Proprietary bid policy drives the best returns on Product Listing Ads by analyzing product attributes and predicting revenue per click

San Francisco (June 26, 2014) – Skai (skai.io), the global leader in predictive media optimization technology, announced the launch of full support for the new Google Shopping platform, with client migrations starting this weekend. Skai, which serves more Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) than any other platform or advertiser according to Jefferies Equity Research, leveraged its extensive experience to develop a new patent-pending bid policy built specifically for Shopping campaigns which analyzes product attributes and predicts revenue per click to drive the best returns on PLAs. Skai support also includes Facebook ad integration.

“Managing PLAs through Skai has been a very successful part of our digital marketing campaign,” said Jeff Hensel, marketing channel manager at AutoAnything. “With the festive shopping season just around the corner, we’re in great shape to take on Google Shopping campaigns and seize the biggest revenue opportunity of the year.”

Skai’s support for Google Shopping campaigns enables marketers to improve ROI by avoiding wasted ad spend, utilizing negative keyword suggestions to reach the highest value audiences, and providing product-level reporting which offers insights for better product group creation. Skai also streamlines the Google Shopping campaign setup and optimization process by providing a view of all biddable entities and bids based on product attributes, as well as the abilities to copy campaigns and make bulk bid and copy changes.

To enable advertisers to gauge the effectiveness of Google Shopping campaigns compared to other marketing channels, Skai has enabled cross-channel context for Google Shopping campaigns. Marketers can quickly and easily examine PLA performance in comparison to display, social, and other search ads, or any other channels tracked through Skai, providing a holistic view of active campaigns to accurately weight conversions and optimize intelligently.

Brands and agencies can also seamlessly activate social advertising with their Google PLA campaigns. For example, retailers running both Google Shopping and Facebook campaigns can leverage their PLA data to quickly launch Facebook ad campaigns from their best performing PLA ads using Skai Demand Driven Campaigns (DDC). Skai DDC, which was named a winner in the Facebook Innovation competition for Preferred Marketing Developers, provides integration with retailer inventory systems and Google Merchant Center catalogs to automatically create dynamic ads on Facebook from product images and attributes.

“PLAs have proven to be an immensely successful ad format for retailers with global retail PLA spend increasing 138 percent year-over-year this past holiday season,” said Will Martin-Gill SVP, Product for Skai. “As Google transitions PLAs into Google Shopping, our advertisers want more PLA control and flexibility from Skai. We’re not only the first major third-party bid management platform to offer support; our proprietary algorithm and functionality maintains the same high standards that has earned us recognition throughout the industry.”

Skai was recently cited as sole Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Social Advertising Platforms, Q4 2013 and The Forrester Wave™: Bid Management Software Providers, Q4 2012.

Visit skai.io/PLA for Google Shopping research and best practices as well as information on Skai’s solutions for Product Listing Ads.

About Skai
Skai is a global software company that engineers cloud-based digital marketing solutions and predictive media optimization technology. Brands, agencies and developers use Skai Search, Skai Social, Skai Local, Skai SmartPath, and Skai Halogen to direct more than $200 billion in annualized client sales revenue through the platform. Skai is the only Facebook strategic Preferred Marketing Developer with native API solutions for ads across Facebook, FBX, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Yahoo Japan, Bing, Baidu and CityGrid. Skai powers campaigns in more than 190 countries for nearly half of the Fortune 50 and all 10 top global ad agency networks. Skai clients include CareerBuilder, Expedia, Facebook, KAYAK, Havas Media, iREP, John Lewis, Resolution Media, Sears, Starcom MediaVest Group, Tesco, Travelocity, Walgreens, and Zappos. Skai has 23 international locations and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Arts Alliance, Tenaya Capital, and Bain Capital Ventures. Please visit www.Kenshoo.com for more information.

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