(cross-posted from the Google Commerce Blog)

We all rely on the web to turn our intentions into actions quickly and easily. From planning a spring break or a trip to the movies to finding the perfect gift for someone we love, the world is increasingly at our fingertips. And over the last few years, we've worked hard to bring the speed of the web to the real world. With Google Play, for example, you can now buy or rent books, movies and TV shows in seconds.

Today we're starting a new experiment, Google Shopping Express. It's a local delivery service that we hope will make it possible for you to get the items you order online the same day, and at a low cost. It's incredibly early days and so the service is only available to a small number of people in the Bay Area.

As a tester, you will be able to shop online, in a single place, from retailers such as Target, Walgreens, Staples, American Eagle and Toys“R”Us/Babies“R”Us -- along with locally distinct shops such as San Francisco’s Blue Bottle Coffee, and the Bay Area’s Palo Alto Toy & Sport and Raley’s Nob Hill Foods, and get your items delivered that same day. So hopefully, no more trips across town for simple errands.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (in the city of San Francisco, and the Peninsula from San Mateo to San Jose) and would like to help test this new initiative, please sign up here. We’re still working out our long-term pricing plan but early testers will get six months of free, unlimited same-day delivery. The pilot will expand as we work out the kinks, so please stay tuned.

Posted by Tom Fallows, Product Management Director, Google Shopping Express

(cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Today marks the debut of the new Think Insights, Google’s hub for marketing insights and inspiration for advertisers and agencies. On google.com/think, you can learn about the latest research in digital marketing, be inspired by creative brand campaigns, and find useful products and tools. You’ll also find industry-leading case studies and Google’s latest research, strategic perspectives, interviews with innovators and experts and more—all to help you make the most of the web.

Every week, we’ll feature content that spans industries and interests. Here’s a snapshot of our top stories:

• In Understanding the Full Value of Mobile, learn how sporting goods industry leader adidas worked with digital performance agency iProspect to understand how mobile drives value beyond mobile commerce, particularly in-store sales. The campaign proved that mobile brought a 680% incremental increase in ROI

• The Hyundai Elantra: Driveway Decision Maker campaign lets you watch your favorite Hyundai model drive right to your driveway, using a combination of Google Maps Street View, projection mapping and real-time 3D animation

• YouTube Ads Leaderboard shows which YouTube ads most moved audiences this month, through a winning combination of savvy promotion and smart creative strategy; a new list is featured each month

In our Perspectives section, we tap our own experts—as well as heads of industry, digital visionaries and Wharton professors—to lend their insights and analyses on the topics that matter most to marketers. The Product & Tools section contains information about our products and advertising platforms, as well as Planning Tools like the Brand Impressions tool and the popular Real-Time Insights finder.

We built google.com/think to help you do it all—stay up-to-date on the latest in digital marketing, arm yourself with data to support your business cases and create inspiring campaigns. Explore the site now, and if you like what you discover, don't forget to subscribe to our Think Letter for a monthly round-up of our most popular content.
For retail marketers, come visit the Retail industry page, which has all of the latest insights coming out of the retail industry, all in one place. Check out the headlining story, Moving Apparel Shoppers from Undecided to Decided in the Path to Purchase. This research study takes a closer look at online shopper behavior and search habits uncovering a huge opportunity for conversion with keywords.

Posted by Lisa Gevelber, Head of Global Ads Marketing

(cross-posted on The Google Commerce Blog)

People today are constantly connected, presenting a tremendous opportunity for retailers to deliver the right products to them across devices anytime, anywhere. We recently announced the release of enhanced campaigns to help advertisers reach customers in a multi-screen world. Today we're pleased to announce the Product Listing Ads are now eligible to appear on smartphones globally, extending the shopping experience already available desktops and tablets. When a user enters a shopping-related search, a commercial format that displays products in a single unit may appear above organic search results. This ad unit is labeled as a 'Sponsored' and displays rich product images, prices, retailers, and more. This mobile shopping experience will be available in all markets currently serving Product Listing Ads.

Below are a couple of examples of what a shopper might see when searching for a product from their phone.

In the image on the left, a user searching for a plaid tie may see an ad unit displaying three options. He can click any of them to learn more and buy, or click 'Shop on Google' to continue browsing on Google Shopping, as shown in the image on the right. From there, the user can look at an even wider variety of options from different retailers. He can review and compare images, prices, reviews, shopping options and other information. Perhaps he'll narrow his search down to plaid ties over $45, or filter to see just the selections available nearby. Finally, once the user has honed in on the perfect choice, he can easily complete his purchase on the retailer's site.

Ensure your products are eligible to display in this new unit for smartphones.

If you've already upgraded your Product Listing Ads to enhanced campaigns and made appropriate bid adjustments, your products will automatically be eligible to display in the new unit for smartphones. If you haven't yet upgraded your Product Listing Ads to enhanced campaigns, we recommend you upgrade to increase coverage of your products and easily manage bids across devices, locations, and time of day - all from a single campaign.


During this webinar, attendees will learn about how Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads work in concert with features that are part of enhanced campaigns. We will also discuss the latest Google Shopping user experience on smartphones and cover new multi-screen opportunities for retail advertisers.

Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager, Google Shopping

(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog and Google Commerce Blog)

On February 13, Google Shopping results in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic began to transition to a new commercial experience built on Product Listing Ads. If you’re a merchant in one of these countries and you’re currently promoting your products on Google Shopping for free, you’ll need to create a Product Listing Ad campaign to maintain your traffic and presence. You can learn more about this transition in our recent announcement.

KEEP YOUR PRODUCTS VISIBLE
To ensure that your products remain eligible for promotion on Google Shopping, we’ve built an easy way for you to create Product Listing Ads.

You can complete the following three simple steps in Merchant Center:

1. Set up a basic Product Listing Ad campaign: You’ll be able to create a new AdWords account in Merchant Center if you don’t already have one.
2. Customize your campaign: Set a daily budget and one single maximum cost-per-click bid. You can modify these settings any time after you create your campaign.
3. Provide your billing information: You’ll be taken to your AdWords account to provide or confirm your billing information.

For a detailed step-by-step guide to getting started with Product Listing Ads and to apply for a promotional credit (available for a limited time only), please visit this page.

PROMOTE YOUR PRODUCTS ACROSS DEVICES
With the recent launch of AdWords enhanced campaigns, it’s now easier than ever to promote your products across devices. This is crucial in a world where people are constantly connected and moving from one device to another. We encourage you to upgrade existing product listing ad campaigns to an enhanced campaign with appropriate bid adjustments.

If you need help getting started with Google Shopping, please visit the Google Shopping website or email us through this form.

Posted by: Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping

For those of you that have not yet finished -- or started -- your Valentine’s Day shopping this year, fear not! You are not alone....In 2012, the top e-Commerce spending day last Valentine’s season was on the holiday itself - February 14th!

Similarly, if your business spikes around Valentine’s Day, be certain that you continue your advertising through Valentine’s Day as many shoppers will fall into the “last-minute” category.

Last year, both online and offline shoppers were prepared to spend more than they had in recent years past. According to the NRF, the average shopper spent $126 on Valentine’s Day. This is an excellent sign of consumer confidence, as we have not witnessed a number this high since 2008. Total sales for V-Day 2013 are estimated at $18.6M, up 5.97% vs. last year.

Many popular Valentine’s Day gift categories performed exceptionally well last season with the majority seeing double digit growth rates in traffic:

• Flowers: +12%
• Jewelry: +25%
• GIfts: +27%
• Watches: +30%
• Gift Baskets: +15%
• Intimate Apparel: +14%

Q4 2012 results are also good indicators of future performance. Specifically in the Jewelry category - we saw +50% increases in diamond and bridal/engagement jewelry last holiday season as well.

Yet, even greater query increases came via mobile devices last season:

• Jewelry: +152%
• Flowers: +129%
• Gifts: +139%
• Gourmet Foods: +137%
• Gift Baskets: +185%

Last minute tip #1:
Be certain that you have complete keyword coverage across all product categories and devices, especially non-branded terms. For reference, last season, 76% of the top 200 search terms in flowers and gift baskets categories were non-branded queries. Be present when your customers are searching for you!

If you have a more specific category that you’re analyzing query demand for, check out the Google Trends tool which can provide a view of consumer search traffic on Google.com. Below you’ll find an example for women’s dresses.



We see steady growth patterns from December into the Valentine’s Day season. The tool will provide you with daily updates for any terms you enter.

Last minute tip #2:
Leverage daily query data to understand how consumer demand aligns with your product assortment and adjust your bids, budgets and ad messaging accordingly.

With just days and hours remaining, consumers are short on time and often looking for quick ways to find and item and purchase it both in-store and on the go. This Valentine’s Day, consumer intention surveys revealed that 53.8% of shoppers estimate they’ll use their tablet devices to shop for gifts.

Last minute tip #3: 
Take advantage of simple solutions that can capture shoppers quickly as they are searching:

• As consumers use their mobile devices to shop, customize your ad text with mobile call to actions, and similarly provide click-to-call links for easy phone orders. If your website is mobile-optimized or includes an app feature, promote these within your ads or via ad extensions as well

• Add sitelinks to your mobile and desktop ads to allow the shopper to quickly find the item they were looking for - taking them deeper into the conversion funnel with just one click. You can also highlight promotional offers via sitelinks, as well as your most popular items for the Valentine’s Day season. In tests, ads that ran with sitelinks saw a 30% increase in CTR

• Visually entice shoppers as they search with Product Listing Ads. Give them a view of the product, price, and brand in just one click

As consumer trends continue to change in our multi-screen world, the most important area to focus on is in creating one unified face for the customer - no matter what device or channel they may be using. Developing an omnichannel brand presence online and offline will be key to this Valentine’s Day and beyond.

Lastly, be sure that you take advantage of all our amazing technology this Valentine’s Day, and call, send an email, a text, or have a video Hangout to tell those that you care about how much they mean to you!

Happy Valentine’s Day to All!

Posted by Terra Hess, Google Retail Team

If holiday 2012 was any sign of the aggressively evolving retail landscape, we can expect 2013 to hold the same promise. Industry experts recently gathered at the National Retail Federation’s Annual Retail Big Show in New York to discuss just this. The four day conference featured +27,600 attendees from across the globe, each bringing a fresh perspective on their industry’s outlook.

Today we’ll take a look at the top emerging themes from the NRF Conference for 2013. Below each, you’ll also see some the ways Google is getting involved to assist you in driving these initiatives in the months to come.

1. Omnichannel: This is certainly the buzzword of 2013! Many research groups (Foresee, Deloitte, and others) featured recent studies focused specifically on the changing behavior of shoppers across channels. Others discussed the importance of a seamless customer experience between online, mobile and in-store channels.

• Because of this trend, Google recently upgraded its AdWords advertising platform, by rolling out enhanced campaigns. Enhanced campaigns help you reach people with the right ads, based on their context like location, time of day and device type, across all devices without having to set up and manage several separate campaigns

2. The Multiscreen Experience: Not only are mobile devices becoming mainstream, but their usage among retail shoppers continues to grow as well. With this being said, mobile has become a vital piece of retailers’ ecommerce marketing strategies. However, not only was mobile highly touted as a marketing channel, the use of mobile technology in business operations (payments, inventory, shipping) was also emphasized- ultimately the use for employees to become more connected and more efficient.
Google offers a number of mobile tools to assist you with optimizing your own website across devices. This also includes providing you access to a wealth of mobile ad platforms across search, video and apps. Check out www.howtogomo.com for more info!

3. Globalization of Retail: International attendees were a major focus this year, with translators in each breakout session and entire sessions focused on international and globalized retail strategies. The upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics in Brazil are driving a boom in retail infrastructure in South America. Tesco CIO Mike McNamara spoke at length on how they leveraged consumer technologies to grow Tesco into a global brand without losing grasp on their supply chain.

• Google’s custom settings provide you the opportunity to geo-target your ads to specific global regions, as well as alter the language of the ad text

• The Google Trends tool is an excellent resource to leverage. It allows you to visually see how specific queries geographically trend

• Google also has a platform of business tools to foster team collaboration and internal efficiencies. Read about the Google Enterprise Platform at www.google.com/enterprise

4. Engaging with the Always-Connected Consumer: Consumers are more connected than ever before. Many NRF sessions focused on the need and ability to engage with your audience beyond the sale. Coca-Cola's Keynote presentation discussed the importance for brands to create experiences for consumers instead of just transactions. The brands that can do this will thrive in the future. Also emphasized was the use of video and social media platforms in doing so. Personalization has also become a top action item for retailers given the ability to significantly influence shoppers across every touchpoint - online, email, in-store, and mobile.

• Make it easy for consumers to identify your brand across devices and channels - whether that be online or offline. Your messaging and graphics should be unified within each, allowing the consumer to gain immediate brand recognition no matter where they find your brand

• Customers want to feel valued and appreciated. Show them that you know and understand their interests and needs by leveraging Static and Dynamic Remarketing Ad formats

5. Product, product, product. Many NRF speakers discussed the importance of differentiating oneself among a growing competitive set, as well as the ever-changing consumer shopping habits. As opposed to the old adage of “location, location, location,” retailers must focus now on product. With mobile and the web, your customer may never make it to the store. ShopRunner's Chief Strategy Officer, Fiona Diaz highlighted this quoting,“The reason you stand out among a sea of competitors is product. In Amazon’s case, their vast product assortment dwarfs what other retailers offer. In the case of Nordstrom, it’s quality over quantity with beautiful, curated product. Whichever you choose, companies need to develop a differentiated product strategy, otherwise, you will struggle.”

• Google’s Product Listing Ads provide a visual search ad format that allows you to include a product image, company name, title, price and promotional message

• Shoppers are always looking for promotional deals and values. Google continues to innovate in this area - recently releasing Google Zavers. Zavers assists companies in offer the right coupons to the right shoppers, expand rewards programs, and track redemption in real-time

Although we’re certain the retail ecosystem will continue to evolve and change in 2013, we hope that the five themes listed above will help you get a successful start this year!

Posted by Terra Hess, The Google Retail Team

(cross-posted on the Inside AdWords Blog)

What was your business’ New Year’s resolution, and how do you plan to keep it? At Google, ours is to help make the web work for you. Our new series of Learn with Google webinars will teach you how to use digital to build brand awareness, and they’ll give you the tools you need to drive sales. By tapping into technology that works together across your business needs, you can resolve to win moments that matter in 2013.

Check out our upcoming live webinars:

Build Awareness
02/12 [Multiscreen] Brand Building in a Multiscreen World
02/20 [YouTube] How to Build your Business with YouTube Video Ads
03/05 [Social] How to Use Google+ and Make Social Work for You
03/12 [Mobile] Understanding Mobile Ads Across Marketing Objectives
03/27 [Wildfire by Google] The Call for Converged Media

Drive Sales

01/29 [Analytics] Google Tag Manager: Technical Implementation *today*
02/07 [Search] Your Shelf Space on Google: Get Started with Google Shopping
02/26 [YouTube] From Awareness to Sales: Making the Most of Video Remarketing
02/27 [Search] What's New and Next in AdWords
03/06 [Display] Biggest Loser: Digital Ad Spend Edition
03/13 [Mobile] The Full Value of Mobile
03/20 [Display] Getting Started with Dynamic Remarketing

Visit our webinar site to register for any of the sessions and to access past webinars on-demand. You can also stay up-to-date on the schedule by adding our Learn with Google Webinar calendar to your own Google calendar to automatically see upcoming webinars.

During our last series of webinars, attendees had the chance to win a Nexus 7. Our lucky winner was Donella Cohen, who is happily enjoying her new tablet. Check out our upcoming webinars for another chance to win!

Learn with Google is a program to help businesses succeed through winning moments that matter, enabling better decisions and constantly innovating. We hope that you’ll use these best practices and how-to’s to maximize the impact of digital and grow your business. We’re looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming session!

Posted by Erin Molnar, The Learn with Google Team

(Cross-posted on Google Commerce Blog)

With Zavers, shoppers find manufacturer discounts on their favorite retailer websites, and save the digital coupons to their accounts. Then they simply shop for those products and check out as usual. Redemption occurs in real time, with savings automatically deducted at checkout when shoppers provide their rewards cards or phone numbers—no scanning or sorting necessary. Manufacturers only pay when a product is moved off the shelf.

Zavers by Google is growing fast. This month we are thrilled to welcome New York’s Original Grocer, D’Agostino, as the latest partner in our retail network. In the coming months, we will be announcing partnerships with a number of other major retailers.

Retailers and manufacturers can see first-hand how Zavers works by visiting our demonstration booth at the annual NRF Convention & Expo, January 14-15 (booth #2281).

If you are a U.S.-based retailer or packaged goods manufacturer, let us show you how Zavers by Google can help. To get started, please contact our sales team at g.co/contact-zavers or visit our website at google.com/zavers.

Posted by Spencer Spinnell, Director, Emerging Platforms, Google Commerce