As the desire for best-value shopping grows—Google searches for “discount code” increased more than 50% since last year—Google has announced the release of a new deals section to help customers and merchants make seasonal shopping moments more beneficial for them. This new section helps customers find the best product deals and merchants reach as many customers as possible with their promotional content.
So, what does this mean?
New deals updates
Now, when using the Shopping tab on Google, searchers will see a new “Deals related to your search” section further down the page.
Users will now sometimes find a “Deals related to your search” section on the Shopping tab of Google.
This highlights the best deals based on discounts related to the user’s search, surfacing all discounted products that might interest customers. To have products included in these deal roundups, merchants simply need to upload promotions in the Google Merchant Center (GMC) and relevant products will be automatically shown to searchers.
To add a promotion in the GMC, merchants first need to input all of the relevant information within the “Promotions” tab, including:
- Promo ID
- Country of sale
- Title of promotion
- Redemption code
- Product applicability
- Effective date range
Once all the information has been filled out, click “Create,” and your promotion is ready to go. Google uses your feed to determine which products to match to the promo codes. Merchants can add the Promo IDs from the GMC to the applicable products in their product feeds by using the “promotion_id” field.
Find out how Feedonomics can help you set up promotions and optimize your product feed for Google Shopping.
Google has also made it easier for merchants to customize promotions. Now, merchants can indicate if promotions have specific requirements for eligibility. For example, if a seller is hoping to draw new customers in, they could run a “10% off for new users” promotion. This discount would be visible to all users, but only be applicable for eligible customers, enticing potential customers to shop your brand.
In the GMC, merchants specify which promotions they want to appear on free listings and which promotions they want attached to ads. Promotions are available for free listings in the U.S. only.
Merchants with physical storefronts have the option to use local inventory ads alongside promotional content to help drive in-person shopping. Curbside pickup and pickup today can both be shown alongside any local promotion in the same ad.
New reporting features
Google also announced two new feature additions to the bestsellers report, which is available to merchants who’ve opted into market insights in the GMC or Google BigQuery. The first grants access to historical bestseller data that helps merchants make decisions for upcoming seasonal shopping moments based on popular products from the previous year.
The second feature adds a “relative demand” field in the report to help gauge the demand of products in a specific category and country. Merchants can use this information to make decisions on the brands and products they carry, and to see the potential sales opportunities when stocking new products.
Merchants will now see a “Relative demand” field in the best seller report.
Source: Google
What’s to come?
Merchants should also note a future change to seasonal shopping deals. Come October, when users are searching for specific deals related to seasonal shopping moments—for example, “Black Friday Deals” or “Cyber Monday Deals”—they will have the opportunity to swipe through and see the most popular web-ranked deals in search results. This will become a staple for current and future sale moments throughout the year.
Why we care
This is an exciting opportunity for merchants to surface their competitively priced products more easily and reach even more customers during seasonal shopping moments. The new report’s features also provide better insights to help merchants make data-driven decisions for major shopping holidays to increase sales.
The seasonal shopping updates provide even more visibility for promotional content, since the deals carousel appears on the search results page, and customers won’t have to click on the shopping tab to see what discounts are available to them.
To get the most out of Black Friday this year, find out how Feedonomics’ full-service data feed management solutions help you optimize your Google Shopping product feeds.
With its leading data feed management platform, Feedonomics helps brands, retailers, and agencies optimize and list products on hundreds of shopping destinations around the world. Learn more about our full-service solutions for advertising channels and marketplaces.
