What IS The New Google Shopping Update?
Last month, Google released a major Google Shopping update before the holiday season, revealing they built a new AI-generated Google Shopping Home. They paired the 45 billion product listings in Google’s Shopping Graph with Google Gemini models. This transformed the online shopping experience into a new personalized shopping home.
Google explained that the new home uses AI to, “intelligently show the most relevant products, helping to speed up and simplify your research.” Now when people search on Google Shopping, they’ll get an AI-generated brief with top things to consider for their search, and so much more.
With the holiday season fast approaching, many businesses want to capitalize on this new update to attract and convert shoppers. In this week’s blog post, the D4S team will explore how these updates can help unlock your holiday sales potential.
How Does The New Google Shopping Home Work?
According to Google, the new Google Shopping Home uses AI to show the most relevant products, helping speed up and simplify searches. Shoppers now see an AI-generated brief with top things to consider for their search and products that meet their needs.
The shopper will also see products recommended by sources from across the web and an explanation of why that product is a fit for their needs. There will also be relevant articles to read and a new virtual try-on feature, powered by generative AI and AR shopping tools.
Businesses can also craft more relevant and personalized ads in the new Google Shopping Home that align with the interests of individual consumers. Those ads will also dynamically adjust in real time with a personalized shopping feed.
How AI Enhances Product Discovery On Google Shopping This Holiday Season
The new AI-powered features in the Google Shopping Home will significantly improve how products are discovered, displayed, and purchased. This is especially true during the busy holiday season when the competition for consumer attention is fierce.
If you’re hosting a sale or promotion during this time of year, you can use the new Merchant Center “Sale Event” promotion type. This will automatically display discounts and deals across Google Shopping.
“There’s a category of sales that you can even label if you do a promotion extension on Google for Black Friday ads. You can say this is a Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Giving Tuesday promotion, and that way Google will help know where to classify it. Use some of these terms to help AI on these platforms. Understand what kind of deal you’re offering so they can promote it. That’s really important,” said Reva Minkoff, founder and president of D4S.
With the new Google Shopping update, it’s now easier for businesses to show their products to the right shoppers with the help of AI. By analyzing browsing behavior and search patterns, the new Google Shopping Home can display products most likely to convert. This will ensure your offerings stand out to your target audience.
Help AI to Help You This Holiday
During the holiday season, businesses can optimize their listings to capture this growing segment of shoppers. Minkoff stresses the importance of targeting the right audiences during this time of year.
“There are audiences or luxury shoppers vs. bargain shoppers and green audiences, and you can also target parents, grandparents, kids of a certain age, and that’s very helpful during gifting season.”
You can do that in the Google Shopping Home by going to your selected campaign, clicking the “audiences, keywords, and content” drop-down, “audiences,” and “edit audience segments” to make changes to your targeting.
Additionally, with the rise of AI in Google Shopping, Fotini Anastopoulos – Senior Consultant at D4S – reminds advertisers to be very thorough with product listings during the holiday season.
“With the rise of AI being leveraged in shopping results, it’s important to be detailed and thorough in your product feed and listings.”
Optimize Ads For Holiday Sales With Google Shopping
During the holiday season, Google Shopping can help businesses by aligning their ads with holiday themes relevant to consumers looking for the perfect gift.
One special update to Google Shopping that you can use during the holiday season is its deal-finding tools. Those include price comparison, price insights, price tracking, and a new dedicated and personalized deals page.
Businesses can capitalize on this feature by easily tweaking underperforming ads or adjusting product listings to improve campaign performance during peak shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They can also adjust bidding strategy and budget allocation when needed.
Beyond dynamic ads, businesses can update their product feeds with relevant holiday terms like “Holiday Gifts,” “Christmas Sale,” or “New Year Specials.” This small adjustment can help boost visibility and attract last-minute shoppers looking for the perfect presents.
Another tip that Minkoff stresses is that if you’re going to be creative, don’t be too creative, especially with humor as Google’s AI is not that smart.
“Be careful about how creative you get because Google is not very smart. The AI does not understand sarcasm. You can’t do satire, you can’t do irony, you can’t do humor because Google can’t take a joke. Be really smart and careful with the words that you’re writing, and the sentences that you’re writing,” said Minkoff.
This is especially important in the new shopping home with AI-generated briefs that are written to include top things to consider for your search. So make sure your website, product descriptions, and image alt tags are clear, specific, and easy to read.
Recap
The new Google Shopping Home can provide businesses with tools to enhance their campaigns during the holiday season and beyond.
From improved product discovery to dynamic, AI-powered ads and personalized shopping experiences give the new Google Shopping Home the ability to help businesses reach, engage, and convert shoppers more effectively.
To make the most of this holiday season, ensure that your product listings are optimized and your ads are dynamically adjusted for holiday promotions. Also, as always, make sure your campaigns are continuously refined based on real-time data.
The sooner you start implementing these AI-powered features, the better positioned you’ll be to maximize your holiday sales and stay ahead of the competition. If you have any questions about Google Shopping or Google Ads and want to schedule a consultation, please email info@digital4startups.com.
