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(cross-posted on the DoubleClick Search Blog)


A few months ago, we announced improvements to our inventory-aware campaigns feature, which automatically creates and optimizes a retailer’s search campaigns, based on updates made to their Google Merchant Center product feed. Since then, we’ve seen some impressive results across the board, showing that inventory-managed keywords more than doubled return on ad spend for heavy users(1).

Today, we wanted to highlight one of our success stories around this feature. The following story comes from Piston -- a bicoastal digital agency in the US, who helped their retail client maintain a “stylish profile” by keeping their campaigns relevant using inventory-aware campaigns.

After working around the clock to keep up with ever-changing product descriptions, prices, and landing pages during a busy holiday season, Piston turned to inventory-aware campaigns to scale their campaign management across their retail client’s 8,000+ products.

“When we’re looking for a solution, the key questions we ask are: can this save us time, can this save us money, and does it have features that can really help us impact our bottom line? And with DoubleClick inventory-aware campaigns, the answer was always ‘Yes’.” says Jennifer Johnstone, Senior Performance Marketing Strategist at Piston. “Inventory-aware campaigns allow us to save time from manually managing product inventory, enable us to spend our dollars on more efficient product level keywords, and help us drive more revenue than manual campaign builds.”

One quarter after adopting inventory-aware campaigns, Piston saw a 51% rise in ROAS, a 26% jump in CTR, and a 50% boost in conversion rate, compared to manually-managed campaigns. Additionally, inventory-aware campaigns allowed them to expand keyword coverage on both products and SKUs by 49% -- all while saving an estimated 38 hours over one quarter since implementation.

To get the full scoop on Piston’s success with inventory-aware campaigns, download the full customer story here. Stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog and Google+ page for even more customer success stories.

1. Google internal data, 2013

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With less than three months to Black Friday, the holiday shopping season is quickly approaching. We know that advertisers with Product Listing Ads campaigns are in search of new ways to optimize their product data and drive more traffic to their stores.

Two weeks ago, we hosted Google Shopping Office Hours via Hangouts on Air to share general advice on data feeds and unique product identifiers. We saw great engagement and will be broadcasting additional sessions, deep-diving into topics that will help prepare your data feeds for the holidays. Below is a calendar of Google Shopping Office Hours for the upcoming months. We encourage you to attend sessions of interest. We’ll discuss the topic for the first 20 minutes then open up the forum to live Q&A. If you already know what you’d like to ask or want to request a topic, feel free to submit your responses here. Questions on the event pages below will also answered in the Q&A.

Troubleshooting Disapprovals 
Tuesday, September 24, 2013 @ 10:00 AM PT 
What do I do if my feed is disapproved? 
What are the common data feed and data quality pitfalls?
How do I ensure all my products are approved? 
Registration Link 

Scaling Inventory Updates 
Tuesday, October 8, 2013 @ 10:00 AM PT 
What are the best practices for updating and editing my feed? 
What are the various data feed upload methods? 
What are the pros and cons of each method? 
Registration Link

Optimizing Product Attributes 
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 @ 10:00 AM PT 
How do I improve my data quality? 
What should I optimize? 
Registration Link

Posted by Chris Azalde, Product Specialist, Google Shopping

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(cross-posted on the Google Commerce blog & Inside AdWords blog)

Shoppers are savvier than ever. They use social recommendations, web searches and smartphone apps to make informed purchase decisions. So how can a retailer stand out and get a shopper’s attention?

Today, we're rolling out a new way for retailers to reach shoppers at the moment of interest. Retailers can now add promotions to their product listings on Google Shopping to make them stand out. In addition, they can distribute their promotions on other Google properties such as Google Maps for Android and the Google Offers app, and attract shoppers to their store. 



Promotions are highlighted in product listings on Google Shopping

In a few simple steps retailers can create a promotions list, map it to the right products in Google Shopping and upload to Google Merchant Center.  Our system supports user specific redemption codes and associated reporting, enabling retailers to measure the performance of each promotion.

 

 
Shoppers can see nearby promotions while searching in Google Maps for Android

This is one of the many steps we’re taking to provide traffic, technology and tools to help retailers grow their business. Over 25 well-known U.S. retailers, including 1-800-flowers.com, OfficeMax®, Inc., Tommy Hilfiger, Express, Chico’s, Overstock, Guitar Center, Drugstore.com and Wayfair, are already part of this program. In the coming months, we plan to expand the program to include more retailers. If you are interested in featuring your promotions on Google properties, you can learn more here.



Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Group Product Manager, Google Offers and Michaela Feller, Product Manager, Google Shopping

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If you’re a retailer, you've probably seen the shopping results on Google.com and Google Product Search. These results are generally based on product feeds that retailers submit, for free, to the Google Merchant Center.

There are four key benefits for retailers who upload product feeds:

Free, Qualified Traffic through Google Product Search, a shopping search engine that helps consumers discover product information, compare prices and find a retailer from whom they can make a purchase. This is free traffic to your retail website, which you can only benefit from by submitting a product feed.

Richer AdWords Formats such as product extensions use the product feed to automatically display your products within AdWords ads where relevant.

Improve On-Site Conversion with Google Commerce Search. Commerce Search leverages your product feed and innovations of Google.com to deliver a powerful search and discovery experience on your e-commerce site. Among other things, Google Commerce Search provides an interactive shopping experience - which includes features like automated promotions and instant results - found only on the top retail websites, as well as a powerful merchandising suite that helps you integrate business goals and adapt to market dynamics.

Reach Mobile Shoppers through Google Shopper, our shopping application for Android and iPhone, Shopping for Mobile, our shopping website, and Google Commerce Search on your mobile website. On-the-go shoppers will be able to discover goods you submit in your product feed.

To take advantage of the unique features associated with the merchant feed, first submit your product data feed at the Google Merchant Center and then explore the hyperlinks listed above.