Google Announces “Purchases On Google” For Buying Straight From PLAs And Other Mobile Shopping Updates

The much-anticipated buy button in Google search ads is finally here. Called Purchases On Google, it turns out the new feature isn’t a button at all.

“Buy on Google” messaging will appear in eligible product listing ads on both iOS and Android smartphones. Purchases on Google is launching in a very limited pilot with select retailers.

When consumers click on Purchases On Google-enabled ads, they’ll be taken to a page hosted by Google where they can make a purchase using payment criteria stored with Google. The orders are then passed through to the retailer for fulfillment and any customer service follow up.

Check out our full coverage where you’ll find many more details about Purchases On Google on our sister site Marketing Land.

Google also announced several of other updates to mobile PLAs:

New Mobile Shopping Ad Formats For Voice Search

When consumers use voice search to find products, Google is starting to show new ad formats that include rankings and ratings In the left image in the screenshot below, you’ll see that the products are ranked 1 through 3, for example.

Google says click-through rates have increased up to 11 percent for retailers on these types of voice search product queries.

New product review cards and product attribute cards can show product ratings and snippets from “the most useful reviews from around the web” and details about a product’s features — similar to what Google has been doing in knowledge panel results.

Expanded PLAs When Viewing The Carousel On Mobile

When users swipe to see more in the PLAs on their smartphones, Google will now expand the ads to show the full product title and extensions like product ratings and nearby availability.

The functionality will roll out on Chrome for Android this month and come to iOS “in the coming months”.

Google Now In-store Cards

Among the announcements, Google said that Local Inventory Ads have been performing well and that many more will begin showing in mobile search results. In addition, now when a user is near a store, a Google Now in-store card may appear, showing sales, closing hours, loyalty card information and more. A link to “Search store inventory” takes users to the retailer-branded local storefront hosted by Google.

Also, on Google Now is a price drop card which will showcase a significant price decrease on a product the user has already browsed.

PLA Deep Linking To Shopping Apps

Google is piloting a test with a small set of global retailers, including eBay, Flipkart and Zalando to deep link their product listing ads to product pages in their apps instead of their websites.

Google says more retailers will be participating in the test in the next few months. Yesterday, the company also added the ability to measure conversion activity from clicks on display ads across apps and the web.

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