Tag Archives: shopping

Shopping on Google brings new features to connect more users to retailers

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ESxE2TPcnaVUmmvFIIEI2cOkZCZX3GMP5EFAkI-L1UBi3FyyXvyj499d1rdmAOBB2d8R2bCMP7FVQcXqZlcudkSAL_a1fReM32Emy7go42CHw49EYjoAWZjmnubNXeVNUrJHiWmW Surojit Chatterjee Vice President - Product Management Google Shopping
Last year we announced a new shopping experience on Search -- a frictionless way for Indian shoppers to discover new products on Google. We also enabled online merchants to list their products for free in the Merchant Center, along with auto feeds that made the process quick and easy.  

We’ve witnessed incredible momentum since then. Indian shoppers engage with this shopping experience more often, and for longer periods of time compared to other markets, and there are now over 200 million offers available on Google Shopping. Not only that, share of clicks on listings that direct to small and medium business websites have increased by 30 percent! We’re committed to helping small and medium sized businesses succeed in India and are excited to announce new tools to help them connect with shoppers, online and off.



Getting local stores online with Google My Business

Although online shopping in India continues to grow in popularity, about 96 percent of shopping still happens offline. Soon, any local retailer will be able to create an online store through Google My Business and connect with the millions of shoppers searching for their products online. When they post photos of their in-store products, they will automatically be surfaced as product listings on Search and in the Google Shopping tab. We’re excited to welcome the 20,000 local businesses that are already on Google My Business in India into the Shopping experience when it launches early next year. 

Shopping in Indian languages

The rate at which Indian language users are coming online cannot be overstated -- 9 out of every 10 new users coming online are Indian language users (largely using their mobile phones, from tier 2 and 3 cities.) And these users are searching online more than ever: at Google For India earlier this year, we announced that 20 percent of Search queries in India are in Hindi.

So we are glad to share that we are extending the power of Google Translate to the Shopping tab as well as the Shopping home page for Indian languages.



Hindi
Telugu
Gujarati

Over the next two to three years, approximately 500 million non-English speaking users will be online in India, and we hope that this step will enable them to more easily find products in their own language. And on the merchant side, it requires no extra effort -- the products that will be showcased to online shoppers in India will seamlessly be displayed in their preferred Indian language. This feature will also be available to shoppers in India early next year.

As we shared when we launched Shopping on Search in India last year, our endeavor is to enable India’s small and medium retailers to grow and thrive, and to open a world of new online experiences for Indian shoppers. With the integration of Google My Business and Google Translate, we are excited to bring the full power of Google to Shopping. 
Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Vice President - Product Management, Google Shopping

Expanding your Shopping ads to additional Google platforms

YouTube and Google Discover power visually rich experiences and play a part of millions of users’ shopping journeys. Soon your Standard Shopping campaigns will be able to reach users who discover and continue their shopping journey on these additional Google platforms.

We’re excited to announce that Shopping ads (both Product Shopping ads and Showcase Shopping ads) in your standard Shopping campaigns will be eligible to appear on YouTube and Google Discover beginning the week of July 15th, 2019. Shopping ads served on YouTube and Google Discover will be reported under the Google Display Network.

In preparation for this change, standard Shopping campaigns that are enabled for Search Network will be automatically enabled for YouTube and Discover, beginning the week of June 17th, 2019. This means that any standard Shopping campaigns that target the Search Network will automatically enabled to target the Content Network. After this process, developers using the Google Ads API or the AdWords API can give users the ability to opt-in/opt-out. They can do this by changing the campaign target network as follows:
  • Google Ads API - Modify the NetworkSettings of the standard Shopping campaign to set target_content_network to true or false.
  • AdWords API - Modify the NetworkSetting of the standard Shopping campaign to set targetContentNetwork to true or false.
Ads with these settings will only be eligible to appear on YouTube and Google Discover from the week of July 15th, 2019. During that week, you may start seeing new metrics as part of your reporting data. Depending on which API you are using you can access the metrics by doing the following: Note: If you would like to upgrade to the Google Ads API from the AdWords API, please see more information our blog.

If you have any questions or need help, please contact us via the forum.
- Ian Ballantyne, on behalf of the Google Ads API Team

Announcing v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping

Today we're announcing the release of v2.1 of the Content API for Shopping. This version has been available as an experimental version since late last year and is now ready for production use by all Content API users.

Highlights
You can find a complete list of changes in the release notes and accompanying migration guide, but here are some highlights:
  • A more consistent product validation experience. Product insert requests no longer report non-fatal warnings or errors. This allows you to insert products and make subsequent updates to resolve issues via feed rules in the Merchant Center UI, just as you would with feeds maintained outside the API.
  • A better experience for managing Shopping Actions. Multiple improvements have been made to the Orders API based on feedback from beta users.
  • More features are on the way! Today's release contains many improvements, but more are on the way, including new ways to supply local inventory data and features to support supplemental feeds.
  • Continued v2 support. While we strongly encourage you to migrate to v2.1, support for v2 will continue at least through the first quarter of 2020. Subscribe to this blog to ensure you receive important updates on Content API releases and deprecations.
Updated client libraries
Updated client libraries with support for v2.1 are now available in multiple languages.

Learn more
Check out the v2.1 API reference documentation to explore the new version of the API, and read through the list of behavior changes and deprecations in the migration guide to help plan your upgrade to v2.1.

If you have any questions or need help with migration, please head over to our support forum.
- Josh Radcliff, Content API for Shopping Team

Sunset of XML support in the Content API for Shopping

What's changing?
Starting September 1, 2019, the Content API for Shopping will no longer support requests or responses with XML payloads. All requests with an XML payload will fail after the sunset date.

Why is this change happening?
Version 2 of the Content API for Shopping changed the default request and response format from XML to JSON, and version 2.1 of the API (currently marked experimental) will not support XML. The majority of API requests now use JSON, so we've decided to sunset XML support and instead focus on enriching our JSON APIs with new features and functionality.

What should you do?
Prior to the sunset date, identify the components of your application that are using XML payloads for any of the following impacted services: For each case, modify your application to:
  • Send the request body as JSON.
  • Ensure you have removed the alt=xml parameter from the request.
  • Process the response as JSON.
  • Test your updated application using a separate test account.
Tip: The client libraries for .NET, Dart, Go, Java, JavaScript, Node.js, Objective-C, PHP, Python, and Ruby will send JSON requests and parse JSON responses for you. We strongly recommend that you use one of the libraries so you won't have to write marshalling and unmarshalling code in your application.

When converting a given request, you can use the JSON and XML tabs in the Request body section of the documentation for the method. For example, here's a partial screenshot of the XML tab for Inventory.set:

The corresponding JSON tab for that method is:

Compare the two tabs and use that as a guide when converting your request from XML to JSON.

You can find similar JSON and XML information for the response in one of the following locations:
  • Directly in the Response section for the method.
    Example: The productsCustomBatchResponse for Products.custombatch.
  • In the Resource representations section of the documentation for the resource returned in the response.
    Example: The products resource for Products.insert.
If you have any questions or feedback about this change, or any other questions about the Content API for Shopping, please let us know on the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, Content API for Shopping Team

Update on issue reporting changes in the Content API for Shopping

In August, 2018, we announced that we would stop populating the dataQualityIssues field in Productstatus and Accountstatus resources in December of last year. Due to the recent holiday season, we decided to hold off on that change, but it will now be made starting February 25, 2019.

Please review the previous blog post for important details, including how to use the new and improved itemLevelIssues field in your platform's integration with the Content API for Shopping.

If you have any questions or feedback about this change, or any other questions about the Content API for Shopping, please let us know on the forum.
- Josh Radcliff, Content API for Shopping Team

Creating Smart Shopping campaigns with the local inventory ads setting enabled will be rejected

Starting Feb 15, 2019, in all AdWords API versions and in the Google Ads API, we’re going to reject requests that attempt to create a Smart Shopping campaign with the local inventory ads setting enabled. The local inventory ads setting is equivalent to setting enableLocal to true in the AdWords API, and enable_local to true in the Google Ads API. Trying to set those fields to true when creating a Smart Shopping campaign will result in the OperationAccessDenied.OPERATION_NOT_PERMITTED_FOR_CAMPAIGN_TYPE error. Previously, those fields were ignored when passed to the API servers.

Why is this happening?
Throwing an error for the requests described above provides an alert to users that local inventory ads are not supported in Smart Shopping campaigns.

What should you do?
Make sure you do not have code that creates a Smart Shopping campaign with local inventory ads enabled. Specifically, when you create a ShoppingSetting object for a Smart Shopping campaign, take either of the following actions: Follow the guides below for details on how to create a Smart Shopping campaign: As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please post them on our forum.
 - Thanet Praneenararat, Google Ads API Team

Smart Shopping campaigns are publicly available today

Smart Shopping campaigns were released in AdWords API v201802 to whitelisted advertisers. Today, we’re releasing them to all developers in both the AdWords API and Google Ads API.

Smart Shopping campaigns combine automation and machine learning to maximize your conversion value across networks based on your budget. For end-to-end instructions in creating Smart Shopping campaigns, ad groups, and ads, visit our docs: AdWords API guide or Google Ads API guide.

For optimal performance, we recommend you have at least 20 conversions over the last 45 days across existing Shopping campaigns before creating a Smart Shopping campaign.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please post them on our forum.
 - Thanet Praneenararat, Google Ads API Team

A new guide for integrating Google Shopping ads using Google APIs

Good news for developers planning to integrate Google Shopping ads! We have just released a brand new guide explaining how to automate the delivery of Google Shopping on behalf of merchants using Google APIs.

The Shopping Automation Guide covers the steps required to set up new merchants using a combination of the Content API for Shopping and AdWords API. It describes how you can fully automate certain tasks that would otherwise be performed manually using the Merchant Center and AdWords websites.

The guide is for developers interested in feed management, campaign management, or full automation workflow that includes both. The workflows provide detailed explanations of how the different APIs can be used for each stage of the user journey. You can follow the workflow step by step or navigate straight to the article you require using the side panel.

Head over to the developer pages to get started! If you have any questions or need help, please contact us on the relevant forums: If you have any feedback on the guide, please use the “Send Feedback” link at the top right of each page.

We also appreciate any feedback on your experience using the guide. If you would like to share it, please complete this survey.
 - , AdWords API Team

How Canadians are shopping this holiday season

Are you a last-minute shopper? Well, you’re not alone. With only 10 days until the holidays, a new study tells us that Canadians have completed less than half of their holiday shopping!1 But these last-minute shoppers aren’t panicking.


We partnered with Ipsos to survey Canadians on how they’ve used technology to shop this holiday season, and we found that holiday shoppers are using their smartphones, search and online video to be savvier than ever. This year, 34 percent of Canadian shoppers say they always do research or check digital sources before going to the store. Canadians may be last-minute shoppers, but they certainly have a game plan for when they hit the mall.


Today we’re sharing three trends that surfaced during Canada’s peak shopping season:


Smartphones are the ultimate shopping companion

The smartphone is a ubiquitous part of Canada's shopping experience, and when Canadians incorporated smartphone searches into their holiday shopping activities it resulted in a purchase 49 percent of the time. Savvy shoppers are turning to their smartphones to make purchases. Of the transactions that were made online this holiday season, 33 percent were purchased via smartphone.


While more people are willing to buy on mobile, we know that mobile is still used as a personal research assistant in and out of the store. This year, 38 percent of Canadian shoppers that bought in-store used their smartphone to search for products and services, and 74 percent used mobile apps as part of their holiday shopping experience.


Digital research influences purchases

Digital tools like smartphones and online search are friends, not foes, to in-store shopping. Canadian shoppers are conducting online research before they hit the mall to determine what they want to buy, the best products in a given category and which stores to visit to find that they need. We’ve seen mobile searches related to “best” products in the top retail categories grow by more than 44 percent in the last year.2


This year, shoppers are prepared, as one in five Canadian holiday shoppers say they’ve checked prices online before going in store. Almost half (43%), wish retail stores would do a better job of sharing inventory information.


YouTube is the new gift guide

Whether it’s watching a product review or learning how to bake gingerbread cookies, Canadian shoppers look to video in countless moments throughout to the day to help get things done. And this includes shopping. This holiday season, shoppers will turn to devices to learn more, make a decision or purchase a product. This year, 26 percent of holiday shoppers used online video to look at products and services


Whether you’re a last-minute shopper or you’ve checked off your whole list, have a happy holiday!


Posted by Sarah Bradley and Naumi Haque, Research and Market Insights Managers, Google Canada.


1 Google/Ipsos, 2016 Holiday Shopping Study, Nov 17 to Dec 9, 2016, with n=1,387 Canadian shoppers

2 Google internal data, Canada searches related to apparel, home & garden, beauty & personal care, computer & electronics, and gift (excluding terms “best buy,” “best man,” and “best friends”). Jan-March 2015 vs. Jan-March 2016

Sunsetting promotionLine in AdWords Scripts

We are sunsetting support for the promotion line field of Product Ads in AdWords Scripts, since this feature has been retired in AdWords in favor of automated extensions.

As part of this change, we have marked the getPromotionLine() method of ProductAd and the withPromotionLine() method of ProductAdBuilder as deprecated. These methods will start throwing errors on September 15, 2016. If your script uses these methods, then make sure you review them and make necessary changes to ensure they continue to work as expected.

If you have any questions about these changes or AdWords scripts in general, you can post them on our developer forum.

Anash P. Oommen, AdWords Scripts Team