Incorporate Product Listing Ads into Holiday Shopping Ad Campaigns

With holiday shopping season right around the corner, it is definitely time to seriously start finalizing the particulars of the campaigns that will be running leading up to an during this essential time for many retailers. As part of your plan, Product Listing Ads (PLA’s) are definitely a must for retailers, because they allow placing your product-focused ads in front of very qualified audience specifically looking to shop. With growing number of shopping search queries, Google has expanded the number of properties where PLA’s can show up to include retail and commerce websites enrolled in the new “AdSense for Shopping” program. Based on the announcement sent by Google, the extended partner websites will include “a small set of retail and commerce publishers.”

Expanding the PLA’s reach to additional properties on the internet can allow advertisers to increase their reach in terms of impressions, website traffic and even conversions, in a way that is still contextually relevant to the product ads. Nevertheless, although this change will definitely allow some advertisers to scale their budgets by expanding potential reach to more shoppers, it may not be a right fit for all. Because the new ad spots are located on retail and commerce websites, where a user is already looking at similar products, price competitiveness and brand loyalty will definitely be determining factors on whether someone clicks on the ads there or not. Regardless, it is definitely a great option to try and see if it works for your particular brand.

Showing the ads on both Google Search Network and Google Search Partner websites is the new default option for all new shopping campaigns, so advertisers will start seeing increase in impressions and changes in their overall performance dynamics. If you still want your ads to only show up within Google Search Network, you will need to go into your campaign settings and uncheck the “Include search partners” check box.

Performance on Google Search Partner websites will not affect quality scores or performance of the ads on Google Search Network. Advertisers may decide whether this option is right for their brand by viewing their campaign’s performance on both Search and Search Partner networks by adding in Network (with search partners) Segment within Campaign, Ad Groups, or Ads tab. Unfortunately it is not possible to view performance segmentation by network for a particular product or see particular partner websites where your ads have shown up at this time.

For more information, reach out to Rise.