Google ‘Buy’ Button Debuts

A Google “Buy” button, long-rumored and therefore Internet-named, became official on Wednesday and it’s actually called “Purchases on Google.”

Jonathan Alferness, VP of product management with Google Shopping, explains the tool in a post on Inside AdWords.

“For retailers, opting in to Purchases on Google means improved mobile conversions, thanks to a simplified checkout process,” he says on Wednesday. “Participating retailers only pay for clicks on the shopping ads to the product page; all clicks and interactions on the product page are free. While Google hosts the product page and provides purchase protection for customers, retailers own the customer communication and can offer customers the option to receive marketing and promotional messages.”

Now in the testing stage, companies including Under Armour and Staples allow Google to “reduce purchase friction” for smartphone shoppers, Jason LaRose, Under Armour’s digital chief revenue officer tells Google. And there is friction, Alferness writes. Using the search giant’s statistics from May, he says conversion rates on desktop computers are double those of mobile devices. These echo IBM’s Holiday 2014 online shopping results, which Big Blue reported in January 2015: Smartphone users accounted for 31.2 percent of e-commerce shoppers, but only 9.1 percent of all Web buyers.

“When a shopper searches on mobile for a product, such as ‘women’s hoodies,’ she may see a shopping ad with ‘Buy on Google’ text,” Alferness says. “After clicking the ad, she’s taken to a retailer-branded product page hosted by Google. Checkout is seamless, simple and secure, thanks to saved payment credentials in her Google Account.”

The announcement about testing the tool may have been the final subject in a long blog post because last year, Facebook began testing its “Buy” button and last month, TechCrunch reported the social media network is “opening it up to more retailers on Shopify‘s e-commerce platform.” Also last month, Pinterest started offering “Buyable Pins.” The list goes on.

However, Google is a major force in marketing. Just ask travel publishers who may have been surprised by a Search Engine Land article on Monday.

“Google is apparently testing out direct hotel booking,” the article reads. “The company is seeking to have hotel searchers book and pay via Google rather than handing off the lead to a third-party travel site or hotel site.”

As for the other announcements from Alferness, Google is rolling out expandable shopping ads this month that will give smartphone swipers larger images and more information, including product ratings and availability at nearby stores. “The result: more qualified traffic driven directly to retailers,” he writes.

• Google will directly answer conversational searchers.
• It will prioritize local inventory ads over shopping ads in situations where the clear intent is to find local options, such as “ ‘coffee maker near me.’ This new experience increased clicks on shopping ads by 85 percent for these queries” Google found by analyzing last month’s data.
• New “Google Now” options target consumers before they search, giving them information about stores they’re near or retargeting them with “a significant price reduction on a product,” according to the Google post.

Will marketers use the “Purchases on Google” tool? How will they integrate it with their other marketing efforts?

source: http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/google-buy-button-debuts/