HayPigs

Key Milestones

Implementing Incremental Conversion Value

We added an Incremental Conversion Value to indicate to Google that acquiring new customers was a priority. This allowed Google to bid more aggressively for auctions involving potential new customers and helped the system understand their long-term value.

Testing Campaign Types

Although the campaign was initially set up as a Performance Max campaign, which is well-suited to e‑commerce, we wanted to determine whether another campaign type might deliver better results. Because Performance Max places ads across all Google placements, it was important to test other types individually and monitor their performance.

To minimise wasted spend and keep the experiment efficient, we selected the two most relevant alternatives, Shopping and Search. Each was tested against the existing Performance Max campaign to see whether either could outperform the all‑in‑one approach on its own.

Adjusting Target ROAS Figures

As one of the main goals was to maintain a ROAS of at least 400%, it would be tempting to set the Target ROAS figure for the campaign at 400% and wait for Google to do its work. However, Target ROAS figures need to be managed much more closely and setting this too high too early can lead to the campaign stalling and not spending its daily budget.

Because of this, we experimented with different Target ROAS figures, slowly increasing the setting each time performance improved. We started slightly below the Actual ROAS at the time to allow the campaign to gain the data it needed to be optimised further. This was then gradually increased until we hit the magic number of 400%, and beyond.

Introducing Additional Pet Campaigns

Having started with one campaign that had each of the different pet species separated by Asset Group, we progressed by splitting the ones with the best performance into their own campaigns to see which could help us hit the overall ROAS target.

Having created campaigns for Guinea Pigs, Rabbits and Hamsters, the test showed that (whilst others occasionally produced good results for the month), the only pet type consistently hitting the mark was Guinea Pigs. We then faced a choice: sacrifice overall ROAS to maintain coverage across multiple pet types, or double down on the website’s guinea pig specialism and continue optimising a single campaign to hit the ROAS target. We chose the latter.

Filtering Products By ROAS

Even though the guinea pig niche was the best route to success, not all of the hundreds of available products were providing the right level of return on the budget spent. So, we delved into the data to filter out the products with the highest ROAS and pause anything that had still not converted since the campaign was launched.

Initially, we divided all products with a positive return into two separate campaigns. The first campaign included the top 20% of products by ROAS and received 80% of the overall budget. The second campaign contained the remaining 80% of products and was allocated the remaining 20% of the budget.

However, we soon realised that, while splitting things in this way had improved the overall ROAS, there was only one way we were going to achieve the consistent 400% ROAS we wanted.

We needed to be more selective. And so we reverted back to just a single campaign that included only those products that had a ROAS of 400% or more since campaign launch. It was only at this point, having accrued enough data to make an informed decision, that we could do this with confidence. This proved to be a big turning point.

Product Title Tests

Once we knew which products were the biggest drivers of success, we could drill down into smaller optimisations that would help to make smaller, incremental improvements over time. One of these was establishing the most powerful version of each product’s title.

To begin with, this meant stripping out any mention of other pet types for products that are suitable for multiple animals. Only mentioning guinea pigs improved relevancy and Click Through Rate, as the products clearly matched the search terms that were being used most often. This is also true for the imagery used across the campaign.

After this, we experimented with word choice and syntax to answer questions like ‘do people search for ‘snacks’ or ‘treats’ more often?’ and ‘should the colour/volume/quantity of a product be mentioned at the start or end of the title?’.

Launching New Cage Products

Another big milestone was the launch of HayPigs’ new guinea pig cages. This is something that we had been anticipating for a while, and we knew that if we could get the launch right, it would go a long way to increasing average order values – another of the overall account goals.

We focused our efforts on getting the messaging perfect in the ad copy, used everything we had learnt about how product titles should look, and made good use of the strong imagery available to hit the ground running and take on much larger competitors with the new product launch.