• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 1, 2017

Google has introduced a report to show aggregate product status and a new metric — absolute top impression share — showing the frequency of Shopping ads and Local Inventory ads that appear in the first spot on desktop and on mobile.

The product status report and absolute top impression share aim to identify the gaps in products ahead of the holiday season, but also help marketers to measure a brand's competitiveness in Shopping campaigns.

The new diagnostics report in AdWords for the products page helps identify the aggregate product status, which shows the current status of an individual product in a campaign, such as products in the "ready to serve" or the "disapproved" category.

When Google disapproves a product in the Merchant Center for any reason, the campaign will not serve up in Shopping. Marketers can see the reason for the disapproval in the product status column. A detailed explanation and information on how to fix it will appear in the speech bubble.

When products serve up in Shopping, internal data from Google conducted in fourth-quarter 2016 found that the left-most ad on mobile Shopping results earns up to three times higher engagement from shoppers. Impressions in this position are called "absolute top," per Google.

The company defines this as the total number of times the ad has appeared in the No. 1 position in Shopping during the times it would not otherwise have been in this position. For example, if the ad served up in the top spot in the results of eight queries, but was eligible for 20, then the "absolute top impression share" would be 40%.

"Absolute top” impressions include ads from the Shopping carousel on Google search results and are available for both Shopping ads and Local Inventory ads.

If disapproved, products not eligible to serve up in Shopping campaigns, it can influence the number of shopping results that consumers see when searching on google.com and ultimately reduce the brand's total score.