The team at Google are planning to soon allow the optimisation of their Smart Shopping Campaigns for in-store visits. This campaign type, being introduced to retailers only last year, is a new form of advertising that uses machine leaning to enhance performance and improve the placement of ads. Smart Shopping Campaigns allow for the specification of where ads are shown, also the advertisement method is augmented for use across the Google, Image Search, YouTube, and Partner Site / App platforms. These campaigns are currently only optimised for use when aiming to gain conversions online, however, Google plans for these Shopping Campaigns to also assist in driving store visits in the near future. This new feature is currently being tested in its Beta form; Retailers are able to join in the trial of this by filling out the following form.
Since Smart Shopping Campaigns were made available to the public last year, Google has announced an improvement in the results that have been gained by the businesses using the Google Ads platform; 80% of advertisers who have used both the Standard and Smart Shopping Campaigns now reportedly use Smarter Campaigns for most of their shopping ad investments. In order to set up this type of shopping campaign, retailers require conversion tracking, a product feed, and remarketing list.
In an associated announcement, the Google team is said to be working upon the development of a way for the advertisers utilising their Google Ads platform to drive more visits to their store through the use of local inventory ads. It will soon be possible to offer customers ‘buy-online’ and ‘pick-up in-store’ services within Shopping Ads displayed on the Google platform. In order to access this new capability, quality product landing pages showing when in-store pick-up services are available, as well as a local inventory feed, will be required on seller sites.
To find out more about the features available through Google Ads and how this platform can be used to improve the success of your advertising campaigns, visit our dedicated PPC page.