Google Buy Button – Is it Right for You?
Said to gear up competition with Amazon, Google's Buy button is reportedly a few weeks from its launch. Will it be a beneficial addition to your shopping campaigns?
Said to gear up competition with Amazon, Google's Buy button is reportedly a few weeks from its launch. Will it be a beneficial addition to your shopping campaigns?
It’s rumored that Google’s Buy button could be introduced to advertisers in only a matter of weeks. With all the hype, it’s important to take a step back to ensure the Buy button will work for your business. In this article, we’ll discuss what the button is, how it works, and if it might be a good fit for your business.
The Google Buy button will essentially be a button added to advertisers’ Shopping Ads (PLAs) on smartphones, which will give searchers the option to purchase a given product directly through Google instead of checking out through the retailer’s site.
Now, Google won’t be storing a warehouse full of your products – no worries. The purchase will still come through your site, making Google not only the “referrer,” but also the middleman in the transaction. Retailers will continue to own all orders and shipping arrangements.
Over the last several years, a remarkable amount of searchers have switched from searching for products on Google to directly searching for products on Amazon and other similar sites, which takes a portion of a retailer’s revenue as a “transaction fee.” Google appears to believe that making purchases simple, directly in their engine, will allow them to gain back some of the traffic they and their retailers have lost to Amazon over the years. Instead of charging a transactional fee, Google will continue to charge per ad click.
Another part of the hype is that a growing number of users are now searching for products on smartphones versus traditional desktops. Many retailers are having trouble measuring cross-device conversions accurately since so much of the “research phase” is happening on smartphones and only later transitioning to hard sales on desktops or tablets. Though measuring cross-device is inevitable for advertisers, giving users an easy way to shop on their smartphone is a step in the right direction.
According to reports, payment information will not be passed onto retailers, and will live solely with Google, who will offer multiple payment options for users. Through Google, users may be allowed to save their details for future purchases, but that information won’t be transferred onto a retailer’s database.
Though the Google Buy button will only be available for select retailers during its initial launch, it’s worth considering whether adding the Buy button to your shopping campaigns will be beneficial. Before pitching the idea to your executive board, consider the following (in no particular order):
As Google continues to roll out the new Buy button, keep a pulse on all the latest.