• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 27, 2024

Today at Google's annual Think Retail event in New York City, it introduced advertising capabilities to save time and build goals as well as boost customer convenience.

Google has enabled advertisers to automate an onboarding process that syncs in-store availability from a retail website and integrate it with their Merchant Center account. It later picks up local inventory ads and assists in converting local shopping intent into store sales and foot traffic.

Available in beta, a new feature that Google calls Profit Goals aims to help merchants better understand ad performance and drive optimization in campaigns.

The idea is to unlock advanced sales, profit reporting and insights for Google Ads accounts and campaigns, including number of orders, average cart size, revenue and gross profit.

Advanced reporting based on conversions with cart data for Profit Goals is supported for Performance Max, Shopping ads, and Search campaigns that link with a Google Merchant Center account.

Google has made brand exclusions customizable at the format level to exclude branded queries specifically for either Search or Shopping ads within Performance Max for more granular control, and a new retailer view of Search trends supports Merchant Center users to explore shopping trends relevant to their product inventory, helping retailers.

For U.S. users, Google added AI-powered insights that summarize recent product performance at the top of the analytics tab in Merchant Center.

Google also uses AI to help retailers answer specific questions about product data with new custom reports. A basic description of the data from questions like “show me the performance of my best selling dresses" can help answer questions to increase performance.

Emarketer estimates total retail sales for the 2024 holiday season to reach $1.372 trillion, up 4.8% from 2023, but it's not clear whether consumers will spend more on more items or if the items will cost more. Ecommerce sales are expected to increase 9.5% to $271.58 billion, and non-ecommerce sales are expected to increase 3.7% to $1.1 trillion. 

Inflation may have dropped from peaks in 2022, but 53% of consumers participating in a ConsumerWise U.S. survey from late July 2024 through the first week of August are still concerned about rising prices and inflation.

The concerns may be due to stabilizing inflation, which doesn't mean that prices will drop, but rather that consumers would need to adjust to new, higher prices.

Some 37% of respondents say stabilizing inflation has made them feel more optimistic about the economy, up from 31% in the previous quarter. Several retailers have plans to lower prices on everyday items, which also might be contributing to higher optimism.

Age, not income, seems to be the main determinant of these third-quarter results. Gen Z and millennials across income groups report higher rates of optimism compared with Gen X and Baby Boomers.

Consumers indicated in the survey they plan to increase spending on most essential, semi-discretionary, and discretionary items during the next three months. In a few categories, including fresh produce and home improvement and gardening supplies, consumers say they plan to decrease their spending compared with the second quarter, though no specific mention of holiday gift giving in the survey.