A new tool for retail advertisers using the Adwords system has been announced on Google’s Inside Adwords blog.
Product Listing Ads will give advertisers who use the Google Merchant Centre the ability to attach extra product information to targeted advertisements. This includes an image of the product, its price and the name of the merchant.
Dan Friedman of the Inside Adwords team says that this is part of Google’s “effort to simplify the advertising process for merchants with large product inventories.”
Product Listing Ads will not be charged on a PPC basis. Instead, it will be charged on a cost-per-action basis (CPA). Effectively advertisers will only pay Google when a user both clicks on the ad and completes a purchase on the site. Friedman describes this as a “risk free way for you to reach a larger audience on Google.com”.
These ads will also allow retailers to list their entire inventory. Product Listing Ads requires no keywords or additional ad text. Instead it will make use of the items listed in a user’s Google Merchant Centre account.
“Whenever a user enters a search query revelant to an item in [your account], Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name”.
In the post, Friedman says that the new feature is still in the beta test stage and only available to a limited number of users in the US. Currently, only a small group of advertisers can use the system, and only a small portion of US search engine users will see product listing ads on their shopping-related queries.
However, Friedman said that “Over time, we’ll increase the number of users who see Product listing ads, as well as the number of advertisers able to participate.” How long it takes for the feature to be implemented across Google and its international sites remains to be seen, but if it arrives in time to take advantage of the seasonal shopping peak in early December it could prove a powerful addition to a search engine marketing campaign.
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