The title of this blog came up recently as we continue to optimize our Google Shopping Adwords bidding tool, and I wanted to share my learnings with future web searchers. Our situation is that we use Google Shopping PLAs to drive traffic to Bonanza, and our bid amounts are specified via Adwords labels that we apply to each item. Most items will have multiple Adwords labels, where each Adwords label corresponds to an Adwords auto target. My question to Google was: when there is one product that has multiple Adwords labels, and those labels correspond to auto targets that have the same bid, which auto target gets credit for the impression (and subsequent click/conversion)?
The answer, straight from Google, makes a lot of sense:
So the one that enters the auction will be attributed with the clicks and impressions and this is dependent on the performance history associated with that auto target. The one with the stronger performance history – clicks and CTR attributed to it, will enter the auction and hence get the impressions.
Additionally if they are from different ad groups – the past ad group performance history and ad group level CTR would also matter.
Thus the answer: whichever auto target performs best has the best chance of being shown in Google’s Adwords “auction” (the name they give to the process of choosing which Adword or GS products to show).