Google Introduces Automatic Item Updates For PLAs

Up to now, Google has systematically disapproved product listing ads when retailers had price or inventory variances between their product feed and the microdata on their sites. Now, to help retailers maintain consistent visibility in PLAs, Google has launched “automatic item updates” in AdWords. When merchants enable automatic item updates, Google will update the price […]

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Up to now, Google has systematically disapproved product listing ads when retailers had price or inventory variances between their product feed and the microdata on their sites. Now, to help retailers maintain consistent visibility in PLAs, Google has launched “automatic item updates” in AdWords.

When merchants enable automatic item updates, Google will update the price and inventory availability displayed in PLAs rather than disapproving ads when there a discrepancy is found. The item updates in PLAs will remain until product data gets updated.

Is it a guarantee your ads will show? Not exactly. Google says, “Merchants who have participated in the beta have seen a 50% reduction in price-related item disapprovals.” But that’s still an improvement.

Before enabling automatic item updates, retailers need to implement schema.org microdata on their sites. Here is more info on setting up microdata for Google Shopping.

Retailers making regular feed updates, take note:

Accurate and frequent data feed updates are still critical to ensure great results for shoppers. If many of your products are updated several times per day, we suggest using the Content API in addition to setting up automatic item updates.

More information is available at the help center here.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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