Sponsored Products are only available in the United States and are currently under open beta.
In Sponsored Products, two partners share the cost of advertising as they work to drive product sales through certain channels. Typically, these two partners are manufacturers and retailers (or ad agencies and their clients) who have merchandising agreements with one another.
Let's say you manufacture widgets, and Contoso is one of your many authorized dealers. Contoso wants to feature your widgets during their upcoming sale. They've approached you to partner on a marketing blitz of targeted ads designed to drive widget sales and conversions on their website. In partnership, you both agree to share the cost of clicks on a promoted product through your own ad group and your partner's own ad group.
Both the manufacturer and the retailer have key roles in setting up Sponsored Products. Manufacturers must upload a product feed. Retailers must grant their partners access to their Microsoft Merchant Center store, which is the gateway to a sales channel. Both manufacturers and retailers are then able to bid on the shared list of goods in the product feed through ad groups.
Put simply, a product feed is a list of items you're promoting with a third party. Typically, a manufacturer or an advertising client is responsible for this step. A product feed contains a list of product attributes, such as product title, description, and price.
Use the product feed import template to create a list, which you'll need to upload to Microsoft Advertising following these steps:
Field name | Description | What you need to know |
---|---|---|
id
(required) |
A unique identifier for the item.
Example: Requirements: |
|
brand
(required) |
Item’s manufacturer, brand, or publisher
Example: Requirements: 70 character limit |
|
mpn
(required) |
Manufacturer Part Number
Example: Requirements: |
|
gtin
(required) |
Global Trade Item Number. The GTIN field has a limit of 50 characters, with each GTIN value having up to 14 digits. For multiple GTIN values, separate by a comma and space.
Example: Requirements: |
Learn more about unique identifiers for your product ads. |
title |
Title of the item
Example: Requirements: 150 character limit. Don't enclose in quotes. |
|
description |
Item description
Example: Requirements: 10000 character limit. No HTML code and no promotional text. Do not enclose in quotes. |
|
link |
Direct URL of the item's page on your website
Example: Requirements: 0-2000 characters HTTP or HTTPs only and no redirects. For redirect URLs, use the ads_redirect field. |
|
image_link |
URL of an image of the item
Example: Requirements: 1000 character limit
Link must be HTTP or HTTPs only. Image must be: bmp, gif, exif, jpg, png, tiff and the recommended minimum size is 220px by 220px. The image size cannot exceed 3.9 MB. |
|
Once you have your product feed, you'll need access to your retail partner's Microsoft Merchant Center store. Once you have access, keep in mind that you won't be able to see all of the products in your partner's store. You'll only see the products that are a direct match of the items in your product feed.
Once you've gained access to your partner's store, you'll need to build Microsoft Shopping Campaigns as usual. In addition, you'll be able to filter products for your shopping campaigns using data from your product feeds (such as GTIN and MPN). This additional filter gives you greater flexibility to add specific products in your shopping campaign.
When you create an ad group, you'll need to specify the ad group type: bid value or bid boost. A bid value ad group allows you to bid on products that your merchandising partner doesn't target. A bid boost allows you to amplify your partner's bid.
For bid value: Specify the flat amount of your Sponsored Product bid.
For bid boost: Specify in Bid boost the percentage that allows your Sponsored Product bid to flex, as well as the Maximum value of cost per click that you're willing to pay. Your cost per click will be the lower of the two values relative to your partner's bid. (For example, let's say your partner bids $5 USD on a product. If your bid boost set to 20 percent and your maximum value is 50 cents, your share would be 50 cents and not $1 USD.)
All existing Microsoft Shopping Campaigns reports will work for Sponsored Product campaigns. Use the following reports to track the performance of your Sponsored Product bids.
If you are a retailer, you can see the impact of Sponsored Products in the Product dimensions and Production partition reports. Both reports will contain the following columns: Assisted impressions, Assisted clicks, and if you have conversion tracking enabled, Assisted Conversions. Each column will respectively track impressions, clicks, and conversions on a Sponsored Product campaign.
Product partition | |
---|---|
What it shows: The impressions, clicks, spend, average cost-per-click, and average conversion for each product group in your Microsoft Shopping Campaigns. | Why run it: To see the performance data for the product groups in your shopping campaigns and to optimize your campaigns accordingly. |
Product partition unit | |
What it shows: The impressions, clicks, spend, average cost-per-click, and average conversions for each product group in your Microsoft Shopping Campaigns. Depending on the report time and columns you choose, the report may include more than one row per product group. | Why run it: To see product partition unit data of your Product Groups in Shopping Campaigns. |
Product dimension | |
What it shows: The impressions, clicks, spend, average cost-per-click, and conversion for each product in your catalog [each line item in Microsoft Merchant Center catalog]. | Why run it: To figure out which of your products are triggering ads and getting the most clicks and optimize the ones not performing so well. |
Product search term | |
What it shows: The impressions, clicks, click-through rate, and average position for search terms that have triggered your ads. | Why run it: To see what your audience is searching for when your ads are shown. You can use this information to make informed additions, removals, or edits to both your keyword and negative keyword lists. |
Product match count | |
What it shows: The number of products that are matched and targeted at the campaign, ad group, and product group level. | Why run it: To see if you covered your bidding across the Microsoft Shopping Campaigns inventory. |