# Redbrain Connect: The CSS Dashboard That Shows Every Sale > Redbrain Connect shows every product and search behind your Google Shopping sales, with auction insights, category benchmarks and a Q4 forecast. **Author:** Redbrain Team **Published:** 2026-10-26 **Updated:** 2026-10-26 **Canonical:** https://www.redbrain.com/resources/insights/redbrain-connect-css-performance-dashboard/ --- Every retailer who works with a Shopping partner eventually asks the same question: what exactly am I paying for? A single sales figure can't answer it. It tells you a partner sold something. It doesn't tell you which products, which searches, or whether those were sales you'd have made anyway through your own campaigns. That's the question [Redbrain Connect](/product-level-reporting) was built to answer. It's the reporting dashboard every Redbrain partner uses, and it shows our results product by product and search by search, with auction insights alongside. Here's what it gives you, and how to use it before Black Friday on 27 November. ## From reporting to Redbrain Connect Redbrain Connect launched on **11 September 2024**, evolving Redbrain's earlier reporting with new features, **benchmarking metrics** and **auction insights**. Those additions changed what partners can see. Reporting tells you what happened. Auction insights tell you whether Redbrain added coverage or overlapped with your own ads. Benchmarks tell you how your results compare with other retailers in your category. Redbrain Connect has now reported two full peak seasons, Black Friday 2024 and Black Friday 2025. It isn't a new tool arriving just before peak; it's the one our partners have already used to plan, trade and review two of them. ## What Redbrain Connect shows ### 1. Performance at a glance The performance page opens on the three numbers that matter: sales value, clicks and impressions, each with its change against the previous period. Below them, the top search terms and top products, each with its sales and conversion rate. A channel breakdown splits sales value, cost per sale, clicks and impressions between Google and Microsoft Shopping, so you can see what each one delivers. Filter by market, date range and currency, and export any table as a CSV. ### 2. Auction insights: added coverage or overlap? This is the part most partner dashboards leave out, and it's the one that answers "am I paying for sales I'd have made anyway?" Redbrain Connect takes all the searches where your products could have shown and gives you one overall split, in four parts: - **Redbrain only:** searches where only Redbrain's listing appeared. This is the extra reach. - **Both showing together:** searches where Redbrain and your own campaigns both appeared. - **Your other activity:** searches your own campaigns covered without Redbrain. - **Competitors:** searches where neither of you showed. This is the clearest room to grow. For the searches where you both appear, it then shows **who ranked higher**. When your own ad usually takes the top spot, Redbrain is adding a second listing on the page, not taking your place. ![Redbrain Connect's auction insights: the auction pool split into Redbrain only, both showing, the retailer's other activity and competitors, beside who ranks higher when both ads show](../../assets/resources/insight-redbrain-connect-auction-insights.webp) *Auction insights in Redbrain Connect. Demo account, sample data.* In 2025, 44% of Redbrain's activity across our partner base sat outside partners' existing marketing. Where both listings did appear, the retailer's own campaign took the higher position 91% of the time, so Redbrain sits beneath your ad rather than taking its place. Redbrain Connect lets you check those figures for your own account. If you see overlap you don't want, tell us: you can agree what we stay away from, such as brand terms or hero lines, or restrict us to [dormant products](/dormant-product-revival) that get no impressions in your own campaigns. ### 3. Benchmarks against your category Your numbers mean more next to someone else's. Redbrain Connect places four metrics on a scale against other retailers in your category: - **Commission rate** - **Click-through rate** - **Conversion rate** - **Order cancellation rate** The further right your marker sits, the more of your peers you're ahead of. ![Redbrain Connect's benchmarking metrics: commission rate, click-through rate, conversion rate and order cancellation rate, each on a red-to-green scale against other retailers in the category](../../assets/resources/insight-redbrain-connect-benchmarks.webp) *Benchmarking metrics in Redbrain Connect. Demo account, sample data.* A strong conversion rate with a low commission rate, for example, is a sign there's room to scale: the products convert, and a higher rate would let Redbrain bid for more of the auctions they could win. ### 4. Insights in full, not a top-25 list The insights page breaks results down by **search term, brand, product type** and **product**, plus a **price comparison** view. Each breakdown shows clicks, impressions and sales, and runs to every row, not a shortlist. Every search term Redbrain bids on is there, so you can see which searches bring the sales and which don't. ### 5. Price comparison against Google Price is one of the biggest reasons a Shopping ad wins or loses. Redbrain Connect shows what share of your products are **cheaper, similar or more expensive** than other sellers on Google, overall and brand by brand, and which products sit closest to and furthest from the Google price. Before Black Friday, that's a quick way to spot the lines that will struggle against sharper discounts, before they cost you clicks. ### 6. Forecasts, including Q4 Redbrain Connect forecasts sales value, orders, impressions and clicks from your recent results. The **Q4 forecast** covers October to December, and its **commission slider** shows how each of those four figures could grow at a higher rate, so you can see the potential sales before you decide. ![Redbrain Connect's Q4 forecast: a commission slider moved up to 20%, above forecasts for sales value, orders, impressions and clicks from October to December, each showing its expected growth](../../assets/resources/insight-redbrain-connect-q4-forecast.webp) *The Q4 forecast in Redbrain Connect. Demo account, sample data.* Forecasts are estimates, not promises. Feed quality, stock, pricing, promotions and competitor activity all move the result. What the forecast gives you is a clear view of the trade-off before you commit to a rate for peak. ### 7. A Monday email, and nothing to remember You don't need to log in to keep track. Every partner gets a performance update by email first thing every Monday morning. Redbrain Connect is available in several languages, and it's included for every retailer Redbrain works with at no extra cost. ## Why transparency wins While many CSS providers run as a black box, Redbrain gave Boden full keyword and product-level visibility. Boden's team used it to monitor brand bidding, adjust which products went into the feed, and feed insights straight into their own PPC reporting. That campaign won Gold for Best Paid Search Campaign at the 2026 Performance Marketing Awards. The judges described it as "transforming a typically opaque channel into a transparent, incremental growth engine". [Read the Boden case study](/resources/case-studies/boden-impact-redbrain-reviving-zombie-products-with-css/). A Shopping partner should be able to show you exactly what you're paying for. Redbrain Connect does: every product and every search term, with auction insights and benchmarks against your category, with a forecast for peak and an email every Monday. It launched on 11 September 2024 and has reported two Black Fridays since. If you're already a partner, [log in to Redbrain Connect](https://redbrainconnect.redbrain.com/) and start your peak planning there.