The ultimate guide for using product assets in Catalog Ads

Product data shown in a visual way in your Catalog Ad creative? Not only is it possible with our Product Assets, it also improves the average performance by 80%!

You're probably thinking: "What are product assets, and why should I care?".

You've come to the right place, because we'll answer both of those questions, as well as give you some great example of them being used.

Here's how showing product assets on average influence Catalog Ads:

Let's start from the top... Product assets are a function in Confect that allows you to change the image shown based on product information.

For example, this advertiser selling wine has added a product asset that changes the flag image based on the country of origin.

When adding dynamic elements (changing from one item to another based on product info), they can be displayed as text - the country's name at the bottom in our example, or visually - the country's flag in the top left.

Sure... you could just go with simple text, but visual cues are easier to process than written text. And the faster a user understands the ad, the better for you.

So let's get to the second part of the question. Why should you care?

Using product assets in Catalog Ads

Let's start by repeating what we already said: Images are easier to process than text.

And you probably know that the more effortless you can make the buying journey, the higher probability of the user converting.

You want to strike a balance between providing enough information for the user to decide, but also making it easy enough so that they don't just give up midway through - and product assets were the solution we came up with.

In addition to this, we've also found in our dataset that Catalog Ads with product assets reach 80% higher ROAS on average.

We also found the following when showing the price:

• 33% lower Cost per action
• 12% lower Cost per click
• 23% higher on-site Conversion rate
• 8% higher Click-through rate

Now that we've got your interest, let's have a look at some examples.

Different ways to use product assets

The starting point for any product asset is your product feed. Any information included on your website can become a product asset.

The way it works is that you select a product attribute, for example the country of origin for wine, and then upload images for each option.

You could also choose to leave some empty and only show a product asset on a few options.

Product Assets are especially effective for mid-end shops that don't rely on luxury products or very affordable products.

• Affordable shops see a +12% improvement in Return on Ad Spend when showing Product Assets
• Mid-end shops see a +75% improvement in Return on Ad Spend when showing Product Assets
• High-end/ Luxury shops see a -17% decline in Return on Ad Spend on average when showing Product Assets

Product's logo

Probably the single most common way of utilising product assets is to show the product's brand logo.

You can read more about the product's brand here.

Depending on what products your business is selling, it's possible that the manufacturer's logo carries more recognition and awareness than your own brand.

So why not use it?

This is a good example of when a visual is more powerful than plain text. Chances are, in this example, you first noticed the logo and only read the text after.

When setting up these logo product assets, you have the choice of uploading logos for every manufacturer, or just for the most popular brands with the most recognition to leverage.

Grading (energy, condition,...)

This next option is adding product grading to your designs.

The most obvious example is with technology, but also applies well outside the electronics industry.

Not every single product has, for example, an energy label - in that case, the product asset will not show up in the creative.

It's also an option to show the condition grade when selling used or refurbished items. No matter if it's second-hand bikes, electronics or clothing, the state of the item is highly relevant for the viewer to decide.

Colour variants

We're now moving onto more specific use-cases with this example of showing colour variants of the product.

In most cases, different colour variants would have their own creatives - but that's an option, not a rule.

You could also decide to combine these variants into one and show the different colourways using a product asset. There's even an option to still keep them separate, but also show the other options a user might see after clicking through.

This would likely be too complicated to implement if you have thousands of products, each available in a different set of colours.

But if your marketing is focused on promoting a couple of models (i.e. the Founder, the Lawyer, etc.) like with this advertiser, it's a great way to show the options.

To do this, you'll need to include all the colours of the item as one attribute in the product feed data source.

Background

With this last example, we want to make the point that "Anything could become a product asset".

There's actually two product assets in this design. Can you spot them?

The video game logo, as well as the background change based on the product, undeniably creating a clear theme for each of them.

Here, each product has different assets assigned. That wouldn't be viable for larger product feeds.

But you could for example switch the background based on the category, or if we go back to our wine example, based on the country of origin.

How to add product assets to your Catalog Ads

Here at Confect, it's our mission to make it as simple as possible to reach higher performance through improved designs for Catalog Ads.

What if we told you that you could make your ads 80% more effective on average in just a few simple steps?

1. Create a new product asset

2. Choose the product attribute

3. Upload an image for the desired options and save

4. Create a new design

5. Add a Product asset and position it in the design

6. Voila!

Read about how to create designs - or learn how to use product assets here.

If you want all the data and insights we have about designing Catalog Ads, based on billions of impressions, you can see it right here.