• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 19, 2018

The Google Express marketplace will become a major push for Google in 2018, as it attempts to compete with Amazon and connect its AdWords advertising platform more closely with deliveries. Late last year the company integrated the service into Google Assistant and tied in retailers such as Target.

In November of 2017, Shopping Ads, product listing ads (PLAs) on Google displayed the words "Google Express" in place of the retailer name, according to a report from Adlucent scheduled for release this coming week. The ads led to a retailer product page on Google Express where a shopper could purchase the item seen in the ad via Google’s payment system.

"These ads are designed to help brands without a direct to consumer (D2C) website sell more products on the Google Express marketplace," Adlucent describes in a report. "While Google hasn’t publicly addressed their intended monetization model, we believe these ads will be based on a commission model like existing Google Express purchases."

It's just a guess, but it seems, per the report, that PLAs may dominate the premium ad positions on the page and can shift more traffic to Google Express, as the company attempts to compete with Amazon. Adlucent predicts Google Express will become the transaction engine that supports purchases across Google properties from Google's search engine to its chatbot and voice assistant.

People just didn't type in their request. Roughly 39 million Americans own a Smart Speaker, and 7% of them received one during the 2017 holiday season, from Black Friday through the end of December 2017, according to The Smart Audio Report from NPR and Edison Research surveying nearly 2,000 people by phone and online.

With Valentine's Day less than one month away, marketers may want to take note of the Google Express delivery service and some of the strategies that worked during the 2017 holiday season.

Desktop conversions remained on top as the best source of revenue during the holidays, but mobile location-based ads played a key role in helping consumers find last-minute gifts at local stores during the week prior to Christmas Day. In fact sales from mobile devices took 43% of the device share that week.

Retailers also depended on search ads to promote their real-time gift card offers to grab the interest of these last-minute shoppers on mobile devices. 

Impressions on desktop rose 19% year over year (YoY) during the holiday season, influencing 27% more orders and driving 35% more revenue than in 2016.  

For Adlucent clients, product listing ads were a key driver of product sales. Revenue rose 48% during the 2017 holiday season, fueled by a 43% growth in orders compared with 2016. Mobile PLA impressions grew 113%, with mobile orders up by 152%, and revenue from mobile grew 239% YoY.

Adlucent clients saw mobile search impressions rise 97% YoY for the 2017 holiday season. The growth in traffic resulted in two-times the amount of search orders and 155% more revenue compared with 2016. The search agency attributed the climb, in part, to increases in bids from rising mobile conversion rates and average order values (AOVs), per the report.