Shoppers want to make sure that the products they buy will ultimately meet their needs—whether it's the right shade of makeup, or the right design look in their space. In fact, 55% of surveyed online apparel shoppers have returned an item(s) because it looked different on them than they expected.1 Our suite of augmented reality tools give shoppers more insight into how products will look on them, or in their space, helping them ultimately make more confident decisions and helping to reduce overall returns and exchanges.
This spring, we’re helping shoppers shop new, trending products for the season more confidently, with the help of editorial content curated by influencers. Our Spring Try Guide site features items that are trending on Google, as well as curated editorial guides from influencers in key retail categories, like apparel, beauty, home decor, and footwear—driving excitement and increased traffic to brands in these categories. We’ll highlight our shopping experiences, like AR try-on for beauty products, our style filters for apparel, and our 'Get it fast filter' for home goods to discover options available for in-store pickup or fast shipping of 3 days or less.
It's a great time to get your AR strategy in shape and deliver immersive shopping experiences for interested customers by ensuring your products are AR enabled through our best practices, and your campaigns are optimized to capture interested shoppers as they browse this spring.
Help shoppers virtually try on your products
Beauty products are some of the trickiest items to shop for, especially online as the beauty category is highly nuanced and personal.
Google's AR beauty experiences let shoppers see how products look on them before they buy, so they can be more confident in their purchase. In fact, we’ve seen that after interacting with AR beauty on Google, shoppers are more likely to spend more time on the beauty brand's site.2
AR Beauty virtual try on experience in Search
In addition to introducing new AR features last year, we announced new opportunities for beauty brands to advertise with AR. Now, with AR beauty ads, your brand can showcase your lip and eye products in a more interactive way to capture shoppers’ attention and keep them engaged. You can incorporate AR features in your free listings or shopping ads by partnering with a data provider, like Perfect Corp. and PulpoAR. They will upload the AR assets for you. No additional setup or configuration is required.
Apparel virtual try-on in Search
For apparel retailers, Google’s new virtual try-on tool lets customers view how your clothes look on real people of different sizes and shapes—from XXS to XXXL. Google can then accurately show how a piece of clothing drapes, clings, and stretches on different body types. All brands with a shopping feed and high quality imagery are automatically opted into Apparel Try-On. For detailed image specifics, review our guidelines.
Let customers interact with your products with 3D Images and Augmented Reality
We’ve also brought 3D visuals to Search, letting people spin and zoom 3D images of products like sneakers and furniture while shopping on Google. We know that shoppers engage with 3D images almost 50% more than static ones.3 Now, directly through Merchant Center, you can provide these 3D image assets to be displayed in Search through your free listings. For footwear, if you don’t have these 3D assets, Google can create 360 spins with the right input of at least 5 high-resolution 2D images at different angles. Once these images are uploaded to Google Merchant Center or the Google Manufacturer Center, Google will automatically generate a 360 spin of your product and display it on Google Search.
3D Image models available for shoes and home goods products in Search
You can also transform and create high-quality product images with Product Studio: a suite of free, AI-powered tools within Merchant Center Next and Google & YouTube app on Shopify. Effortlessly generate scenes, increase image resolution, and edit backgrounds to create stunning visuals that showcase your products at their best.
Capture the spring sales opportunity with ads best practices & fresh insights
Use AI-powered campaigns and insights tools to find and capture new seasonal demand this spring, while also maximizing your ROI across Google—including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Maps, and more.
If you have a physical location, drive shoppers in-store for more opportunities to upsell into larger basket sizes. Reach in-store shoppers and increase total sales with Performance Max for store goals. You can also optimize your omnichannel bidding strategy across both online and in-store sales with Smart bidding for store sales, driving more total business revenue and reaching customers where they prefer to shop. To make it easier for customers who want to shop locally, enable local inventory ads and highlight your local fulfillment options with attributes like pickup today and curbside pickup.
As the spring season approaches, analyze upcoming seasonal trends and expansion opportunities relevant to your business by viewing your demand forecasts in the Ads Insights page, so you can plan ahead with your budgets and bidding strategies. You can also gain insights into new products to add to your assortment with the best sellers report in Merchant Center. This report shows you which products are most popular on Shopping ads and free listings right now and over time.
Shoppers will also be looking for deals this spring, in fact, 48% of consumers say they are buying from new brands offering better deals/prices more often4. Attract these deal-seekers by adding promotions, local promotions, and sale prices to your product feeds.
Posted by Richard Manso, Senior Director of Commerce & Retail Ads
1. Google/Ipsos, Online shoppers survey, US, 2023, n=1614 of adults age 18 or older who have shopped for clothing online, 4/28/23-4/30/23
2. Google Internal Data
3. Google Internal Data, 2022
4. Google commissioned Ipsos Consumer Continuous, US, CA, UK, FR, DE, IT, AU, JP, IN, BR, MX, ES, ZA, KR ~n=500-1000 online consumers 18+ per market. April 6-10, 2023
