Thursday, December 20, 2012

Adlucent: New Google Shopping Changes Driving Conversions

The new changes to Google--which has changed over Google's shopping results to be driven by paying advertisers, rather than just pure search results--is driving conversions and sales for retailers, according to advertising technology and analytics provider Adlucent. Adlucent says there has been an "expolosive growth" in Google Shopping Product Listing Ads (PLAs), with click-through rates on the ads about 95% higher than text ads, and CPCs 7% higher. Adlucent said its numbers find that conversions are about 123% higher than text-based ads. Adlucent provides products aimed at those retailers to help them manage that advertising. Google's switch to paid listings--away from what had previously been an algorithmically determined pricing comparison service--has drawn quite a bit of attention, with competitor Bing even running a campaign called "Don't Get Scroogled" by Google, claiming Google's switch from fairly determined, algorithmic shopping results to paid shopping ads is deliberately misleading and a detriment to consumers.