AdWords Product Listing Ad CPCs Close In On Text Ads [RKG Report]

Are those sweet efficiencies early adopters of AdWords product listing ads saw in their holiday numbers coming to an end?  Well, CPCs are rising, but ROI is still solid.

RKG’s Q1 Digital Marketing Report finds that as more merchants come on board, product listing ad CPCs are now just 10% lower than comparable text ads. Yet, even with the stiffer competition, RKGs client base saw 22% higher ROI from PLAs than non-brand text ads in Q1. PLAs garnered 33% of their e-commerce clients’ Google search spend, a sharp increase from Q4.

Product Listing Ads

PLAs helped drive up Google’s nonbrand CPCs 7% in Q1. Mobile CPCs are also increasing, and Google’s March roll-out of PLAs on smartphones with enhanced campaigns lets the company capitalize on both rising trends.

In the wake of yesterday’s news that Bing will be introducing its own Product Ads this summer, it’s interesting to consider if they’ll have similar impact on Bing’s CPCs, and if they’ll help Bing close the ROI gap with Google. RKG’s client set saw 19% higher ROI on Google than Bing in Q1, “with PLAs playing a significant role.”

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.