fewer insights and less control

Performance Max is set to replace Smart Shopping, while Google Standard Shopping will remain available for users that want manual control. Theoretically, Performance Max will simply improve on the capabilities provided by Smart Shopping. With that said, the confusion and unease surrounding Performance Max are valid for a number of reasons, including:

• Perceived loss of control brought about by its mandatory rollout
• Some third-party vendors pressuring online retailers to commit to them as an alternative rather than take up Performance Max
• Agencies telling customers to stick to Standard Shopping rather than moving to what will eventually become Performance Max.

Upp cuts through this noise for online retailers. An AI-driven platform, Upp provides optimisation and growth by working at greater efficiency than agencies and operating at a level above any other platform on the market. Let’s take a look at how Upp utilises AI and Machine Learning specifically to optimise Google Shopping, from Performance Max to beyond.

Upp uses AI to take Google Shopping to the next level

Upp helps you outperform your competitors in a saturated marketplace by giving you complete visibility over your campaign data. Our AI enables you to understand your performance and your Google Shopping campaigns and get the most out of your spending. Ultimately, better data and smarter decisions are what guarantee an increase in your revenue growth.

It is the perfect sidekick to your Google Shopping campaign work. While manual teams can deliver some great benefits, we know the approach falls short when it’s not partnered with a platform like Upp. 

Upp doesn’t just fill the gaps in your manual efforts; it brings about a fundamental transformation in the effectiveness of your campaigns and, ultimately, your revenue. 

You may be saying, “But Google Shopping already uses AI.” While that’s true, Upp’s specific capabilities work with Google to accelerate its learning and understanding.

Upp unlocks product and market performance data to ensure efficient management, optimisation, and scaling of Google Shopping – all by harnessing the power of AI. With Upp, you can:

• Increase product visibility whilst maintaining target thresholds: Upp automatically structures your products based on performance data and provides visibility to your underperforming products right within Google Campaigns
• Reduce and sustain Cost Per Acquisition: By gathering data on your wider inventory, Upp determines which products are the best for acquiring customers. Putting these products into campaigns tailored to customer acquisition keeps acquisition costs within your budget
• Continuous optimisation and automation of campaigns: Upp analyses performance data to continuously optimise your campaigns so that you can make critical growth decisions on the exact day you get your insights

By using Upp, online retailers will not have to be concerned about Performance Max’s rollout (or any other future Google Shopping upgrade). Upp is primed to adapt to any developments made within Google Shopping and enhance them.

What Upp’s AI improves on

While we have covered what Upp does, let’s now outline why Upp’s AI and machine learning capabilities are so essential to bettering Google Shopping Performance. The correct application of AI leads to greater overall efficiency and results when compared to agencies, in-house teams, and third-party tools. Fundamentally, manual teams can’t analyse and derive insights at the same vast level as Upp can.

Upp’s platform is always working in the background and is automatically optimising your Google Shopping campaigns based on three connected areas that constantly communicate with each other:

1. Data-driven insights

Upp’s AI-driven platform integrates your datasets into the Upp platform with more than 70 business and product performance data points. It partners data from Google Ads API, Merchant Center API and Product Data API with Upp’s Order APIs connected to your wider retail data to gather information (e.g. stock levels, order history etc.). That data is then analysed and refreshed every 15 minutes.

With Upp, you get a solution that solves problems for you. With limited input, Upp will: 

• Automate the data mining of your datasets at SKU level
• Build-in data-driven seasonality and get more accurate seasonality insights over time
• Eliminates time and effort your team spends on data mining and manual processes
• Provide product performance insights that tells you exactly what’s going on under the hood 

Insights are generated in real-time and optimisations are automatically executed based on your success parameters and thresholds. Such speed and certainty of executions are crucial in a competitive environment like Google Shopping. You have greater certainty, better use of resources (time and effort), and specific competitive insights from your data.

2. Automated product and campaign structure optimisation

Upp partners granular Google Shopping data with wider retail data to enable a deeper analysis of products at an SKU level. These insights are then used to automatically update product campaigns and optimise your overall campaign structure. You can reduce the risk of underspending, overspending, and enable more significant strategic decisions.

3. Automatically increase product visibility

The application of Upp enabled Charles Tyrwhitt to increase their visibility by 14 million impressions and Nordgreen to drive up visibility by 30%. Fundamentally, Upp increases product visibility for unserved products without negatively impacting ROAS / CPA. This is very easy to miss, and Upp further improves the situation by automatically allocating your budget based on insights derived from product and business performance. AI automates the optimisation of Product and Campaign Structure to increase visibility and thereby achieve success in your key metrics — whether they be ROAS, Profit, GMV/Revenue, or Spend. 

With increased visibility of underperforming products, you can see growth across all product lines through optimising your ad spend and diving deeper into why underperforming products aren’t reaching the goals they should.

Products are given every chance to succeed and meet desired targets. Upp automatically tests products with limited data available, introduces new products to broaden your reach, experiments with new markets, and looks for bundling or cross-selling opportunities.

Drive your engagement with Upp today

AI is not only helpful in growing an online retailer’s Google Shopping experience but is also proving to be essential to surviving in the marketplace altogether. Google itself is betting big on AI, and the rollout of Performance Max is evidence of this trend. However, advances such as Performance Max still lack the critical insights online retailers need to succeed — and for these, Upp delivers.

Upp gives you the power to drive engagements yourself, backed by detailed insights and vast data sources. We are primed to help you best address Performance Max and any other future Google Shopping developments.

Our results speak for themselves. Using Upp provides an average of 27% increase in revenue thanks to our optimisation of campaigns to achieve the best growth possible. For further evidence, we can deliver:

• 62% increase in the rate of transactions
• 16% increase in new customer purchases

Want to see for yourself how Upp can take your Google Shopping management to the next level? Get a free consultation and benefit from hard-edged insights into your campaigns and products within just 30 minutes.