Google Shopping Growth in 2019

For most online retailers Google shopping year-end reports (Q4) have marked significant growth after distinctly flatter prior quarter’s PLA (“Product Listing Ads”) traffic, and both impressions and clicks were up, especially for mobile.

The new Google shopping ad formats, i.e. Local Inventory Ads, Showcase Shopping Ads, are likely contributing to the observed upward trend. Certainly, rigorous optimizations also made a huge difference for each advertiser.

Notably, feed management is also highly related to campaign success, and Google has partnered with POS (point of sale) inventory management solutions to help businesses manage their local feeds. Given the local advertisers’ advantages over Amazon such as the immediacy and product availability, Google is enabling Local Inventory Ads, as well as its Google Express (ads) to directly compete with Amazon’s marketplace. Last year, Google Express ads transformed into Google Actions (transactional units) which received mixed feedback from PPC experts. We are yet to observe and measure the growth of Shopping as a terrific Paid Search opportunity for most retailers.