Google Gears Up To Recruit Merchants For Pay-For-Play Shopping In Advance Of Holiday Season

Oct 2, 2012 at 6:35pm ET by Pamela Parker

As the crucial holiday etailing season approaches, Google is pulling out all the stops to get merchants on board to the new pay-for-play Google Shopping.

Today, the company announced that it will switch to all paid listings as of October 17. Previously, Google product results were fueled by product feeds provided by merchants, at no charge. Back in May, the company announced Shopping results would come from paid Product Listing Ads (PLAs) only, citing a need for more reliable and up-to-date data.

With this milestone approaching, the company is pushing educational opportunities to get merchants to adopt PLAs. Additionally, it’s introducing new optimization tools in response to user requests.

Marketers can now set their cost-per-click bids, and optimize, at the individual product level, allowing for more control. Additionally, advertisers can now create product targets using the product ID in their Merchant Center feed.

Google is encouraging people to reach out to them at the SMX East conference going on in New York City this week, and attend sessions covering the new features and changes. Additionally, Google has put together a Google Shopping best practices guide and an optimization video. Google will also host a “Hangout” on October 19 at 10 a.m. PST covering bidding strategies for the holidays.

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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Deepak Negi

This is a big shocking news for all Google Merchant lovers and users. Where can I get the pricing system for this paid service?
http://www.nathanielbailey.co.uk/ Nathaniel Bailey

Its CPC mate, here you go http://www.google.com/ads/shopping/getstarted.html#tab=tab-3 if you read the links provided in the above article you will find all the information you need :)
http://bhotmedia.blogspot.com/ Brandon Heate

Has it not been this way for some time now?
http://bhotmedia.blogspot.com/ Brandon Heate

Has it not been this way for some time now?
DesignHousemia

Will changing the rules of the CPC also affect rates drastically?