Search Engine Land is your source for Google Shopping ads news and content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions.
Google Shopping Ads are a powerful tool for ecommerce businesses, enabling retailers to showcase their products prominently and drive high-intent traffic. Search Engine Land provides actionable insights to help you optimize your campaigns and maximize return on ad spend (ROAS).
Learn how to create compelling product feeds, look for trends, and leverage GPT to improve your performance. Stay informed on platform updates, such as new ad formats and features, audience targeting enhancements, and tools for improving product data quality.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies. Our goal is to simplify complex concepts and provide clear, actionable steps that can help you achieve measurable results with Google Shopping ads.
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Building out Product Listing Ad campaigns in Google AdWords with single product or single SKU ad groups has become a fairly common practice. The idea being that isolating each product into its own ad group gives advertisers more control over which item gets served for a given query and enables faster product-level performance analysis and […]
Today, Google is making public what several speakers at SMX East alluded to last week: local availability for Product Listing Ads. The latest iteration of Google’s wildly successful Product Listing Ads, which will be referred to simply “Local PLAs” in this article, are currently available to a select set of US based retailers such as […]
The August Same Store Sales report from ChannelAdvisor shows that the 7.7 percent growth from Comparison Shopping Engines was driven by the product listing ads (PLAs) that power Google Shopping. Search (traditional AdWords text ads) saw just a slight uptick in growth at 0.2% in August. Both channels grew more slowly than comScore’s overall ecommerce […]
Today, Marin Software release a new study that finds Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) continue to see increased adoption among retailers. According to the study, over one billion products were being promoted through PLAs as of May 2013. PLA impression share, when compared to text ads, has slowed some since its holiday season peak in […]
CPC Strategy’s latest Shopping Comparison Engine report shows Google’s grip on the market only tightened in Q2. Across performance metrics, Google PLAs (product listing ads) continue to outperform other CSEs by wide margins. For example, in Q1, Shopping.com, Pricegrabber and Amazon Product Ads all drove roughly half the traffic of Google PLAs. In Q2, the […]
This is important for all merchants running Google product listing ads to note, but the timing makes it particularly key for advertisers running back-to-school or summer blow-out promotions. As we previously reported, Google announced new specifications for Google Shopping product feeds. The key change was the addition of the unique product identifier (UPI) for custom […]
Eagle eyes over at RKG spotted a new AdWords test that gives even more real estate to Google’s successful Product Listing Ads. In a screenshot captured by RKG on July 15th and posted by paid search analyst, Nick Bremenstul, an expansion arrow displays below the typical display of five PLAs. Upon clicking the expansion arrow, the […]
On June 11th, Google Shopping will complete the global transition to the pay-for-play model that was introduced in the U.S. last fall. Advertisers in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic will need to run Product Listing Ads to promote their products on Google Shopping. […]
Google announced changes to the Google Shopping Feed Specification today. Here is a review of the updates and deadlines to be aware of: Products Without Unique Identifiers In the biggest change, Google has added the ‘identifier exists’ attribute for merchants selling custom goods and other products that don’t have unique identifiers like brand names or MPN codes. In categories […]
AdWords product extensions will soon be heading off into the sunset. They are leaving quietly, too. Brad Geddes noticed the announcement in the AdWords agency newsletter, but no other formal notification has been communicated to advertisers. Product extensions will disappear from the campaign set-up flow on May 20th. Google eventually let product extensions be outrun […]
The momentum of Google’s PLA program didn’t slow after the holidays. After seeing Google Product Listing Ad traffic jump 82% in Q1 over Q4, CPC Strategy followed up its latest quarterly review of top CSEs with a closer look. The agency hadn’t been surprised to see the 87% increase in PLA traffic in Q4 over […]
Are those sweet efficiencies early adopters of AdWords product listing ads saw in their holiday numbers coming to an end? Well, CPCs are rising, but ROI is still solid. RKG’s Q1 Digital Marketing Report finds that as more merchants come on board, product listing ad CPCs are now just 10% lower than comparable text ads. […]
Google Commerce has released Google Shopper 3.2, an updated version of its app that includes category-specific refinements for improved search results. When searching for products, users can now filter their results by brand, store, price and other options, as well as view detailed product information, read product reviews, watch video reviews from YouTube, and see […]
Google has announced on its Commerce blog that product listing ads (PLAs) are now showing on smartphones in all markets that currently serve PLAs. To be eligble to run on smartphones, product listing ad campaigns must be upgraded to enhanced. Below are two screenshots of how the ads are appearing:
Had a bad experience purchasing from an online merchant? Google says it wants to protect searchers from that, and it may crackdown later this year with changes intended to prevent bad merchants from ranking well. The news came during the “How to Rank Better in Google & Bing” session that I moderated yesterday at the […]
Marketers outside the U.S. have continued to enjoy free shopping traffic from Google, despite the search giant’s big change to convert all results to paid listing ads in its home country. But that’s beginning to change for folks in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech […]
A new report from CPC Strategy looks at how Google Shopping fared against its rival, Amazon Product Ads, after making the switch to a commercial model in Q3 last year. The analysis finds its performance changed significantly compared to Amazon Product Ads, and provides further evidence that the move bolstered Google Shopping. Surge In Traffic […]
Google has acquired retail feed management provider Channel Intelligence (not to be confused with Channel Advisor) for $125 million. The company counts major brands and retailers among its clients. Channel Intelligence (CI) offers a range of services built around data management and product feed optimization. It lists Target, Philips, HP, Neiman Marcus and Best Buy […]
The Google Shopping gamble paid off – for both Google and e-commerce advertisers who ran product listing ad campaigns last quarter. A report from Adobe and a study by RKG each highlighted consumer interest and advertiser opportunity in Google product listing ads. Today, Marin Software released findings showing that, after the transition of Google Shopping […]
Where are the bargains in paid search these days? According to an analysis of the fourth quarter in paid search, Adobe determined that both tablet targeting and product listing ads represent great opportunities for marketers, where there’s a substantial gap between cost-per-click (CPC) and conversion rate. Adobe came to its conclusions after looking at paid […]
Bing has been escalating its attacks against Google Shopping over consumer transparency since launching its “Scroogled” campaign just over a week ago. Well, consumer confusion is a serious issue. Indeed, Bing itself can be used to illustrate some of the problems consumers face at both Bing and Google. The day after Bing’s campaign launched, I […]
Bing is attacking Google over its shift to a pay-for-play shopping search engine through a new “Scroogled” site, pledging that Bing has “honest search.” Great campaign, if it were true. It’s not. Bing itself does the same things it accuses Google of. It’s also another indictment of how little the FTC is doing to protect […]
As consumers prepare to get serious about their holiday shopping, Google is introducing new features to its pay-for-play Shopping search engine, including 360 degree product images, deals and discounts, and a collaborative shopping list. 360 Degree Views Start With Toys The company has started its effort to get 360 degree images of products with the […]
One of the things Google promised by moving Google Shopping to the pay-to-play model for merchants was how much the experience was going to improve for shoppers. If that’s the case, I’m sure not seeing it. Come on a little tour. Amazon Don’t Play That Game The new system began on October 17. Perhaps the most striking change […]
After last month’s major change to Google Shopping, making the service solely pay-for-play, the company is exploring ways for affiliates to participate via Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in the US. Google Shopping has been testing ways of working with affiliates for nearly six months in alpha and is now opening up the beta to additional […]
Now that Google’s new pay-for-play Shopping is in full swing (the changeover took place October 17), the company used its earnings call to share thoughts on its success thus far, and its future vision for the product. Additionally, Google execs came out with some tidbits about the status and future of other elements of its […]
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 […]
Google Catalogs, a service that Google resuscitated last year on tablets, is coming to the web as part of Google Shopping. Actually, “coming back to the web” might be more accurate. Google offered catalog search on the web as early as 2001, and then abandoned it in 2009 due to low usage. The new version […]
Google’s decision to eliminate free product listings in favor of paid Product Listing Ads (PLAs) for Google Shopping has reverberated through the ecommerce world. One consequence: online marketplace Etsy has decided to pay for its U.S. sellers’ products to be listed in PLAs through the rest of the year. The ecommerce company, known for facilitating […]
As Google shifts its Shopping search to a pay-for-play model, one key commerce company appears to be sitting on the sidelines — Amazon. As noted in a New York Times feature that ran over the weekend, consumers who search on Google Shopping can find Kindles from a variety of stores via the listings, but Amazon isn’t […]
Google has begun notifying merchants that it won’t allow them to continue to listing weapons-related items for sale in Google Shopping. Searches in Google Shopping for things like “pistol grip shotgun” (above), “gun scopes,” “shotgun shells” and many other terms are leading to a results page that says the term “did not match any shopping […]
Google has been testing its Trusted Stores seal program since October of 2011, and now the program is opening up to all U.S. merchants with a self-service sign-up interface. Merchants who participate will have a “Trusted Stores” badge — which opens to provide information about the company’s shipping and customer service record — appear beside their […]
In an effort to expand the kind of information available to online shoppers via its Trusted Stores program, Google has acquired the technology and certain assets of KikScore, a trust seal company serving mostly small businesses. The cost of the intellectual property acquisition wasn’t disclosed. According to a post on KikScore’s site, the standalone service […]
A few days after Google upended the ecommerce marketing world with the announcement of upcoming changes to what will now be called Google Shopping, many retailers and marketers we spoke with are positive about the switch, though there are definitely some serious concerns. You’d think taking a product from free to paid would cause an […]
Google Product Search is getting a new name, Google Shopping, and a new business model where only merchants that pay will be listed. It’s the first time Google will decommission a search product that previously listed companies for free. The company says the change will improve the searcher experience, but it will also likely raise […]
Shoppers using Google Product Search are sometimes being misled by incorrect tax and shipping information in search results. And that’s despite Google’s recent crackdown on merchants who either omit tax and shipping details, or list false/incorrect data in their product feeds. Back on March 14th, Google announced new rules for Product Search merchants. Among those […]
Google’s new Product Search home page is very un-Googley. Dare I say that it actually looks … stylish? It’s dominated by an oversized image area that changes through a series of five different products. There are short text descriptions for each on the left of the images, and then a couple rows of featured products […]
Google has posted a reminder that the updates to the Google Product search feeds is just around the corner. If you do not update your product feeds with the new guidelines by September 22nd, Google may suspend your account. Google said: As we announced in July, the new Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies […]
Google Operating System Blog discovered a new feature to be released by Google named “Google Trusted Stores.” The landing page for this feature will be at google.com/trustedstores but it is currently not live. There was a video that was released today that was just made private. The video was shared on Google Operating System Blog […]
Google has partnered with a variety of catalog merchants to launch its next-generation catalog search as an iPad application (with an Android version “coming soon”). The app launches with products from Anthropologie, L.L. Bean, Land’s End, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Pottery Barn, Sephora, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma, among others. This isn’t Google’s first crack […]