Ad Types

Campaigns

What is the minimum and maximum number of products that sellers can register in one campaign?

The minimum number of products per campaign is 1, and the maximum number is 5000. However, it's recommended to register as many products per campaign as possible to shorten the machine learning period of the campaign.

What happens if product(s) go out of stock while the campaign is active?

The platform filters out the items that are tagged as out of stock in the catalog feed at the moment of serving the ad. The campaign remains active during this time, but does not display the item due to the status in the catalog feed. Your campaign will be active, but will not generate clicks if items are out of stock, therefore you are not charged.

What is a campaign schedule?

The campaign schedule is the time period when the campaign is live and displaying ads. Set the start and the end dates of the campaign, or you may choose to run the campaign indefinitely with no end date. For example, campaigns with no end date may be used for popular products.

Can I schedule a campaign for some time in the future?

Yes, you can schedule a campaign for a date in the future using the campaign manager or our management API.

How do I distribute products between campaigns?

Create multiple campaigns by strategy or price range, such as new products, popular products, stock depletion, etc. and track performance of each campaign separately. A minimum of 5 products in each campaign is required.

Can I register the same products in multiple campaigns?

MCM does not recommend overlapping products between campaigns. If you must do so, ensure the campaigns containing duplicated items have different bid pricing.

How can I pause a running campaign?

To pause an active campaign, open the campaign manager dashboard, select the campaign you want to pause, and toggle the On/Off button. You can also pause a Campaign on the campaign home page by toggling the On/Off button near the campaign name.

How can I reactivate a paused campaign?

To reactivate a paused campaign, open the campaign manager dashboard, select the campaign you want to pause and toggle the On/Off button. You can also reactivate a campaign on the campaign home page by toggling the On/Off button near the campaign name.

Can I change the budget after I launch the campaign?

Yes, the budget can be increased or decreased after your campaign is live.

I launched a campaign, how can I find my ad?

Ad display is dynamically based on your campaign parameters and each user's shopping behavior, therefore your ad may not appear immediately. Instead use the campaign manager dashboard to view impressions, clicks and conversions on the reporting page.

Bidding Strategies

There are 3 bidding strategies for Sponsored Product Ad: Optimize for ROAS, Max Sales and Manual bidding.

Manual Bidding

What is Manual Bidding?

Manual bidding strategy uses max CPC bidding. This is the maximum amount the advertiser will pay for each click on the ad. Higher bids increase the chances of your ad being displayed. Note that the final price you pay may be lower than the max bid as it depends on other sellers’ bids and your product relevance.

How does Manual bidding work for advertisers?

When creating a campaign, an advertiser enters a bid for the campaign with items that they want to advertise. A bid is the maximum amount that the advertiser is willing to pay when a shopper clicks the ad.

How long should I wait until starting campaign optimization?

We recommend waiting at least 2 weeks to exit the machine learning phase before starting optimization. For best results, run the campaign as always-on (no end date) or for more than 28 days.

When should I increase my minimum bid?

When a campaign is live, check the impressions generated after the first three days using the campaign manager dashboard. If the Impression metric is too low and your budget is not spent, increase the bid, then reevaluate the performance.
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Note:
If changes are made to campaign it is recommend to wait 1 to 2 weeks then reevaluate performance, this allows MCM machine learning to incorporate the changes and maximize performance.

Is there a minimum budget for a Manual bidding campaign?

The minimum daily required is set by the platform. However, the higher the budget, the more impressions advertisers will generate, providing more opportunities for sales. Advertisers usually set their budget as 3-5% of GMV.

What options do advertisers have to make a quick impact on their campaigns?

Start with examining and adjusting CPC and the items that are listed within the campaign. In some cases removing items with low conversion rates can increase overall ROAS, however having more items listed in a campaign can increase impressions and clicks.

Optimize ROAS?

What is Optimize ROAS?

Using the “Optimize ROAS” option will automatically adjust how much you pay for your ads over time to maximize revenue without falling beneath the ROAS target and staying competitive without overspending. Advertisers are charged at the time a click is registered on the ad.

Is tROAS guaranteed for advertisers?

Target ROAS is not guaranteed, it is applied as a basis for the algorithm to optimize bidding price to achieve the ROAS goal.

Can I change my ROAS target?

You may change target ROAS at any time, however, we recommend changing target ROAS after monitoring for at least 2 weeks to determine the impact on your campaign.

What should I do if the actual ROAS is lower than the target ROAS?

We recommend lowering your target ROAS. If tROAS is kept the same, ad exposure trends will not increase, and there is less possibility for clicks and conversions. Lower the target ROAS and monitor exposure trends, budget utilization, and ROAS trends.

How do I improve ROAS?

To improve ROAS experiment with bidding strategies. You may find that manually adjusting your maximum CPC bid with Manual Bidding strategy allows you to control your ad costs without impacting conversions.
You can also use the Optimize ROAS strategy to set an exact target ROAS number you wish to achieve, based on your campaign results. For example, if your Manual Bidding campaign generated on average 500% ROAS, it’s recommended to set the same tROAS for a Smart Bidding campaign.
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Caution:
If the Target ROAS is set unreasonably high, it may result in less exposure and less budget utilization. It is recommended to use a conservative tROAS goal first then gradually increase the tROAS if needed.

Max Sales

What is Max Sales?

Max Sales cost per click bidding strategy which maximizes sales to deliver maximum revenue while exhausting the budget. Moloco’s underlying machine learning system will then predict performance and optimize bids in real time for every relevant and high revenue potential impression. Max sales supports automatic placement targeting and manual targeting to maximize your advertising campaign.

Ad Targeting

What is Placement Targeting?

Placement targeting is a feature that allows platform owners and advertisers more control over where ads will be displayed and allows advertisers to reach a specific audience. Advertisers can choose one of the following two options for placement targeting.

What is Automatic targeting?

Automated targeting utilizes sophisticated machine learning algorithms to determine the optimal audience, timing, and placement for displaying your ads to maximize your advertising campaign.

What is Manual targeting?

Manual targeting provides controls to specify when and where an ad campaign appears. During campaign creation advertisers can define Search terms, Target Keywords, and Page Placement.
What are Target Keywords?
- Target Keywords allows control over when an ad appears by matching keywords with a shopper's search term. The bid amount to be determined is based on the campaign target. (e.g. Target ROAS)
- Negative Keywords allows control over when ads should not appear by matching negative keywords within shopper search terms.
What is a Placement?
- Placement controls what page types should be prioritized for displaying ads, such as Home, Cart, Category, Product Detail, and Checkout.

What is Audience Targeting?

Audience targeting is designed to show advertisements only to customers of a desired group for developing audience specific ad strategies. The specific group targeted by advertisements and creative content is segmented by characteristics of the shopper behavior, demographics, and interests. Audience targeting can be utilized for reaching new customers and targeting existing segments of your customer base.

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Note:
For more information please see: Advertisement Targeting

Attribution

Does the attribution window have to match with our average purchase cycle?

We support D7 and D14 attribution windows that cover average purchase cycles for different platform verticals. Your average purchase cycle should be within the attribution window.

Machine Learning

If a user enters the website for the first time, how do you personalize an ad for them if there is no user behavior history?

When a new user visits the site for the first time, trending items will be shown. Trending items for a new user depend on a variety of different factors. These factors include, the number of organic views for advertised items, available budget, CTR prediction, and bidding strategy. Once the user events are streamed successfully to MCM, the model adapts the recommendations further based on the user's activity.

Optimization

Does your algorithm prioritize bid price or relevancy?

By default the algorithm prioritizes relevancy to achieve the highest ROAS for your advertisers. However, relevancy score transformation can be applied to drive more ad revenues. Please consult with your MCM business development representative for further assistance.

How does the Machine Learning algorithm adjust spend pacing?

We limit the amount of spend based on historic traffic to ensure there is enough budget to last throughout the day week rather than the campaign exhausting its budget too quickly. Limiting the amount of spend leads to a more uniform experience of ads being shown throughout the day.
Note: The maximum spendable budget may be limited if traffic patterns change significantly compared to the historical pattern.

What data does your Machine learning algorithm use to maximize performance?

Moloco’s Machine Learning uses catalog attributes (ID, color, price, rating, etc.), event information (clicks, add to cart, purchases, etc.) and shopper behavior to determine the best product match and provide accurate CTR and CVR predictionsThe final decision to display an advertisement is made during the auction with a combination of the ML recommendation score and the actual bid by the advertiser.

How can we expect these variables to be impacted as the model learns over time?

MCM continually trains the ML model as it receives more data to further optimize the campaign based on the bidding strategies and targets set for the ad campaign.

Ad Operations

How do you know the purchase came from an advertisement?

MCM uses click tracker information sent from the customer’s e-commerce site. These user events capture activity of the user browsing behaviors such as item clicks, add to cart, and purchases. Based on the click tracker information MCM knows which users are clicking on an ad and purchasing the item. If the click is within the attribution window (e.g. 14 days - D14), then the purchase is attributed to the ad revenue."

Can we operate campaigns on behalf of our sellers?

Yes, you can have your internal team run campaigns on behalf of sellers or outsource this to an agency. For both options, managed service is available through the Agency Ad Account, which allows one user to manage multiple ad accounts. In addition, the Ad Manager Account (AMA) offers a multi-account management framework, enabling users to oversee multiple ad accounts with a single login.

Can I copy SKUs from one campaign (e.g., one that is turned off) into a new campaign?

Yes, you can export a campaign report. In the report there is a column for SKU ID. Simply copy & paste the IDs in a separate file. Then use a CSV upload feature to create a new campaign with those SKUs.

Do you support refunds for advertisers?

MCM does not provide a mechanism to provide refunds to advertisers. Refunds should be processed between the e-commerce platform owners and the advertiser. If an item that was attributed to ad is returned, the ROAS is recalculated.

Advertisers

Is there something I should be aware of before starting advertising?

We recommend you to regularly update your seller information and that your seller/brand name and/or keywords are clearly displayed in the product name. Out of stock products are updated and removed from advertising options automatically.

Is the ad account ID the same as our internal seller ID when downloading performance by ad account report?

Yes, the seller ID and ad account ID should match, this information should be sent in the catalog feed.

How can I recruit more advertisers?

You can utilize your ad sales team resources for advertiser recruitment, creating email marketing campaigns to your seller base, granting ad credits etc. Please consult with your MCM Strategic Growth Manager for further assistance.

Reporting

How can I view reports as a platform owner?

There are two methods for reporting your advertising performance, the campaign manager dashboard and bulk data export.

The campaign manager dashboard visualizer allows you to measure your overall ad revenues and advertiser return on investment to understand your ad performance and make business decisions based on relevant data. The campaign manager allows you to view and download the data for any period. This allows you to review performance for each advertiser account, campaign, and product.
Bulk data export is a streamlined and efficient way to export your data to your cloud storage or analytics services. This provides platform owners a daily export of data regarding campaign information and ad performance, packaged in a parquet file format. This enables you to ingest large amounts of data without making requests to the Report API.