Early Holiday Gifts? A Breakdown of Google’s New Shopping Features

At the end of August, Google announced a slew of new Shopping features that should put a sparkle in advertisers’ eyes as Q4 dawns. Those new features include product-specific insights, a Deals content API, conversion value rules for store sales and visits, and shipping and returns annotations.

In this post, we’ll break down the new features, explain which you should be particularly excited to test, and a few best practices to consider.

Let’s jump right in!

A Breakdown of the New Features

Product-specific Insights

The most exciting part about this announcement is that it makes it much easier for us to keep our shopping feeds optimized. Visibility into product performance relative to competitors is very valuable, as it will help us identify the products that need attention most. Google will also provide specific optimization recommendations that may save advertisers time in identifying weak points.

Deals Content API

This feature gives advertisers the ability to upload sale/promotional events in bulk and manage them at a large scale using the Content API tool. This removes a lot of manual work, which is especially welcome going into a busy season, and helps advertisers keep discounts and promotions fresh and current for browsers.

Conversion Value Rules for Store Sales and Visits

This will allow merchants who sell from a physical location to tell Google how valuable a store visit and sale is. Google’s algorithm/AI can then use this information to find users more likely to visit and/or make a purchase inside the store. The feature should lead to business scalability for merchants and should help them get more revenue out of Google’s overall 400% YoY increase in “store open” search volume.

Shipping and Returns Annotations

Estimated shipping arrival dates are a big deal, and that’s come into focus over the last year-plus as supply chain issues have persisted. Users are less likely to go deep into the purchase journey without knowing the estimated delivery window, and giving transparent delivery dates up front can eliminate wasted clicks from users looking for faster delivery times. It’s relatively easy to set this up in the back end as well.

Why You Should Pay Particular Attention to the Conversion Value Rules Update

The Conversion value rules update. Merchants with online and brick-and-mortar shopping options can optimize their online shopping campaigns for both store visits and sale conversion events and give Google more data to work with to find new qualified, interested customers and ultimately scale the merchant’s business. (Online-only brands can obviously opt out of store visit rules).

Beware Steep Learning Curves

If you and your team aren’t yet familiar with the Content API tool, hire a web developer and make sure the team gets the necessary training and information before putting any resources into testing the Deals feature. Learning up front is preferable to testing (and having to troubleshoot) with an unfinished skill set.

A Note on Google’s Shopping Recommendations

Along with the new features listed above, Google has provided recommendations for Performance Max and shopping campaigns, which include: using broad match keywords and smart bidding, editing your Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) headlines and descriptions to cater towards relevant keyword search terms, using your shopping feed in YouTube for Action and Discovery campaigns, and running app campaigns with deep links set up. As always, take these with a grain of salt and assess whether or not they make sense for your campaign goals before setting up tests.

To connect with our team of Online Shopping marketers, reach out to us today!