Google testing mobile Shop the Look ads for apparel & home products

Google is mixing up the mobile shopping experience in search again with a new format called shop the look. The mobile format is designed to appear on broad queries like “wedding outfit” and bring shoppable looks from bloggers to the search results.

Looks are sourced from a network of partners, including LIKEtoKNOW.it, Curalate and Yahoo-owned Polyvore. The example below shows a result on a search for”cocktail attire”. The first image features a look pulled from LIKEtoKNOW.it. After clicking on a look, users will see product listing ads (with “featured” labels) for the exact or similar products included in the image.

The product listing ads are powered by Shopping campaigns in the same way they are for other product ad formats, with attributes included in a seller’s product feed matched to search queries. To be eligible for shop the look ads, sellers must have their Shopping campaign optimized for mobile. Advertisers pay only when a user clicks on a product listing ad.

Google continues to experiment with ways to get more out of its successful Shopping campaigns — Showcase Shopping ads that debuted this summer, appear on broad product searches like “black jeans” or “summer dresses” — and hopping on the shop-the-look bandwagon makes a lot of sense. Visual-driven sites that enable shoppable search have proven popular with brands and consumers. At one point, Polyvore said the average basket size across its retail partners was over $383. Yahoo acquired Polyvore last year. More than 800 brands and retailers use Curalate‘s visual commerce platform, according to the company. And, of course, the power of visuals is Pinterest’s raison d’etre that’s enabled it to amass an audience of over 100 million monthly active users — and compete with Google in product and image search.

For now, the shop the look test is running in the US only.