Many businesses including brick and mortar companies have worried in recent years that Amazon is stealing their retail business. This is because Amazon offers many products available in small shops and retail stores and even on some eCommerce sites and does it at a cheaper price.
In fact, Amazon has worked hard to promote its price difference in direct competition to brick and mortar stores, including many small businesses.
Remember the online retailer’s price-check app for Android released just in time for the 2011 holiday season? An iPhone version was launched only the year before.
And more recently, Amazon released its Fire Phone, the company’s first smartphone, with which you can take pictures of any product on a store shelf, search for it on Amazon’s database and buy it there.
But, putting these two items aside for the moment, there is still one big problem with Amazon’s total domination of online retail.
Customers must be searching Amazon specifically to find these products. And many customers looking for products online are likely searching Google instead, Business Insider reports.
Google, it turns out, is squashing some Amazon search results in favor of its own Google Product Ad listings.
The little known ads allow you to list products whether sold on your eCommerce site or anywhere else and get more visibility in Google Searches than if your product was listed on Amazon.
In its official Google Ads center, Google explains:
“Product Listing Ads are search ads that include richer product information, such as product image, price, and merchant name, without requiring additional keywords or ad text. Whenever a user enters a search query relevant to an item in your Google Merchant Center account, Google will automatically show the most relevant products along with the associated image, price and product name.”
Here’s a video to further explain how the Google Product Ad works:
Google says the ads are charged either in a cost-per-click or cost-per-conversion format and are only available to select U.S. residents…so far.
But demand for the ads and what they can do for products is expected to increase dramatically, according to a report by Marin Software, a software creator for the advertising industry.
By the end of 2014, the software company estimates one out of every three dollars paid for Google search advertising will be going to Google Product Ads, reports MarketWatch.
Images: Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Larry Page of Google from Wikipedia, Google Ad from Business Insider
Product Listing Ads (PLAs) will be renamed to Google Shopping in a couple weeks. Keep that in mind!
But no, they get really good CTR because of the images. It’s taking a lot of clicks away from the organic listings (thus helping Google’s revenue).
It can also help with your own revenue if you know how to use it properly. Sure, Google will make money because of the ads but you’ll still make some money if you advertise on it. It will still be win-win. It even provides a better option than Amazon.