Here is a selection of what’s new in PPC as well as some Beta version currently tested in the UK.

Shopping Ads in YouTube

It was fairly obvious that Google purchasing YouTube was meant to used this gigantic video platform to create new advertising approaches.

This new move from Google is entirely based on what they called “Micro-moments”. A micro-moment is when users automatically turn to their mobile device to learn more about a product or a service.

The introduction of Trueview for Shopping is aiming to “connect the dots” as Google puts it, between the moment where a person watches a video and when this person decides to buy a product.

To be eligible to this new Google/YouTube feature, you have to have Google Merchant Center set up where your product feed is stored.

The principle is simple, from the Merchant Center integration into video ads, advertisers would be able to geographically and demographically target users pretty well, and therefore sharpening your existing advertising strategy.

Structured Snippets Extensions (BETA)

If you are familiar with the Search Network campaigns from Google, you will be familiar with call out extensions.

The structured snippets extensions is on beta-version at the moment, letting you create structured information such as “Header + Values” that would highlights to users a specific aspect of your products or services.

It’s the same principle as Callouts, those new bits of information are non-clickable text. Further testing would probably reveal an impact (or not) on the CTR.

Frankly said, I’m not entirely seduced & convinced by this new BETA on the SN though…

Bing Shopping Campaign Coming Soon!

If you’re a UK based ecommerce website willing to broaden your marketing channels, BING shopping is not for you yet. Unfortunately, BING shopping is only available to all US advertisers right now.

Here is a full comparison of Google Shopping Vs BING Shopping

The Good news is, the new feature from Microsoft is offering a similar level of functionalities to the Google Shopping model.

As an advertiser, you’ll need to set up:

• A BING Merchant Center store which seems to be as easy to set up as a Google Merchant Center account.
• A product feed, which if you are using Google Shopping, will be compatible on BING.
• Use the existing BING universal Event Tracking
• Create your campaigns the same way you’d do in Google Adwords

But… BING offers the possibility to simply import your Google Shopping campaign:

Product Feed Lightbox (BETA)

That’s a new Display Network ad from Google on beta version which can feature a 10-20 product feed from your Google Merchant Center account. This includes images and descriptions from your product feed and an opportunity to ‘click to shop’ on website.

There is a possibility of mixing video, images and maps to enhance a stronger brand experience.

Those ads would run across the current display network of Google, so watch out for those monsters…

Google is trying hard to put ads everywhere, but is this to benefit the advertisers or users? Arguably, ads can be good in some cases but terribly annoying when advertisers don’t control them.The good thing, is that as PPCs, we have plenty of room to test run during the coming weeks and months!