• by Laurie Sullivan , 4 hours ago

Google spent time with retailers and brands on Wednesday, explaining the best ways to reach consumers during the upcoming holiday season as impulse buys fall and budgets tighten.

These days, consumers are thinking more about price and quality, as shown in a recent survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers of about 4,000 U.S. consumers conducted between June and July.

Consumers are expected to spend less this year during the holidays. On average, they plan to spend $1,552 per person, down 5.3% from last year.

U.S. impulse buys have dropped from 30% to 26%, according to an Ipsos online study commissioned by Google. Consumers are researching more, asking completely new types of questions, and getting answers with help from artificial intelligence (AI).

The good news is that consumers are still shopping -- but they are doing more research, asking completely new types of questions, and getting answers with help from artificial intelligence (AI). They are thinking more about price and quality, and condensing purchases into three months to watch budgets closely.

Dan Taylor, vice president of global ads at Google, said traditional advertising and marketing strategies have not been able to keep up with changes in search, AI, and the way consumers gather information, so today the company introduced new tools to support retailers in AI-powered campaigns that span between websites, apps, and in-store. 

Taylor said shoppers are finding more information on YouTube, and using longer, more conversational and visual queries on AI Mode, AI Overview, and Search.

For example, about 25 billion times per month, people search with their phone camera, and about 60% of shopping queries have become broader -- for example, “tell me about gifts for someone who likes to cook, but has a small kitchen.”

About 5 trillion searches are conducted every year. Many of these do not have just one correct answer, which Taylor said creates opportunities for new brands to be discovered.

AI Max for Search, a one-click feature suite in advertiser accounts now globally available in beta, began rolling out today. One-click experiments rolled out, built directly into the campaign flow to help advertisers test AI Max.

Google is working on text guidelines -- a new feature to help create more brand-safe creative, higher-performing text assets that meet business requirements, which is coming to AI Max and Performance Max campaigns, as Google makes the feature available to more advertisers.

New Merchant Center insights will surface demand shifts, while Product Studio and Asset Studio expand creative options with generative AI (GAI) tools like Imagen 4.