When we announced Pacvue for Criteo in Q4 of 2020, we immediately heard excitement from all sorts of brands about the breadth of retailers this new product would enable for their marketplace advertising campaigns. At the same time, we’ve heard some common questions about what’s available via the Criteo Retail Media Platform, how to get started, and how to optimize campaigns.
Here are five things you need to know about Retail Media by Criteo advertising campaigns, along with five recommendations from our strategic consulting team.
#1 – What’s New with RMP
Facts to know:
- Those familiar with the legacy Criteo platform (RSX) may be familiar with the 30 day Click + 24 hour View attribution. The new Retail Media Platform (RMP), with which Pacvue integrates, gives the option of 14 day Click + No View attribution.
- RMP does not yet allow page-type bid modifiers on campaigns.
- RMP does allow for Product Bid Overrides to optimize at the item level.
- RMP is a first-price auction.
Our recommendations:
- Expect performance to differ from RSX to RMP because of the attribution changes and retailer breakouts.
- Each retailer and category has different bid minimums, so set KPIs and strategize bids for each retailer.
#2 – Campaign Structure
Facts to know:
- The hierarchy of campaign set up is: Balance (IO) > Campaigns > Line Item > Product
- The retailer is set at the line-item level.
Our recommendations:
- Criteo performs best with a broader campaign breakout: one campaign per category, or a Brand & Nonbrand campaign per category.
- Break out campaigns by retailer & product category groups (e.g. similar features, price points, etc.)
- If products slightly differ, you can break out into a different line items to give the separate products traction.
#3 – Auto Targeting
Facts to know:
- Criteo uses auto targeting based on relevancy and category taxonomy of products.
- There is currently no front-end keyword targeting (coming later this year), but Pacvue has reporting on what queries your products are serving on.
Our recommendations:
- Use Pacvue’s keyword reporting to identify which terms are already covered via Criteo’s automated targeting.
- Increase exposure of products on retailers where ads are serving on relevant search queries.
- Work with Pacvue and Criteo for setting up keyword parameters – talk to us to learn more!
#4 – Bid Optimization Levers
Facts to know:
- Optimizations are at the line-item level, except for product override bids.
- Optimizations in the Criteo Retail Media Platform UI: budget adjustments, target bid, product override
- Optimizations in the Pacvue UI: budget adjustments, target bid, dayparting, line-item rules (and product override coming soon)
Our recommendations:
- Start at the minimum line-item bid, and if you’re underspending, increase with product override on top-performing products first.
- Use dayparting in Pacvue to stay live during key hours. For example, Target has a lot of volume in some categories throughout the day.
- Poor performing SKUs cannot be paused, only removed. However, you can use product override to bid the minimum.
#5 – Budgeting Levers
Facts to know:
- Campaigns must be linked to a Balance to go live.
- Campaign Level: ability to set a budget cap or keep uncapped (all campaign spend cannot exceed Balance amount).
- Line-Item Level: ability to set a budget cap or keep uncapped, set a monthly budget, or daily budgets.
Our recommendations:
- Create Balances based on your brand’s budget periods: Monthly, Quarterly, Annual.
- Use line-item daily pacing, keeping uncapped and moving funds between line items if necessary.
- Use campaign caps for more control or short run tests.
Interested in learning more about eCommerce advertising? Check out this eCommerce advertising management guide.
