New formats in Google: Shoppable Image Ads and video in Shopping catalogs

Google is preparing for the Christmas season, so this week it announced new formats for the retail industry to attract more advertisers and users.

Novelty 1: Video can now be added to Shopping catalogs. These ads are those to which multiple images can be added. When the user clicks on the ad, they are directed to a landing page featuring promotions, descriptions, and featured products from the advertiser's catalog. Typically these ads are shown in searches with branded terms or broad searches.

In this update, the video would be shown in the ad in the space that currently corresponds to the featured image. After clicking, the video plays at the top of the landing page.

This ad is considered a typical format for top-of-the-funnel actions, that is, to attract new customers. According to information from Google, this type of ad generates 20% more conversions taking a first click attribution and will be available to users who are currently using Showcase Shopping ads.

Novelty 2: Google claims that a third of year-end shoppers searched for images before buying from a store. To reach these types of users who search for images on sites, as well as Google's image search engine, a new format was launched: Shoppable Image Ads.

This way if a user clicks on the icon of a Shoppable Image Ad on a third party site, the user will be shown a carousel of products similar to the one shown in the image.

When searching on Google Image Search, images will be displayed per unit and the product will be tagged with price. Units will be labeled "sponsored" and will have a shopping tag in the lower left corner.

This may not be a format that we see frequently today, but we will surely see it more often in time. Of course, these new features will gradually be opened to more advertisers.

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