Last fall, Google introduced local product listing ads, which it is now calling “local inventory ads”, in the U.S. This week Google officially announced support for local inventory ads in the UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia. These are product listing ads (PLAs) from nearby retailers shown with a local pin icon. After clicking on […]
The latest AdWords Editor is now available for download. Version 10.6 supports Google’s mobile app install ad campaigns announced earlier this year. Advertisers can create app install ads and manage campaigns in Editor, but will need to create any new app install campaigns in the AdWords. A couple of changes for Shopping campaigns include the […]
Today, Google announced it is extending its popular product listing ads (PLAs) to retail and e-commerce sites across the Google Search Network. The ads are served via a new Google product called AdSense for Shopping, which offers retail and e-commerce sites another way to monetize site traffic while expanding the reach of advertisers’ PLAs. It […]
The Ad Preview and Diagnostics Tool in Bing Ads now allows advertisers to preview how their ads will look on mobile devices and find out why their product ads aren’t running. A new Product Ads tab in the tool includes a “reason for not showing” column with specific causes such as low quality score, low […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Launches Xiaolce Chinese Chatbot With Cortana Smarts For Windows Phone After taking its Windows Phone 8.1 with Cortana to China last month, Bing announced today the launch of XiaoIce (“little […]
Google has been running several experiments on the way it displays product listing ads (PLAs) in the search results. We’ve seen ads grouped in pricing buckets, PLAs showing in knowledge panels, and now, PLAs segmented by brand. While researching Chromebooks, Samuel Edwards at Tenthwave Digital saw the result below which groups product listing ads by […]
Tick tock, we’re in the final countdown before the big transition from traditional product listing ad (PLA) campaigns to Shopping Campaigns in Google AdWords at the end of the month. Considering PLAs now can account for 40 percent or more of a merchant’s paid search traffic, getting the switch done right and the new campaigns […]
With Product Listing Ad campaigns coming to an end this month, Adwords has launched a new tool to help users upgrade their PLA campaigns to Shopping campaigns in what it claims is just a, “…matter of clicks.” According to the announcement: [blockquote cite=”Google AdWords”]This tool creates a Shopping campaign from your regular PLA campaign, with […]
Spotted in a test back in May, product ratings and reviews are officially rolling out on Google Product Listing Ads as of today — just weeks ahead of the full transition to Shopping Campaigns. Available in the U.S. only for now, consumers will begin to see the 5-star rating system appear on PLAs on Google […]
Marin Software has added support for Google Shopping Campaigns, which will become the only way to manage Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in AdWords beginning in late August. The dynamic campaigns tool in the Marin platform automates Shopping Campaign creation and optimization. Advertisers can automate bid strategies, based a number of targets such as product-specific revenue […]
After slowing down after the holiday season, U.S. paid search performance metrics are up both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2014 according to RKG’s quarterly report. Ad spend rose 23 percent year-over-year among RKG’s retail-heavy client base. Both Google and Bing saw spend increases. Non-Brand Search Trends Overall spend on Google rose 24 percent year-over-year. […]
Global paid search investment continued its rise through the first half of 2014, according to Covario’s latest quarterly analysis of search spend. Overall spend among the firm’s clients rose 21 percent in the second quarter year-over-year, and 2 percent over the first quarter of 2014. Mobile search spend nearly doubled, rising 98 percent year-over-year and […]
This could get interesting. Last month, we saw Google running a test that ranked product listing ads (PLAs) by ratings and reviews in search results. Now, a new test groups and ranks products by price. In the screenshot below, provided by CPC Strategy, PLAs are grouped in two pricing stacks — one for “Up to […]
Roughly a month ahead of the rollover to Shopping Campaigns, Google has released a new version of AdWords Editor that supports the new campaign type. Google announced the old style of PLA campaigns will be shut down at some point in late August. Note that support is limited to editing Shopping Campaigns that are already […]
It’s been a big year so far for product listing ads on both Google and Bing. Google started putting more ads in the Knowledge Graph. Bing followed Google’s lead on combining tablet and desktop traffic. And Google said it would begin stripping paid search queries from referrer strings. Now that we’re halfway through the year, […]
With Shopping Campaigns becoming the default campaign type for running Product Listing Ads on Google by the end of August, the search giant has issued a best practices whitepaper to help marketers make the transition. The main points the paper dives into are product feed optimization and updates, Shopping campaign structure, bidding and mobile recommendations. […]
If you’re running Google Product Listing Ads, it’s time to revisit your feed. Google has updated the feed requirements for Google Shopping with several new attributes as well as some changes to existing content requirements. A new ‘mobile link’ attribute has been added to ensure users are taken to mobile landing pages from their smartphones. […]
The August deadline for converting your Google product listing campaigns (PLA) to the new Shopping Campaigns structure — before Google does it for you — is just a few months away. A new study from CPC Strategy suggests it’s worth making the switch sooner rather than later. CPC Strategy expected to see management efficiencies, but […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing On Links: You Should Never Know In Advance Where A Link Is Coming From Duane Forrester from Microsoft’s Bing team wrote a blog post today on the official Bing Search […]
The team at CPC Strategy spotted a new test in the Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) last night. In a search for coffee grinders that was qualified with “best”, the PLAs were shown in order of a numerical rankings system that appears to be factoring in the quality and quantity of each item’s ratings. In […]
Adchemy made significant inroads in the product search arena in its short time, powering Google Product Listing Ads for brand name customers such as Macy’s, Overstock.com, Finish Line and Walmart. Today, @WalmartLabs, the retailer’s technology lab based in Silicon Valley, announced it is acquiring Adchemy for an undisclosed sum. Adchemy’s technology takes a semantic search […]
Excited that the updated Google Search App for Android will remember where you parked your car? Wait, there’s more! Google Now cards also work offline, malls are gaining indoor map directories and you can now get product search reminders. Earlier today Barry Schwartz wrote that the updated Google Search App for Android will now help you […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: RKG: Q1 US Paid Search Up 17 Percent, Fueled By PLAs; Smartphones Drove Just 7 Percent Of Spend RKG is out with its first quarter Digital Marketing Report today, showing US […]
RKG is out with its first quarter Digital Marketing Report today, showing US paid search spend increased 17 percent year-over-year. This echoes positive Q1 global growth trends reported by Covario (25 percent) and IgnitionOne (8 percent). Mobile devices and product listing ads (PLAs) both drove growth. Paid search spend growth slowed slightly after the holiday-fueled […]
Google introduced Shopping campaigns to all advertisers running Product Listing Ads (PLAs) in February as a way to simplify PLA set up and management. Today, Google announced some new features that have been rolling out in response to advertiser feedback, and they laid out the succession plan for Shopping campaigns to take over legacy PLA […]
After months of testing, Product Ads are now available through Bing Ads in the U.S. Like AdWords Product Listing Ads (PLA), Bing’s version are powered by merchant product feeds. The ads display on the Yahoo Bing Network for commerce-related searches and feature a product image, title, price and merchant name. Also similar to the Google […]
Google continues to experiment with Google Shopping displays beyond the traditional thumbnail box panel of Product Listing Ads. This latest version is larger than the sponsored result spotted earlier this month for the book “Don’t Make Me Think”. Found by Twitter user Britney Muller of Pryde Marketing, the sponsored result for “Nest thermostats” — now […]
Google has launched the API for the new Google Shopping Campaign type for managing product listing ads (PLAs). The API is available to agencies and third-party platforms to facilitate large-scale implementations. Google Shopping Campaigns came out of beta last month and are available globally. The new campaign type is meant to make the process of […]
Is there a long tail in PLAs? Does it pay off for retailers to advertise all of their products in their Google product listing ad (PLA) campaigns? Or should they stay focused on top sellers and high margin items? Sitting on a trove of data from large scale Google Shopping campaigns, a team at PLA […]
Google keeps testing new ways to inject ads into its Knowledge Graph. SEOBook’s Aaron Wall spotted an ad appearing in a stand-alone panel that replicates the look of (and is shown above) the organic Knowledge Graph. so now Google moves some of the knowledge graph results down the page to throw a duplicate ad graph […]
Google announced Monday that Channel Intelligence’s feed management and optimization capabilities will integrate with the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite. Performics is piloting the integration for “a major retail client”. “We’re really excited to team with Channel Intelligence and DoubleClick Search to optimize and fully integrate the search experience for our retail brands,” says Eric Papczun, […]
Google began testing Shopping campaigns with a limited set of advertisers last year with the aim of streamlining the often cumbersome task of Product Listing Ad management. Today, after just over a 3-month beta period, Google is rolling out Shopping campaigns to all users globally. Google Shopping campaigns give users access to inventory and product […]
In a sign of where its focus lies and the growing importance of PLAs in the search ecosystem, today Google is introducing the DoubleClick Search Commerce Suite, what it calls “a smarter, faster, product-centric layer to search management”. The Commerce Suite is comprised of two new capabilities: 1. Dynamic Product Listing Ads creation is an […]
The Search Agency released its Quarterly State of Paid Search Report today with Q4 performance data among its client set that spans several industries with global spend. The report shows paid search spend rose 37.4 percent year-over-year. Mobile Growth Drives Higher CPCs The Search Agency has reported rising CPCs for several quarters now including large […]
Yesterday, we got an early preview of the first case study Google will publish on the use of estimated cross-device conversions in AdWords. It features 1-800-Flowers and also addresses the company’s use of click-to-call. When Google first announced the release of estimated cross-device conversions in October, it seemed to be received with a collective shrug. […]
RKG has released its Q4 2013 Digital Marketing Report, and as other reports have indicated, paid search saw solid year-over-year growth in the holiday quarter. Paid search spend among RKG’s retail-heavy client set rose 23 percent year-over-year. Overall click volume increased 19 percent, and CPCs ticked up just 3 percent. Google Brand CPCs Fall […]
It’s probably not too surprising to hear that retailers have doubled their year-over-year spend on Google product listing ads this holiday season thus far. After all, the paid format of Google Shopping had just rolled out in the fall of 2012. What is stunning, however, is the four-fold increase in revenue that retailers have realized […]
While Google’s switch to paid Product Listing Ads for Google Shopping has proven wildly successful, growth has likely been hindered by the fact that setting up and managing Product Listing Ad campaigns for Google Shopping has been plagued with complexity. Today, Google announced a new campaign type called Shopping Campaigns designed to make it easier […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Expands International Targeting In AdWords Google has tweaked how location targeting works for international searches. It’s a change that allows ads to be seen across countries, not just within countries, […]
Google rolled out product listing ads (PLAs) on mobile devices in March. Now the company has launched an updated display for PLAs on smartphones that allows more products to be displayed from the search results page. Users can swipe to see more PLAs from their smartphones. Google also enlarged the product images and product titles […]