Google has rolled out a new, commercial Product Listing Ads system which replaces their free Google Shopping service. The new paid ads show up naturally in normal search results, based on search relevance, and are charged on a pay per click model.
Google is promoting this as an improved service offering vendors a simple way to present richer product information, including pictures, giving them more control over their search listings and creating a more engaging user experience.
Despite initial resistance to the idea of paying for ‘PLA’s when Google Product listings have always been free, a recent report published by AdGooroo this month suggests brands are increasingly recognising their benefits.
The independent study of PLAs on US AdWords Accounts in March-May 2013, confirmed many of the top 20 early adopters are larger vendors with wide product ranges. Walmart, by far the biggest user, paid for 408 million impressions on 262,558 unique ads for 129,381 products and eBay, as you might expect, sponsored 187 million impressions of ads for 479,855 individual items.
Product Listing Ads Vs Pay Per Click Ads
Perhaps more surprisingly, some smaller, newer players like etsy.com and soap.com are more enthusiastically engaging with this new paid option. While Walmart still had more than twice as many impressions on their traditional PPC text ads as on PLAs, eight vendors in the top 20 actually had more PLA than traditional text PPC ad impressions. In terms of industry sectors, by far and away the most well-represented sector was Auctions & Classifieds with Consumer Electronics and Apparel and Fashion not far behind.
Product Listing Ads Vs Pay Per Click Ads
The visual component is an obvious benefit to vendors selling unique or unusual items, and goods like gadgets and clothes, where design is a key element. However, the Health and Pharmacy sector closely rivals Consumer Electronics in terms of the percentage of their PPC ads which are now PLAs, while fashion and jewellery both used significantly smaller proportions of PLAs.
Although the huge US market accounts for nearly half the SEMs using at least one PLA during the sample period, in terms of PLAs as a proportion of all PPC ads, the UK market is ahead of the US, along with Japan and seven other European countries, with the Netherlands leading the field.
Keen to build on this trend, Google is reported to be testing new formats designed to give PLAs more exposure, and Bing Ads is working on its own version. Meanwhile, Google is beta-testing a new facility allowing Adwords advertisers to add image extensions to their text ads. It can’t be long before those text-only ads start to look plain old fashioned. Better get the camera out!
