Rank tracking for several brands and shops: keeping projects separate

Why one project per brand?

One shared list for all brands feels convenient at first. After a few weeks it falls apart: the average position mixes a strong own brand with a new private label, the export contains rows the client has no business seeing, and nobody remembers which keyword belongs to which range.

• Clean reports: every project gives its own report with its own figures.
• Separate keyword sets: "garden chair" matters to the furniture brand and means nothing to the electronics brand.
• No mixed metrics: a page-1 share of 40 % only means something when it refers to one range.

Name projects so they still make sense in a year

A project name should show whose products are in it without anyone having to ask. A fixed pattern works well:

• Client or company – brand, for example "Sample Ltd – Garden line".
• For a seller with several shops on otto.de: the shop name instead of the brand, if the shops are billed separately.
• No additions such as "new", "test" or a date. They go out of date quickly.

Keep the pattern the same across all projects. In exports and folders the projects then sort themselves.

Which products go into which project?

Not every product of a range needs tracking straight away. Start each project with the bestsellers: the products that make most of the revenue. That is where every position gained is worth most. How to set the order is covered in Bestsellers first: prioritising rank tracking by revenue.

Next come new launches and products you are currently working on. For each product, MarktRank suggests search terms and can track the top five automatically. How many terms per product make sense is explained in the right keyword set for otto.de.

Shared keywords across brands of the same seller

When one seller runs two brands with similar products, the same search terms often end up in both projects. That is correct, as both brands should be found for "ergonomic office chair". It carries a risk, though: your own products compete for the same places on page 1.

For such shared terms, decide which brand is the lead brand for the keyword and compare the positions of both projects side by side. If one rises while the other falls, you are moving visibility around inside your own business rather than gaining it. More on this in keyword cannibalisation on otto.de.

Reporting per project or for the whole account?

For clients and brand managers, report per project: positions, movements and page-1 share of their products, nothing else. With the CSV export of rankings you pull the data per project and build a report that suits the client. What belongs in such a report is described in the monthly ranking report for otto.de.

You need an account-wide view internally: which projects lost many positions this week? Where are checks outstanding? That view is for planning your own work, not for the client.

Who sees what: colleagues and clients

Before you start, agree who works in which project and what the client gets to see. A few rules from agency practice:

1. One responsible person per project who maintains keywords and products.
2. Clients receive the results of their own project, never a list that includes other brands.
3. Changes to the keyword set are noted with a date so later reports stay explainable.

More workflows for agencies are in Rank tracking for agencies. MarktRank only reads public search results and never changes listings or campaigns, client projects included.

Frequently asked questions