Analyze results

Before you start, here are 2 tips for you:

1. Wait 2 weeks
   We advise you to review your campaign results after 2 to 4 weeks or after 80 to 100 clicks. Your campaign always needs a learning period to perform optimally. This also ensures you have valid data to analyze.

1. Define your goal
   Before you begin, define your campaign's goal. What do you want to achieve and which data (or metrics) are relevant? What does success look like for you? This will make analyzing your campaign easier.

In your sponsored products environment, various reports are available that provide insight into your campaign performance. You can find them under 'Advertising' > 'Reports' at the top of your screen. They are essential for analyzing and improving your ad performance.

1. Performance per Placement report: this report provides insight into the main KPIs per campaign placement.
2. Attribution report: provides insight into the assignment of (in)direct conversions (within 14 days after interaction with the ad).
3. Bidding report: provides insight into auction bidding and its results.
4. Results per item: Results per individual item in campaigns and ad groups.

There are various metrics (or data points) you could analyze. Which metric is important depends on your campaign's objective.

This indicates how often your ad has been seen. The number of impressions can be influenced by several factors, such as an adjustment to your CPC (Cost per Click), a change in search volume, or increasing competition. Impressions are an important metric if your goal is to reach as many people as possible, for example, when launching a new brand or item.

An impression is counted when your ad is at least 50% visible on the buyer's screen for a minimum of 1 second.

This indicates the relevance of your item and is therefore an important metric. If your goal is to generate sales, you'll need to guide visitors to your item page. Reviews, item title and images, selling price, and delivery time can lead to a more relevant ad. It's also important that your ad matches the visitor's search query. The higher your CTR %, the more visitors you will attract.

The costs you incur are determined by the number of clicks you generate, multiplied by your CPC. Several factors can influence this. The most obvious is raising or lowering the target ACoS for an automatic campaign, or adjusting your bids in the case of a manual campaign. Want to calculate your ideal ACoS? Use our handy ACoS calculator for that.

The metrics ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales), ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), and TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) help you measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your advertising campaigns, both short and long term. They also tell you about the profitability of your ad spending. This allows you to not only evaluate performance but also make strategic decisions about budgeting, bidding strategies, and ad improvement.

ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales)

ACoS shows what percentage of your ad revenue you spend on advertising costs.

ACoS = (Advertising Costs / Ad Revenue) × 100

Go to the ACoS calculator

What do you use ACoS for?

ACoS shows how much you spend on ads in relation to the revenue you generate with them.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

ROAS measures how much revenue you get back per euro you spend on ads.

ROAS = Ad Revenue / Advertising Costs

What do you use ROAS for?

It helps you see if your ads are generating enough returns. A higher ROAS means you're getting more profit from your ads.

ACoS and ROAS are counterparts. If your ACoS is 20%, that means a ROAS of 5.

TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales)

Measures the relationship between advertising costs and total revenue (both organic and via ads). It is calculated with this formula:

TACoS = (Advertising Costs / Total Revenue) × 100

What do you use TACoS for?

• Broader insight into your performance: TACoS provides a more complete picture than just ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sale), because it indicates the impact of ads on both paid and organic sales.
• Measure long-term growth: Customers who buy something from you for the first time through an ad often return later. Your TACoS includes these sales in its measurements, showing whether your ads also generate profit in the long term and allow your business to grow (organically too).

The success of your advertising campaigns is closely linked to the conversion rate and the number of sales attributed to your ads. With this, you measure:

• How effectively your ads work to generate sales.
• Customer behavior after visiting your item page.

Attribution model: how sales are assigned

The way sales are attributed to your ad is called the attribution model. For sponsored products on bol, conversions within 14 days after a click on your ad are included in your results. You can find the results in the attribution report.

We distinguish between direct and indirect conversions:

• Direct conversion: If a customer clicks on your ad and immediately buys the item, we call this a direct conversion.
• Indirect conversion: Here, the customer clicks on your ad and then buys another item from your product range, from the same category.

When measuring ads, we use the principle of 'last click attribution'. This means that the purchase is attributed to the last ad the customer clicked on before the purchase.

Take cancellations and returns into account when analyzing your performance.

Campaign results can be analyzed at four levels:

1. At account level
2. At campaign level
3. At item level
4. At placement level

When you open the Sponsored Products environment, you'll see “Insight into your campaigns” at the top. Clicking on this gives you a graphical overview of the results of all your campaigns over the past 14 days. This is the default period, but you can adjust it in the top right. Below the graph, which by default shows revenue versus costs, you'll find filters on the left. Do you see a drop in revenue? Then also look at 'impressions' and 'clicks', as traffic may have decreased during the same period.

In the Sponsored Products environment, you'll also find the “Campaign Overview”. Here you can see the results of all your campaigns together and per individual campaign. A quick glance will show you which campaigns need extra attention, whether positive or negative. You usually focus on ACoS, costs, and revenue. For a deeper analysis of other KPIs, you often look at the item or placement level.

You'll get a similar overview, but for the specific campaign you've selected. Under items, you'll see the results per item. You'll quickly see which items are lagging in ACoS and which are performing well. An analysis of the other KPIs can help you find a cause. What stands out and where do you see the biggest differences? If you notice that the conversion rate for certain items is lagging, try to analyze what might be causing it. Is it your price? Is your item description not comprehensive enough? Have negative reviews come in?

It could also be that your CPC is too high to achieve a healthy ACoS. In most cases, this is a result of lower relevance, or: a low CTR. Additionally, it can also stem from high competition within the auction, which drives up your CPC.

If you scroll further, you'll find the results per placement. Ads can be displayed in three places: on an item page, a category page, or in search results for specific search terms. Under 'placements', you'll see the status and results per specific placement, along with the previously set bids. Here you analyze which placements perform well and if there are costly placements with few to no conversions. With the column selector, you can add metrics to the columns.

The core of a successful campaign is being visible in the right places and thus getting placements. We therefore recommend regularly analyzing your results across different placements. There might be placements that don't yield the desired result. In other words: high costs, but few to no conversions. Identify which these are and determine if the keywords are relevant to your item. For example, does the keyword appear sufficiently in your content? It could also be that the customer simply doesn't find your item relevant for this search query.