Need Supply Co.’s digital marketing team wanted to reach more buyers who are in search of exclusive products, and felt that the Google Shopping Product Listing Ads program would be a good fit.

1. In-house challenges with PLAs
Despite minimal information and best practices available
on the new world of PLAs, the Need Supply Co. team set up
and tested an initial Google Shopping program in-house.
They were, however, disappointed to find they were not
achieving the anticipated impressions and exposure.
The team was concerned that their feed was not set
up correctly, and they were having difficulty ensuring
that appropriate products showed up for specific search
queries. With the in-house team already stretched thin
managing their core digital marketing programs, they
turned to BuyerPath and its Product Ads solution for help
with PLAs.
Building a strong targeting strategy
To improve efficiency and results, the first job was to
create a multi-level, intent-based targeting strategy -- one
that mapped consumer intent and search queries to Need
Supply Co.’s merchandise at cascading product levels.
With BuyerPath’s platform for product ads, the team was
able to gather and analyze consumer intent data and
create over three thousand new, relevant product targets,
all within a few days.
This enabled Need Supply Co. to show the right products
at the right time, and allocate spend appropriately.
About Need Supply Co.
Based in Richmond, Virginia, Need Supply Company is a
boutique and eCommerce site that sells apparel, shoes
and accessories created by contemporary designers and
independent labels from the US and abroad. The Need
Supply Co. stock includes hard-to-find, high-fashion items
that draw a loyal following of buyers who seek out unique
brands and products. These buyers want to know about
limited runs of merchandise that often sell out fast.
Need Supply Co.’s digital marketing team wanted to reach
more buyers who are in search of exclusive products, and
felt that the Google Shopping Product Listing Ads program
would be a good fit.
CASE STUDY: NEED SUPPLY CO.
Need Supply Co. Achieves 213% PLA Revenue Increase with BuyerPath®
Intent-based
Targeting
Structure
REACHING NEW
CUSTOMERS WITH
EXCLUSIVE ITEMS
CAMPAIGN LEVEL
AD GROUP
PRODUCT
TARGET
KW
®

2. Shifting Traffic to Optimize Reach & Return
Building on the intent-based targeting foundation, the team then re-launched their PLA program, yielding tremendous results.
To further optimize the program, Need Supply Co. focused on three core strategies when deciding where to focus traffic:
Highlight top site sellers: mine Need Supply Co.’s website analytics and focus on top site sellers as an indicator for PLA success.
Feature exclusive items: strategically leverage exclusive merchandise to win in a price-competitive marketplace.
Feature new merchandise: reinforce Need Supply Co.’s brand as a fashion-forward, trend-leader and raise their overall visibility.
Showing Up for the Right Customers
The team also noticed that top performing text ad queries were not driving significant PLA traffic. By analyzing the product feed, the team found that the existing product titles and descriptions tended to represent inventory- based information, and were not optimized for intent.
With Adlucent’s capability to combine query and feed management data, the team was able to quickly and easily update product titles and descriptions to include top text ad queries and rich product descriptors. This change resulted in a 261% increase in impressions, as well as a 360% increase in clicks month-over-month.
Extending the Value of Demand Intelligence
Need Supply Co. could see that this new channel was also a source of timely and useful business information on what was selling in their market.
Combining the power of the Google Shopping PLA channel and Adlucent, the team could now easily:
• test price elasticity
• uncover gateway products that bring buyers to their
store but may not be the ultimate product purchased
• provide immediate feedback to their buyers on items
that were selling in large quantities
Today, Need Supply Co. is set up to fully leverage their PLA program strategically – matching their exclusive product line with buyers seeking hard-to-find items, and getting ahead of their competition by bringing the latest in style and design to their loyal followers and new, potential buyers.
BuyerPath for Product Ads
BuyrPath’s product ad platform is an advanced shopping analytics platform leveraging query data, in-market data, CRM data and online/offline shopper demographics to help retailers find, value, align and maximize valuable ad moments for optimal return.
Contact Us
To learn more and get a demo of the BuyerPath solution please call us at 1.800.788.9152 or visit
www.buyerpath.com
1
2
3
Conversion Rate
Pre-Adlucent
Post-Adlucent
Revenue
ROAS
105%
213%
183%
“BuyerPath has helped us deliver tremendous results to our business. The unique combination of feed-, query- and bid-management enabled us to re-launch our PLA program very quickly, driving traffic to just the right products. It’s been a really great solution for us.”
-Megan Koons, Digital Marketing Manager, Need Supply Co.
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