Google: Top Shopping Deals To Get Highlighted In Search Results

According to the latest update, Google, the biggest search engine company is set to add a very useful new shopping feature in its search results. The company highlights top shopping deals in search results in an effort to improve visibility for retailers at the same time it also ensures that the customers get the best available prices. This new upgrade will appear on the search engine results page when a customer enters a particular product they would like to purchase.

 

The company has released this update just before the holiday season because Google found that shoppers used the search engine more extensively to look for various items relating to their shopping than any other source in the last U.S. holiday season. In fact, 40% of global shoppers say they would look for competitively-priced products on Google to find the best deal. Similarly, there are more shopping statistics that Google shared such as:

1. 58% of US holiday shoppers are holding off on buying gift items until they are on-sale

2. 58% of US holiday shoppers buy from at least one brand in the last holiday season that they hadn’t before

3. 65% of US holiday shoppers are starting to shop earlier in order to avoid out-of-stock items. 

All these statistics show how more people are already shopping online for the holidays, and hence retailers will have to adapt quickly to be ready for the consumer demand and get their promotions in front of shoppers as quickly as possible. This is because including promotions for products that retailers intend to sell on Google helps drive more sales to their business.  

Taking into consideration these shifting consumer behaviors, Google started to highlight promotions in its search results.

Highlighting Promotions To Stand Out

To stand out in this holiday season, Google is now highlighting promotions in its search results. It helps retailers capture increased holiday demand by making it easier and faster to apply for product promotions, enhancing their visibility to new customers, and providing new tools to expose meaningful insights from their performance. The company also ensures that shoppers get the best available prices. At present, these promotions are available to all US retailers.

Earlier, retailers had to fill out an interest form in the Merchant Center to enable the use of promotions. However, now promotions are automatically enabled for all eligible retailers in the US. Retailers will also be able to easily edit promotions directly in the Merchant Center. The time taken for approval of edited promotion has been reduced from days to hours, which in turn offers the business a greater ability to better react to shoppers’ demands, such as extending the time period of an existing promotion or participating in a flash sale. 

For instance, Emily Kulcyk, Manager of Search Marketing at Urban Outfitters said that running promotions on Google helped them exponentially grow demand as well as ROI. Especially the faster approval times pushed the sales volume for their flash sales in particular.

Shoppers will find the latest deal displayed on the top of product thumbnails and the promoted products would include several annotations to facilitate the same idea. 

Google will highlight promoted products on many surfaces including,

1. Google Shopping Ads and Free listings

2. Google Images (mobile-only)

3. Local inventory ads

Google has added a new “on-sale” filter to the Shopping tab across both mobile and desktop versions, which helps shoppers to find these deals more easily. This filter contains product inventory across ads and free listings that have a promotion or are on-sale and will improve the discoverability of competitively-priced products.

In addition, Google has introduced new ways for businesses to connect local customers and highlight fast and free shipping. With these new updates, verified retail merchants in the U.S. can now add links to their online store directly from their Business Profile on Google. It allows shoppers to easily place a pickup or delivery order when researching local businesses. 

Another benefit is that shoppers who search for a specific product can see which retailer is offering that item on-sale within the product knowledge panel. Sites like Amazon, are getting the maximum benefits with these features. Google stated that all US retailers can take the advantage of these new updates irrespective of whether they have advertised with Google or not.

Google is launching an update in November, which will provide retailers with better reporting for on-sale products and promotions. To take advantage of this reporting, retailers will have to tag their on-sale or promotional inventory with custom labels. Then, the retailers will be able to see impressions and clicks for these products across ads and free product listings. This in turn will help retailers to better evaluate performance and adjust promotions accordingly.

Google’s latest addition to the shopping tab, ‘Highlighted promotions’ is a positive feature that would benefit both retailers and customers, especially this holiday season.