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.

Comments

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...

The CC Aurora is actually pretty fun, as far as projectors go

I don’t review projectors. Projectors are boring. Even the good ones. They remind me of vacation slideshows and the film strips we had to watch in health class — neither of which I’m in a particular hurry to revisit in my adult life. That said, I’ve always harbored some germ of a notion that some day I might buy one, to compensate for being one of those weirdos without a TV set. There’s something undeniably appealing about a big screen TV you can break out during movie night and then stash back into the closest of your one-bedroom New York City apartment. XGIMI’s CC Aurora is the closest I’ve seen to fitting the bill — or, for that matter, being a projector that I could actually muster any reasonable amount of excitement about. From the looks of it, it’s kind of the perfect package for the apartment dweller: it’s compact, self-contained with a built-in speaker system and plays nicely with mobile devices. Clearly I’m not alone here, either. The product scored $170,000 on Indi...

Cityscoot raises $50 million for its European electric scooter service

French startup Cityscoot announced a $50 million round of financing yesterday (€40 million). RATP Capital Innovation and Inventure Partners are leading the round, with existing investors Caisse des Dépôts and LeasePlan also participating. Cityscoot operates an electric scooter-sharing service in Paris and plans to expand to other cities in France and Europe. You can now find around 1,600 scooters in Paris or some cities next to Paris. With your phone, you book a scooter in a few seconds and type a code on the scooter to unlock it. When you’re done, you just have to park the scooter and end the ride. And if you live in Paris, chances are you’ve seen countless Cityscoots over the past year or so. They’re completely silent and they come with a helmet in the storage space under the seat. While Cityscoot is leasing its scooters, it’s a capital-intensive industry. For instance, Cityscoot’s (electric) cars change the batteries when they’re about to die so that they don’t have to ...

Hundreds Of Apps Banned From App Store For Accessing Users’ Personal Information

Hundreds of iOS applications have been pulled out of the App Store, following a report from analytics service SourceDNA , which uncovered a group of applications that were extracting users’ personally identifiable information, including email addresses associated with their Apple IDs, devices and peripheral serial numbers, as well as a list of apps installed on their phone. The applications in question had been using an SDK from a Chinese advertising company called Youmi which was accessing this information by way of private APIs, the report found. Nearly all of the developers were located in China so, for now, this appears to be an isolated incident. However, the larger concern here has to do with how long this activity had been taking place – and what that means in terms of Apple’s App Store review process, given that it hadn’t caught this suspect activity until being alerted to it by a third party. According to SourceDNA, Yo...

Uber, Google and other tech employees form Coalition of Black Excellence

When black employee resource groups from a variety of tech companies come together, black magic happens. More specifically, black excellence happens. The Coalition of Black Excellence Week, spearheaded by Uber Litigation Counsel Angela Johnson in collaboration with black ERGs from over 40 tech companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, Lyft and Microsoft, kicks off this Monday in the San Francisco Yay (Bay) Area. The idea for CBE Week came in part from Johnson’s experiences living in Washington D.C., and being able to attend events put on by the Congressional Black Caucus, she told me at Uber’s headquarters this week. “When I moved out to the Bay Area, I really wished there were similar types of experiences for tech,” Johnson said. “And I thought if we could bring together different black ERGs, or diversity and inclusion committees, or people who were interested in some of the issues the black community is passionate about, a lot of positive change and impact could come from that....

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog