Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

[theofficedealer]

In a radical change, Google is switching Product Search/Shopping to a paid inclusion model, phasing it in by Fall. Their blog post is here:

http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2...xperience.html

Danny Sullivan's analysis here:

http://searchengineland.com/google-p...medium=twitter

[theofficedealer]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

ChannelAdvisor CEO's blog on the subject, and the possible financial gains to google:

http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay...-industry.html

[wcw]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

Facebook is doing similar things to increase their bottom line. They enticed folks to create free business pages. Presumably you could post info/deals/etc on your store page and those who had "liked" your page would see your posts. Now they want the businesses to pay to "promote" the posts as they imply many of your fans are not going to see your posts without promotion. For example, 800 people will see your post if you pay $5.00.

[papi34]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

Think this might lead to Market Cannibalization of Adwords. There are only so many advertising dollars to spread around.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

Think this might lead to Market Cannibalization of Adwords. There are only so many advertising dollars to spread around.

It will be part of Adwords.

[Siamese-Dream.Com]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

Kind of surprised that it took google this long to start charging for froogle / google shopping / google products placement.

Don't know how effective it is going to be though: right now, google organic search seems to show amazon results at the top of their organic listings anyway, so how many people are going to click through to google products when the product they wanted is already listed front and center with a link to the amazon page, anyway.

As for facebook, kind of saw that one coming, too. I wonder if all the people who spent all that money promoting their facebook fan page are starting to regret it?

[theofficedealer]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

And to think how much business data both google and amazon sit on, innocently provided by small merchants through google analytics and amazon marketplace. They know what sells and at what price. Let's hope they never merge.

[1873Peacemaker]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

So true.

And to think how much business data both google and amazon sit on, innocently provided by small merchants through google analytics and amazon marketplace. They know what sells and at what price. Let's hope they never merge.

[wcw]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

The Google Shopper app that was automatically installed in my android phone zeroes in on those products submitted via the data feed to Google Product Search (Froogle). A few of my products (which are not in my feed) are not in the Google Shopper. Course it does not show organic listings so Amazon, et. al. will not be there either. Considering the millions of these android phones that are or will be in shoppers' hands, this Shopper app is a big deal shopping portal.

If shoppers click the link from the results page they get the Google product page for your product. Then clicking the store/price link they go to your store to buy it. Heaven help you if you have not optimized your pages for mobile devices. Shoppers are going to be put off with your microscopic text and images, maybe wasting time and money submitting feeds to Google. For a few dollars and virtually no downtime, you can make it a seamless transition from the mobile Google Shopper app to your mobile optimized product pages.

[Pete McNamara]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

Very good point Bill.

[josiahjg]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

So has anyone tried to get setup with the new Google Shopping yet? Are you planning on it?

[rterrible]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

No one yet??

[adaml]

Re: Google Shopping / Google Product Search Going to Paid Inclusion

We're now set up with Google Product Listings. The clicks and conversions are actually relatively cheap compared to our regular Adwords spend. I'm sure this will change as it grows more competitive.

Our feeds are set up using the Emporium Plus Template Data Feed module and a lot of Custom Product Fields to appease Google's requirements. I manually run it when I update product data and Google stops by our site to pick it up once a week.

Since we're now competing and paying ad dollars we are working on implementing Google Wallet right now and possibly Google Trusted Stores in the future so our site looks more legitimate against our competitors in Google's listings.

As of right now there are a few things I've noticed with Product Listings:

1) There is currently no ability to adjust bidding at the product level unless you manually ad EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT into Google Adwords filters for your Product Listings campaigns. I'm told they are working on a better way to manage this.

2) It's kind of quirky setting up your feed in Google Merchants and managing bids through Adwords. You have to log into Merchants and first connect it with the Adwords account. From there, you set up a new Product Listings campaign in Adwords. You will only be 100% certain its working once you see the impressions trickle in.

3) To follow up with 2, it's also a little confusing because they haven't completely phased out the "free" product listings and they do not differentiate the two very clearly in Google Merchant Center or how/when the ads are appearing. You can still get free clicks through Google Shopping if you have an active feed. I'm not sure for how much longer.

4) If your product feed has, say, 5000 products and 300 of those products have errors (ie, a miscategorization or incorrect SKU), Google will tell you that X number of products have errors, but only give you a handful of "examples". You cannot currently download a list of these errors and correct them. This means a vendor has to sift through all 5000 products and guess which ones to fix. I'm also told they are working on a way to export this data.


For now, I've been tracking conversions for our Product Listings through Google Analytics by viewing the landing pages for Traffic Source >> Google CPC. I view Landing Pages as a secondary and look at revenue/transactions by each.