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How to Tell if Temu is Spending More in Google Ads for Black Friday 2023

How to Tell if Temu is Spending More in Google Ads for Black Friday 2023

10/25/19 UPDATE: Hello Facebook Agency Visitor Person!  We’re delighted to have you visit this awesome post. About a year ago, ZATO stopped offering Facebook Ads solutions so we could focus solely on what we do best: Google Ads. Because of this, we’re always interested in partnerships with great Social Advertising agencies (like yourself, wink wink!) and we offer referral fees for signed clients!  Anyway, back to it, and happy reading…

Post Summary

I know some have talked about Temu in here before, so I wanted to call attention to a post my friend Mike Ryan just shared on LinkedIn.

Here is his post (make sure to give him a follow!):

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mike ryan temu in google ads auctions

Original Post Here

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We've checked a number of our accounts, and thankfully aren't seeing Temu play aggressively for many of our clients yet, but I wanted to share this in case you see them hopping into your auctions. You're not alone apparently, based on Mike's SMEC aggregated data!

How to Tell?

One way you can tell if they're playing in your space, is to look at your auction insights.

google ads auction insights

My favorite way to view that is by checking out one or two competitors in a time series line chart:

google ads line chart

Then you can set it to your preferred timeline as well as metric (I like simple Imp Share to give us an idea of how often our ads show in the same auctions), and remove other competitors to get a more clear picture of who is in your Searches:

google ads auction insights temu line chart

In the above example from one of our client accounts, there is a fairly regular influx of spend Temu has inserted into the auctions, though clearly Amazon is a far greater threat for this particular client.

What To Do About This?

Be aware that in some verticals, Temu is getting suddenly (even more) aggressive in SERPs and this could impact anything from your traffic, to your CPCs, to your CVR.

  • At some level, there is nothing you might be able to do, it just really sucks for existing auctions.
  • On the other hand, it's always worth ensuring your account is optimized as efficiently (or growth focused, based on your goals) as possible and this may cause you to reconsider parts of your account (for instance, more general top of funnel search terms) that may be more expensive than before because of Temu. Perhaps you have to pause certain campaigns or ad groups until after BFCM when Temu hopefully exits the auction again. (My theory is they're making a push solely because of BFCM and they'll pull back on spend after the holiday season is over.  
  • Consider how it's impacting your specific account and determine whether you should stay the course, get more (or less) aggressive on bidding, change up your BFCM offer, test new creative/headlines to connect better with your target audience, and all of the other things to do when a big competitor is getting aggressive in your space.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I also like to think it is helpful for strategy purposes if this does hit your Google Ads account.

I hope that's helpful to you.
Good luck with BFCM, everybody!

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Kirk Williams
@PPCKirk - Owner & Chief Pondering Officer

Kirk is the owner of ZATO, his Paid Search & Social PPC micro-agency of experts, and has been working in Digital Marketing since 2009. His personal motto (perhaps unhealthily so), is "let's overthink this some more."  He even wrote a book recently on philosophical PPC musings that you can check out here: Ponderings of a PPC Professional.

He has been named one of the Top 25 Most Influential PPCers in the world by PPC Hero 6 years in a row (2016-2021), has written articles for many industry publications (including Shopify, Moz, PPC Hero, Search Engine Land, and Microsoft), and is a frequent guest on digital marketing podcasts and webinars.

Kirk currently resides in Billings, MT with his wife, six children, books, Trek Bikes, Taylor guitar, and little sleep.

Kirk is an avid "discusser of marketing things" on Twitter, as well as an avid conference speaker, having traveled around the world to talk about Paid Search (especially Shopping Ads).  Kirk has booked speaking engagements in London, Dublin, Sydney, Milan, NYC, Dallas, OKC, Milwaukee, and more and has been recognized through reviews as one of the Top 10 conference presentations on more than one occasion.

You can connect with Kirk on Twitter or Linkedin.

In 2023, Kirk had the privilege of speaking at the TEDx Billings on one of his many passions, Stop the Scale: Redefining Business Success.

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