As of November 11th, Google Product Ads are being offered to all Adwords advertisers. Up until now they have only been offered in a closed beta test involving about 800 advertisers, but now anyone will be able to take part in the program.
Google Product Ads are a way for advertisers to give Google a feed of products, have images of those products appear in the ads, and to pay on a cost-per-acquisition basis (an automatic bidding system where you set the amount you are willing to pay per conversion and Google positions your ads accordingly).
The ads are especially notable in that they show images of products. In the image below you can see a “Product Ad” in comparison to the “traditional” AdWords ads that lack images below.
Some highlights:
- They’re designed to be purchased on a CPA basis, where you pay only when a product is actually sold. However, CPC (cost-per-click pricing) is allowed. Important point: only “managed advertisers,” larger accounts with ad reps, can bid on a CPA basis. Otherwise, they have to pay on a CPC basis.
- They’re designed for merchants to put in a product feed, and Google will automatically use that to trigger the ads against keywords it determines.
- One CPA price for all products can be given, or advertisers can set different CPA pricing for different products.
- Advertisers can pay on a percentage basis (i.e., Google might get, say, 5% of a sale — or 2% – or 20%, whatever you set).