Inventory management in Search Ads 360 can use data from an inventory feed to generate search campaigns, ad groups, text ads, keywords, and Google Ads sitelinks. As you update inventory data, Search Ads 360 automatically updates the generated campaigns and other items.
Why generate inventory campaigns?
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To correlate ad copy with price or description attributes from your inventory feed.
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To create and remove keywords to match what's available on your site, whether a product is added to your inventory, or no longer available in your inventory.
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To drive revenue through long-tail keyword expansion, such as generate product-specific, brand-specific, and category-specific keywords for each product in your inventory.
Inventory campaigns are ideal for advertising any services or products that you can describe in an inventory feed, especially if availability, pricing, or other details change frequently. See the following ideas for using inventory management in different industries.
Ideas for travel, entertainment, telecom, and more
| In this industry... | Use inventory campaigns to create ads and keywords... |
|---|---|
| Flights |
For each route served. For example, create keywords such as "flights from jfk to lax". Also create geo-targeted campaigns for each origin point and include only the destination in the keyword. For example create a campaign targeted to New York and create keywords such as "flights to lax". You can also create ads that show the JFK - LAX price. |
| Hotels | For each hotel name, hotel brand, neighborhood, city, and airport. |
| Travel packages |
For each of the packages you offer. For example, create keywords such as "grand cayman vacations". Other ideas:
|
| Live entertainment |
That target the shows and artists for which you're selling tickets. Include price and the number of tickets remaining in the ad copy. Automatically remove campaigns when you're out of stock. |
| Streaming entertainment | That target the titles, artists, actors, and genres in your catalog. For example, create keywords such as "stream jump rope all stars". |
| Telecommunications, TV, and wireless |
For each handset you sell or television program you offer. Include price or air dates in the ad copy |
| Recruitment |
For all of the jobs on your web site. Create geo-targeted campaigns for each location with openings. |
| Retail |
About the product titles, part numbers, categories, and brands you sell. Include price in the ad copy. It's a great addition to shopping ads. |
| Local offers |
About the locations, types of businesses, and offerings you sell. For example, create keywords for specific restaurant names or local business names. Or create keywords such as "plumbers", "mini golf", and so on. Also create geo-targeted campaigns so that ads only show in places with an offer. |
How the overall process works
To generate campaigns:
- You identify the data in your feed that's relevant for your advertising goals.
- Create templates for each type of campaign, ad group, ad, keyword you want to generate.
- Within each template, use filters and formulas to select specific values from your inventory feed.
- Format the data for use in ad copy, keyword text, or campaign and ad group settings.
- Search Ads 360 applies the templates to the inventory data and creates your campaigns.
You can create different collections of templates to output campaigns with different structures or different types of keywords. Each collection of templates is called an inventory plan.
For example, you can create one inventory plan that generates one campaign for each product category and outputs long-tail keywords, and another plan that generates one campaign for each brand and outputs brand keywords.
Things to know:
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You can generate inventory campaigns in any supported search engine account as long as the advertiser is linked to at least one inventory account (such as Google Merchant Center).
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Within each engine account, you can generate up to the maximum number of campaigns, ads, keywords and other items that is supported by the engine. (View each engine's help center for information on the maximum number of items you can create.)
Each time an inventory plan is evaluated, Search Ads 360 determines the number of items the templates will output. If the output would cause the total number of items to exceed engine limits, Search Ads 360 does not create any new items. Instead, Search Ads 360 reports an error.
For example:
- An engine can contain up to 10,000 campaigns.
- You've already created 8,000 campaigns in the engine.
- Search Ads 360 evaluates your inventory plan and determines that 3,000 campaigns should be created.
- Because these new campaigns would exceed the engine's limit, Search Ads 360 doesn't create any new campaigns in the engine.
If you encounter this situation, create additional engine accounts and narrow the scope of your inventory plans so they create fewer items in each account.
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Both inventory campaigns and manual campaigns support the same set of features for automating campaign management. For example, you can apply bid strategies, create automated rules, run scheduled edits, and use other automation features for inventory campaigns.
Interaction with existing manual campaigns and other items
Here are the criteria an inventory plan uses to determine if an existing manually created item matches the output of a template:
| Item | Interaction |
|---|---|
| Campaign |
If the name exactly matches the name of campaign the inventory plan would have generated in the engine account, the inventory plan does not generate a duplicate campaign. Instead:
|
| Ad group |
If the name exactly matches the name of ad group the inventory plan would have generated in a manual campaign, the inventory plan does not generate duplicate ad groups. Instead:
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| Ad |
The plan generates ads even if a manual ad group already contains ads with the same ad copy. The generated ads may be paused or removed by the plan when inventory data changes. |
| Keyword and Negative keyword |
If the keyword text and match type exactly match a keyword the inventory plan would have generated in an ad group, the inventory plan does not generate the keyword. The plan will not pause or remove the manual keyword, and it isn't possible to place the manual keyword under inventory management. |
| Google Ads sitelink |
If the sitelink text, description 1, description 2, landing page, tracking url template, and device preference exactly match a sitelink the inventory plan would have generated, the inventory plan does not generate the sitelink. The plan will not remove the manual sitelink, and it isn't possible to place the manual sitelink under inventory management. |
Use functions to transform inventory data
The best practice is to optimize your inventory feed so the data can be used directly in your campaigns. But some feeds need to serve multiple purposes and may contain raw data that's not template-ready. In this case, you can use Search Ads 360 functions to modify the raw inventory data before generating campaigns.
Example
The following function outputs "Free" for products that cost more than $25. You can combine with static text to generate ad copy that says "Free shipping" or "Fast shipping" depending on the cost of an inventory item:
[if(max(Item_price) < 25, "Fast", "Free")] shipping
If you frequently use the same functions in your templates, create a formula column on the inventory items page and use the formula column in your templates instead of repeating the logic. For example, you could create this formula column:
Column name: "Fast-Free shipping"
Formula: [if(max(Item_price) < 25, "Fast", "Free")] shipping
Then include the column name in your templates instead of the function:
[c:"Fast-Free shipping"]
When Search Ads 360 applies templates, it uses the formula from the c:"Fast-Free shipping" column. If you update the formula column, all of the templates use the updated formula the next time Search Ads 360 applies templates.