Ad Manager FAQs

Find answers to the most frequently asked questions around the Ad Manager self-service tool in zDirect. This article covers insights on conversion and consideration campaigns, budgeting options as well as reporting.

1. Visit zDirect (Zalando partner login. Feel free to bookmark this link).

2. Click on Activate in the Marketing module. You will receive a confirmation email within 24 hours.

3. If you can’t access the Ad Manager after receiving email confirmation that your set up was successful, please get in touch with your consultant or submit a request to us via the support form.

4. Once logged in, you will find the Ad Manager in the Marketing module.

After you have requested the activation of the Ad Manager in zDirect, the tool activation takes 24 hours. You'll receive a confirmation email letting you know whether the activation was successful, or if further steps need to be taken. 

The self-service tool is free to use. The only cost you'll need to consider is your marketing budget for your campaigns. 

Sponsored Products: 

• For Partner Program Partners, we recommend investing minimum 7% of your sales target (in NMV) or 12% for high growth targets/stock pressure/during sales events.

• For Wholesale Partners, we recommend investing a minimum of 7 to 10% of your Zalando Order Budget per season.

In addition, we recommend that the daily budget is more than 35 EUR per market, with a campaign runtime of 3-4 weeks for optimal results.

Sponsored Collections: 

We recommend investing around 5.000 EUR per market per week with a minimum of 3 weeks campaign run time.

Ad Manager campaigns are set up and run by you. You have full control of the campaign and can adjust and change the settings at any time. 

The Managed Service campaigns are campaigns set up and managed by your ZMS Consultant. To request access to the performance insights of Managed Service campaigns, please reach out to your ZMS consultant. 

Boost conversion by increasing your article visibility in the Zalando catalogue, product detail pages as well as product pages, to drive more sales. Increase your assortment sales and acquire new customers by either boosting your overall assortment with Dynamic Sponsored Products or promoting specific products with Selected Sponsored Products.

Articles which are not eligible for promotion will not be promoted, for example articles with low stock availability. Regularly review your Article listing overview in zDirect to ensure optimal performance of your campaigns.

The campaign automatically stops promoting the articles which are out of stock.

Dynamic Sponsored Products: If your articles are eligible, newly added articles will be automatically promoted. 

Selected Sponsored Products: As this type of campaign only promotes articles curated by you, you will need to add them to your campaign to be promoted.

There is no budget limit, you can invest as much as you want. Find more detailed information around budgeting in the article linked below.

Global Budget campaign: The algorithm behind the Global Budget option will automatically adjust your budget according to the performance in a specific market. 

Country Budgets campaigns: You can distribute the budget across countries equally or consider market size as orientation for your initial budget set up, and adjust the budget according to the campaign performance after around 5 days, once enough insights are gathered. 

The Ad Manager has an integrated control mechanism to balance the budget and avoid rapid spending.  

Either within dedicated rows on the respective Zalando catalogue pages or on product-based placements such as the product detail pages (PDP). For more detailed information please refer to the article linked below.

Only one SKU will appear on the first Zalando catalogue page.

When setting up a Global Budget campaign you define a total budget for all markets in which the campaign is going to run. To achieve optimised results, the algorithm is automatically distributing the budget along the campaign runtime based on the performance.

For the Country Budget campaign, you manually define a specific maximum budget for each market.

Yes, you have full flexibility to choose in which markets your campaign will run. 

The algorithm behind the Global Budget option will automatically adjust your budget according to the performance in a specific market. Therefore this feature is specifically helpful for campaigns running in several markets. 

In general we recommend Global Budget campaigns as the algorithm will automatically adjust your budget according to the performance in a specific market. This makes sure your campaign is optimised and achieves the best possible results. 

Country Budget campaigns are ideal for setting country-level budget limits, especially when you have predefined maximum budgets per country or wish to select market-specific campaign runtimes.

To monitor your campaign performance by market, click on the campaign listed in the Campaign breakdown, and access the detailed view. Then, scroll down to the breakdown section and select by Country. This allows you to track campaign delivery and results at the country level, including daily insights into budget usage and performance per market. We recommend reviewing this regularly to optimise your results.

Yes, you can adjust, pause, stop or continue your Sponsored Products campaigns at all times. This freedom also applies to budgeting for your campaigns. For example: Consider extending the runtime of your campaign, if there is budget left when the campaign is supposed to end.    

No, our algorithm is balancing market level budgets across all selected markets. For optimal campaign performance overall, it also leverages performance opportunities in smaller markets.

Yes, you can pause the campaign for one market, while the other markets continue to run. In this case, the budget is further distributed only to markets in which the campaign is active.  

Sponsored Collections amplify brand visibility through strategic homepage placements, including teasers and carousels. Designed to drive the consideration phase, they consistently deliver strong performance across key KPIs.

Yes, the Collection you created with the Ad Manager in zDirect will also be visible on your Brand Home. The Collection will remain visible in your Brand Home, even after the campaign has ended. 

To un-publish the Collection, simply log into the Brand Home content management system (CMS) and adjust accordingly in the Collection tab.

Yes, it is possible to enhance WHS Collections in the Ad Manager. While you cannot create a Collection in zDirect using WHS articles directly, you can import pre-existing Collections with WHS articles from your Brand Home to zDirect.

• Generally, partners split their budgets between two channels, App (70%) and Web (30%). 

• If your campaign is over performing in a specific channel, you can choose to increase the budget in this specific channel for your next campaign. 

• We also recommend to select multiple markets and see how your Collections are performing in each market to adapt your investment strategy for your next campaign.

• We also recommend a minimum daily investment of 150 EUR per market for optimal results. 

• Additionally, we suggest running a campaign for around 3 weeks, in order to allow the algorithm to gather sufficient data for better optimisation of your campaigns over time.

Our smart algorithm ranks your SKUs in the Collection teaser on the Zalando Homepage to ensure maximum performance. 

We highly recommend running collection campaigns featuring your best-selling or discounted SKUs prior to sales events. 

This strategy allows you to familiarise our customers with your assortment before advertising it, which in turn boosts the effectiveness of your conversion campaign. 

Furthermore, running both campaigns simultaneously is an excellent way to drive traffic to your sponsored articles and convert new customers. In your consideration campaign, emphasise your most popular items to create visibility and interest, while promoting a broader range of products in your catalogue.

You can find this information in the Campaign breakdown within the Ad Manager. The Managed By column displays by ZMS, if the campaign is set up by the ZMS team. Self-service campaigns set up by your organisation will state You in the Managed By column.

All KPIs and their definitions can be found on the Glossary page, which is easily accessible directly in the Campaign breakdown. Additionally, you can hover over a KPI name in the top row in order to see how it is defined. You can also download the report, all KPIs are defined in the glossary. 

In order to evaluate your campaigns impact, it’s crucial to understand the relevance of different metrics for different campaign types. 

• For Consideration campaigns, KPIs such as Engagement (incl. PDP Views, Add to Wishlist, and Add to Cart metrics) are particularly relevant. 

• For Conversion campaigns, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and sold items  are specifically important.   

You can download a report containing all your campaigns directly from the Campaign breakdown overview after accessing the Ad Manager by clicking the Download button in the left corner beneath the overview.

Please note, filters you might have set up in the Campaign breakdown overview page, will not be reflected in the download. 

To download a detailed report on a specific campaign, please find the campaign in the Campaign breakdown and click on it to display further details. Then scroll down and click the Download button in the left corner beneath the overview.

Utilise the Channel type filter in the Campaign breakdown overview page to display only Offsite or Onsite campaigns. Offsite campaigns are also clearly marked in the Campaign type column.

Cost per click (CPC) model: we charge based on the number of clicks generated by the campaign, every time a user clicks on your Sponsored Product Ad.

The Cost per Click is a dynamic pricing model and varies depending on e.g. competition, category or country. In your daily campaign reporting within the Ad Manager you will see an average CPC overall, per country or on product/article level.

Cost per view (CPV) model: we charge based on the number of views generated by the campaign, every time the Ad is displayed on the home page.

Partners will be charged based on the campaign budget spent on a monthly basis.  It's important to note that discounts apply exclusively to the final monthly invoice on account level.

The administrator can give access to any colleagues. Access is organised on a merchant/supplier level, so the colleague must have access to the merchants that they need to see reports of.

Find further information and a detailed step by step guide linked below.

• • Article
  • Login required

  Managing user profiles on zDirect

• Managing user profiles on zDirect

  Downloadable PDF for Wholesale Partners.

Discover more details by downloading the Ad Manager partner guide from the download section on the left.