While deal seeking behavior is not new, shoppers are more price-conscious this year. In fact, 58% of U.S. holiday shoppers will hold off on buying gift items until they’re on-sale.1 When looking for these competitively-priced products, 40% of global shoppers say they turn to Google to find the best deal.2 Since many of these shoppers have already started their gift search, adding promotions to products that you sell on Google now can help drive more sales to your business.
This holiday season, we’re doing more to help you get discovered by these deal seekers. We’re making it easier to upload and edit promotions in the Google Merchant Center as well as building more experiences across Google to increase the visibility of products that have a promotion or are on-sale.
Upload promotions faster and easily react to changing market dynamics
With 65% of U.S. holiday shoppers starting to shop earlier to avoid out-of-stock items, getting your promotions in front of them as soon as possible is more important than ever.3 To help retailers quickly react to these changing shopper behaviors, it’s now faster to apply promotions to inventory, easier to edit existing promotions, and you’ll also have access to additional reporting features for these products.
In the U.S., all eligible retailers will now be automatically enabled to use promotions in Merchant Center - no interest form required. Retailers can also now easily edit promotions directly in Merchant Center and the average approval time on promotions has also been reduced from days to hours. This means that you are now able to better react to shopper demand, like participating in a flash sale or extending existing promotional periods.
In November, you can also expect to have better reporting for your on-sale products or promotions. By tagging your on-sale or promotional inventory with custom labels, you will now be able to see impressions and clicks for these products across ads and free product listings. This will help you better evaluate performance and adjust promotions accordingly.
Reach shoppers across more Google surfaces
To help shoppers find these deals more easily, we’ve implemented the ‘On sale’ filter across mobile and desktop experiences for users browsing the Shopping tab. This filter includes product inventory across ads and free listings that have a promotion or are on-sale, improving the discoverability of competitively-priced products.
Example of On sale filter on the Shopping tab in U.S.
Recently, we announced that free listings will now populate the product knowledge panel on Google Search. Soon, shoppers who search for a specific product will also see which retailer is offering that item on-sale within this panel.
We’re also expanding promotions to more surfaces across Google, helping retailers increase the reach of their promotions and encouraging shoppers to buy. Products on promotion will now have an annotation when they appear on Google Images (mobile-only) and local inventory ads. For local inventory ads, retailers will also have the option to highlight their contactless fulfilment options, like curbside pickup, alongside their product promotions.
Promotions and curbside pickup annotations on local inventory ads are currently in Beta. Reach out to your account team to learn more.
Example of promotions on 1) Shopping ads on Google Images, and 2) local inventory ads (U.S. only)
Retailers who have added promotions to their Shopping ads have seen great results. Designer Shoe Warehouse, a fashion and footwear brand, found that promotions helped them highlight time-sensitive product deals and stand out from competitors. By adding promotions to their Shopping ads, they saw a 12% increase in their conversion rate.
For more details on how to ensure your promotions show up across all available Google surfaces, please review our holiday promotions best practice guide.
Be prepared for the holidays by uploading your promotions today.
Posted by Charlie Speight, Senior Product Manager
1. Source: Google commissioned Ipsos COVID-19 tracker, U.S. n=1000 online consumers 18+ per market. June 25-28 vs March 26-29
2. Google commissioned Ipsos COVID-19 tracker, U.S., CA, UK, FR, DE, IT, AU, JP, RU, IN, CN, BR, MX, ES, ZA, KR ~n=400-800 online consumers 18+ per market who will shop for the holiday season. Aug 27-30
3. Google commissioned Ipsos COVID-19 tracker, U.S., CA, UK, FR, DE, IT, AU, JP, RU, IN, CN, BR, MX, ES, ZA, KR ~n=300-800 online consumers 18+ per market who will shop for the holiday season. July 30 - Aug 2