Google Product Listing Ads are now live in UK, Germany and France
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Google Announcement & Key Questions Answered
Our commentary
The ability to display your products through the Google Merchant center is something most online retailers are now utilising. Google has recently launched the ability through the merchant center & Adwords for you to display your products as part of sponsored search on a Search Results Page. This means if people search for keywords related to your product you can have your product search result displayed on the right as shown in this live search from today:
![](https://www.smartinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/New-Google-Product-Listings-Ads-600x371.png)
It will display your product images, price, product name & your website URL. See an example on the right. The new ad-formats take up a large portion of the sponsored area and really standout on a results page! Google's initial description of the new release:
Starting today, UK advertisers can start using Product Listing Ads. In the next few weeks, we'll be making them available to German and French advertisers as well. Product Listing Ads are an ad format that makes it easy for you to promote your entire product inventory while still providing potential customers with high-quality, relevant results. Since our previous US beta and launch, advertisers have listed hundreds of millions of products and we found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location.
Marketing Implications
These adverts are really easy to start running, just checkout the mini guide from Google here. It is well worth apportioning some of your ad-words spend into testing this new advert format. Consider:
- Your product imagery - Are you using the same old stock photography as everyone else?
- How are you priced against competitors?
- Do your Product names describe the product well?
Ensure you track these ad formats seperately from Google Product & AdWords so you can monitor its impact!