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

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.