Shopping Blog

Last week, YouTube and SEMPO hosted a social marketing panel, "How to run a successful social campaign," for SEMPO's San Francisco and Los Angeles working groups. The panel featured speakers from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Athena East, and highlighted the unique products available to marketers, and best practices for executing measurable, impactful social advertising strategies.

Derek Gordon of Yield Software was there, and shared what he learned in his Mediapost Search Insider column.

Cross-posted from Agency Ad Solutions Blog

Posted by Heidi Spector, Google Retail Team

Did you know that a user spends an average of just eight seconds on a website before deciding whether to stick around (Marketing Sherpa)? If you’re an e-commerce site, this means you have to be faster than Usain Bolt - the world record-holder for the 100m dash.

Next week, find out how Google can help you capitalize on those eight seconds and improve your online shopping experience. Visit the Google Commerce Search team in Booth #120 at Shop.org’s Annual Summit, held in Dallas, Texas from September 27 - 29. The Google Commerce Search team will be joined by Product Search, AdWords, and the Google Affiliate Network. We can’t wait to show you the many different ways we can help your business.

Please join us at the following sessions:

• Big Ideas session Wednesday at 12:45 PM featuring Nitin Mangtani of Google Enterprise, who will be speaking about search insights for today’s e-commerce technology.
• Cross-Channel Optimization session Wednesday at 3:30 PM featuring Chris O'Neil, Country Manager, Canada, who will be speaking about measuring what matters for cross-channel success.

Lastly, check out John McAteer's shop.org blog post on "Making the Most of Your Online Marketing Data."

Posted by Heidi Spector, Google Retail Team

With the 2010 holiday season just ahead of us, we know many retailers and tech manufacturers are thinking holiday. Earlier this summer, Google hosted a summit called "Think Holiday: Prepping for the 2010 Season" to share new tactics and learnings; these were designed to help retailers prepare for this year's holiday shopping season.

Some speakers at this event included Google's Mike Steib (Director of Emerging Platforms), Sameer Samat (Director of Product Management), Bruce Falck (Director, Google Display Network), and Sara Kleinberg (Group Product Marketing Manager). Each shared the latest findings on how to engage with consumers in the next few months via Google's digital advertising, mobile and commerce search offerings.

Check out the event highlights from this 1:30 minute video on the GoogleBusiness YouTube channel. Stay tuned for more in-depth session recaps!

Posted by Julia Tang, Google Retail Team

Have you bought off a group buying site, such as Gilt Groupe or Groupon? These sites are growing extremely quickly. Sales from private sales sites will almost top $1B in 2010 and sales from group buying sites will reach over $350M. Site visits to group buying sites are up 72x over last year. Although these sites started with high-end products, they have gone mainstream. Groupon and Woot sell many other product categories including consumer electronics and sporting gear, at more affordable prices.



Source: Assorted company press releases, Google/Compete State of Shopping, May 2010 and Hitwise Blog, April 23, 2010. Note: Group buying site estimated revenue includes Groupon, Woot, Living Social and Tippr.

What is it about these sites that are connecting with the customer? It seems to be about scarcity and urgency -- shoppers love the thrill of the hunt. It makes shopping fun, and offers customers a daily break in their workday.

So what can you do to encourage similar engagement with your product or brand? Try to replicate excitement and urgency on a daily or weekly basis. Make your customers feel special, and provide them unique deals, or limited time offers.

Posted by Heidi Spector, Google Retail Team

In our prior blog, we discussed "Why do Customers Friend Brands?" So what happens after customers friend your brand? As you may expect, they visit your site more.

According to Nielsen, the average American spends 158 hours per month watching TV. That’s almost 6 hours per day – far more than any other type of media. Heck, that’s far more than most of us spend doing just about anything else.

Despite the fact that TV is one of the best ways to reach potential customers, many advertisers are wary of television. If not careful, it can be an expensive, poorly targeted and unmeasured gamble. That’s why three years ago we developed Google TV Ads. We’ve taken everything we know from the online space and applied it to TV:

• It’s flexible, allowing you to buy just the programs you want without any bundling or contracts. No more buying Snuggle Bunnies 3D when all you want is the NFL!
• It’s measurable, taking TV set-top box (STB) data from millions of homes to provide near real-time results for your campaigns, so you can optimize your TV buys and change programs and budgets whenever you like.
• It’s hyper-targeted, combining the same STB data with resources like Nielsen and Equifax, to give you unique insights into where your customers are watching TV and allow you to fine-tune your campaigns based on that insight.

So what does this mean for retailers? Say you decide on Thanksgiving to have a sale on Black Friday. With Google TV Ads you can buy TV advertising today and be on the air tomorrow. Plus, while most networks will charge substantial premiums during the holiday period, because the Google TV Ads system is auction-based, you pay market value and set your own budgets and CPM bids.

These are just a couple of examples of how a business might use Google TV Ads this holiday season. To find out more about Google TV Ads and determine if television advertising with Google is a good fit for your business, go to Google.com/TVAds or visit the Google TV Ads blog.

Posted by David Mogensen, Google TV Ads Team

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog
Original Posting By Avni Shah, Group Product Manager, Geo on 8/19/10

Recently, a group of Google product managers challenged one another to run 100 miles over 30 days in the interest of encouraging summer fitness. I grew up in Huntsville, AL, where I always loved exercising and experiencing the great outdoors, so I took to the challenge immediately. One hundred and thirty-three miles and a few pairs of new running shoes later, it was an incredible opportunity to push myself further than I’d ever imagined. But, I must admit—it wasn’t easy!

I’m delighted to help introduce our latest Search Story, Healthy Habits. This is a story of one woman’s journey to get back into shape. It shows the difficulties of sticking to a workout routine, and the empowerment that comes with reaching—and even exceeding your goals. It highlights the many tools and tricks that make Google a great workout companion, and I hope it inspires you to incorporate new healthy habits into your own lifestyle.




Enjoy this week’s video, and don’t forget to check out the other videos if you haven’t already. Search (and run) on!