In the latest news from Google Marketing Live 2019 in San Francisco, big changes are coming to the Google Shopping platform.
In case you’re unaware, Google has spent a long time on top of the digital retail market. In recent years, Amazon introduced advertising platforms that changed that. After spending a long time in their own respective areas of expertise – search and shopping – it seems like Amazon’s foray into advertising has blurred the lines, and put the two titans into competition.
Google made clear during Google Marketing Live that on-boarding new customers was a defined goal.
Though experts are saying that Google may have left things too late to compete with Amazon in the Digital Shopping space. Currently, 66% of American consumers start their search for a new product on Amazon, and this number jumps to 74% if they already know what they are looking for.
To Google’s credit, all it takes is a few big customers to jump from one to the other to completely change the playing field. As an example, WPP PLC switched several hundreds of millions of dollars from Google to Amazon last year. There’s no reason this sort of shift can’t work in Google’s favour – if they can convince major players to move into their corner, with the changes we’re about to cover.
Google Shopping Homepage Overhaul
Google Express was initially a centralised, same-day-delivery shopping service available in select US locations, and originally trialed in San Francisco.
Now, Google Express is becoming the brand-new Google Shopping homepage, with Feed and YouTube integration expected soon.
This means the Google Shopping experience is evolving from one based wholly on search to an individualised homepage made for each user based on their data, including interests, purchases, and search history.
Shopping Actions Planned to Spread
Shopping Actions and Purchase Ads were introduced to us back in March, when Google first pitched the concept of serving ads through Google Image search results. Now, it’s clear that they will appear in standard search results.
This means merchants will be able to buy serve ads directly in Google Search results on Google Assistants or even in YouTube videos – but the kicker is that these ads will allow purchases to be made on the spot.
If anything can help Google capture part of the market, it’s this; to allow users to purchase exactly what they are watching video content about, without stopping the video or navigating away.
If this YouTube integration works well, we can expect those predicting that Google is too late to the race to be wrong, especially considering Amazon’s advertising growth has slowed this year.
Budget Sharing for Brands
It’s well-established that global advertising builds interest in your brand if retail is your bread and butter. If you’re trying to support your product as it sells through retailers on the other side of the world, this can get expensive.
Now, you’ll be able to directly support the campaigns of retailers who carry your stock. This feature is allegedly already in closed beta in France, and will soon roll out to the rest of the world.
Details on applying to join the closed beta can be found here.
Deep Linking In Google Ads
While this isn’t necessarily a brand new announcement, those familiar with the Google Ads platform will be happy to hear the updated details.
As Google publicly opens up Google Analytics for Firebase, SEO specialists will be able to track conversion data much more accurately, directly through the Google Ads UI, without needing to commit time to extra development.
SEO News Straight from the Source
Keep an eye on the Pure SEO blog to keep up to date with all the latest news coming out of Google Marketing Live 2019. You heard it here first!