Changes to CSS Spend Match Incentives

With Google recently announcing changes to their CSS programme, we have outlined them here:

As of November 1st 2018, the 'New Merchant SpendMatch' and 'Existing Merchant SpendMatch' incentives will be simplified to a single 'SpendMatch' initiative, which will run until December 31st 2018.

Partnership Incentives (until 31st October)

Under the current CSS Partner program, all merchants using CSS partners are currently offered SpendMatch discounts to merchants using CSS Partners:

New Merchant SpendMatch.

New merchant domains onboarding with a given CSS get full spend match for spend on Shopping ads for 30 days up to €500 as long as the CSS spends more than €10 in those 30 days for that merchant, the SpendMatch starts with the 11th Euro spent.

Existing Merchant SpendMatch.

For all existing merchants, Google will provide ad credits after each 30 day period. The amount of ad credits will be based on a percentage of a partner CSS's spend on Shopping ads for a given merchant during that 30 day period:

• Any merchant with spend in a 30 day period between €500 - €2,500 gets 20% of the spend credited to that merchant's account.

• Any merchant with spend in a 30 day period between €2,500 - €10,000 gets 25%.

• Any merchant with spend in a 30 day period above €10,000 gets 30%, capped at €32,000 credit per 30 days.

Note: If a New Merchant would receive a greater ad credit if it were considered to be an Existing Merchant, Google will apply whichever classification is most beneficial for that merchant.

Partnership Incentives (From 1st November - 31st December 2018)

Starting November 1st, the New Merchant SpendMatch and Existing Merchant SpendMatch incentives will be simplified to a single SpendMatch incentive:

• The amount of ad credits will be based on a fixed 5% of a partner CSS’s spend on Shopping ads for a given merchant during that calendar month.

• These incentives will only apply when the spend for a given merchant and partner CSS is higher than $10 per calendar month.

• The maximum ad credit available per merchant-CSS pair in any calendar month period is $100,000. In summary, any merchant that spends more than $10 in November (with a given CSS partner) will receive an ad credit following the calendar month. This will equal to 5% of their spend in this month, up to a maximum of $100,000.

• The earned credit will have to be used for future spend for the corresponding merchant.

*These programs may change at any time at Google's sole discretion

The Shorter version:

Breaking discounts on Google Shopping Ads will expire the 31st December, the remaining conditions will be adjusted downwards from the 1st November 2018.

The most important adjustments are from 1 November 2018:

• Spend match is then per calendar month, instead of 30 days
• 5% fixed spend match with Max of $100k.
• The CPC Advantage remains at about  20%

If you have any questions about WakeupData's CSS solution or what these changes could mean for you, please don't hesitate to get in touch.