The challenge
Granularity or reduction: which approach wins?
ABOUT YOU, one of Europe's largest fashion and lifestyle platforms, has relied on marketing automation since its founding in 2014 and uses adSoul's software. When Google launched its Fullistic approach with Smart Bidding, the central question arose: does dropping granularity really make SEA more efficient?
The two approaches could not be more opposed. Google bets on automation plus reduction: fewer keywords and campaigns, but a black box with no insight into how cost arises or how it is steered. adSoul and Adference bet on automation plus transparency plus granularity.
To answer the question with data, ABOUT YOU set up a clean test in which both methods went head to head under identical conditions.
Our approach
A fair geo-split test over 57 days.
In coordination with Google, a geo-split in the Netherlands was chosen and divided into two comparable regions, with a seven-figure monthly budget, over 57 days from October to December 2019 including Black Friday. So both approaches faced equal conditions. The building blocks:
- 01
Granular structure
adSoul set up its own campaigns for nearly every brand and category, 703 campaigns, 121,511 ad groups and 558,113 keywords across all match types.
- 02
Entity recognition (NLP)
Keywords are broken into entities via natural language processing, so meaning and search intent can be recognized and bids calculated finely, even in the long tail.
- 03
Entity bidding with Adference
The entities feed into Adference's bid management, which calculates CPCs at entity level for an accurate forecast of cost and conversions.
- 04
Transparency, not a black box
Unlike Google's Smart Bidding, the steering stays traceable and manually adjustable at all times.
- automation plus reduction
- only 27 campaigns, 1,108 keywords
- focus on DSA and head terms
- black box with no insight into steering
- higher cost at the same revenue
- automation plus transparency plus granularity
- 703 campaigns, 558,113 keywords
- precisely matched ads and landing pages per keyword
- full control and traceability
- +73.3% ROAS at around 40% lower cost
The results
+73.3% ROAS, at around 40% lower cost.
Despite a high budget in the 14-day learning phase, Google with Fullistic and Smart Bidding did not reach its goals. At nearly identical revenue, cost was significantly higher: adSoul and Adference achieved 73.3 percent better ROAS performance overall.
The average CPC was EUR 0.41 for adSoul and Adference versus EUR 0.65 for Google, a difference of 36.9 percent. Overall cost fell by 40.3 percent, with +9.4% impressions and +3.5% revenue. The granular, transparent approach used the budget demonstrably more efficiently.
Using entity information, we can determine optimal, individual bids for every keyword, even in the long tail. We see that our new approach leads to a clear increase in performance, with full control at the same time.
What came next
Transparency over convenience.
The test shows that the most established solution on the market is not always the most efficient. Automation can optimize search advertising in a targeted, transparent way without advertisers handing over control of their marketing. ABOUT YOU continues to rely on granular, transparent automation rather than a black box.
