Google Shopping is Coming to Town
Google is always evolving. Whether it’s a new style of video, new display formats or new bidding strategies, they like to keep us on our toes! One of the Google products that we believe is going to have a big impact in 2020 is the Google Shopping Ads.
Google Shopping Ads have been growing from strength to strength over the years and Google’s recent expansion of the marketplace should result in a busy 2020 for shoppers.
Source: Searchengineland.com
The concept of Google Shopping has actually been around since 2002 and formerly known as Google Product Search, Google Products and Froggle.
As Google has grown, so too has its services as they expand into the hospitality market – so what will these services look like in 2020 and how can hotels use them to their advantage?
Google Shopping
Google Shopping are sponsored shopping ads that are powered by two platforms: Google AdWords and Google Merchant Center. They showcase related products to those that you were searching for on Google. The reason they have become so popular is because they get a lot of exposure online. They are very visual and more importantly, more people are using their mobile phones to complete purchases.
Source: Productsup
The Google Shopping Ads aren’t going to become the new go-to area for booking hotel rooms on the Google search engine as this space is very much occupied by Google AdWords, Metasearch and Organic traffic, but hotels can benefit by using this platform to sell Gift Cards/Vouchers.
Google has also revamped the Google Merchant Center to make it more user friendly with clear workflows and better insights. These new features will help advertisers to manage the Gift Cards/Vouchers more efficiently and spot new opportunities for sales.
Lead Form Extensions
Another new feature added to mobile ads is ‘Lead Form Extensions’ which we predict will be quite popular for weddings! Google lead form extensions will show beneath your search ad on mobile and tablet devices and allow a user to provide their contact information directly through your ad on the SERP. This replaces the need for a user to visit your mobile site to convert. The form displays as a ‘contact us’ option, which can be personalised.
Once submitted the customer will get a customised thank you page with the option to visit your site or go back to Google search. Another useful element is that form submissions can be downloaded in CSV or connected to a CRM so you can gather all the data submitted!