Comparable to ad units on Instagram and Pinterest, Google introduced Shoppable Ads on Google Images at the Shoptalk conference Tuesday. The sponsored pictures highlight products that, when moused over, uncover brand, cost along with other information. But Google isn’t stealing from others. Google surfaced YouTube Shopping YouTube Forms in 2015. And last year it piloted a previous version of shoppable ads for 3rd party sites and from Google search. Capturing top of funnel shoppers. Google states that it is currently testing these new components with select retailers, for broad, top of funnel questions such as home office ideas, and shower tile designs.
I was unable to find any of these units in the wild although the .gif below reveals how they look and work.
Google says it is attempting to allow retailers to reach buyers with inspiration phase, of shopping. Google also clarified that it might be rolling out these components across more classes from the coming months. Expanding Showcase Shopping. The business also declared that Showcase Shopping advertisements will be arriving to Google Images, allowing a richer merchandise presentation for brand marketers. And lastly the firm said the Merchant Center feed and the content would be accessible beyond advertising, describing that retailers can offer product data to Google, totally free, in order that we may begin showing more of your merchandise info to potential shoppers.
The reason you should care. Google is attempting to help brands and merchandise vendors reach consumers in many ways during the discovery as opposed to simply lower funnel search questions. This is what Instagram and Pinterest do especially well. It is also hoping to create Google itself a richer visual shopping destination and prevent the defection of users to competitors sites. Offering additional inspiration, and merchandise discovery adventures.