Helping shoppers decide with product ratings on Google Shopping

Product reviews provide critical information to shoppers making purchase decisions. To help shoppers easily find this information when searching for products, we’re introducing product ratings on Product Listing Ads.

Shoppers in the United States will see product ratings appear in the form of stars and review counts on Product Listing Ads across google.com and google.com/shopping. This 5-star rating system represents aggregated rating and review data for the product, compiled from multiple sources including merchants, third party aggregators, editorial sites and users.

Product ratings for juicers as indicated by stars and a count of total reviews below Product Listing Ads

We believe these ratings will help differentiate products across google.com and google.com/shopping and will help merchants drive more qualified traffic through Product Listing Ads. In initial tests, product ratings also helped increase click-through-rates of Product Listing Ads.

How to enable product ratings on your Product Listing Ads

Product ratings are available to merchants targeting the United States who choose to share all of their product review content with Google, either directly or through an approved third party aggregator.

In order to give merchants time to share their review content, we’re offering a grace period from late July through October, 2014. During this grace period, we’ll allow product ratings to be shown across all Product Listing Ads where we have product review data available. After the grace period, we’ll only show ratings for products from merchants who choose to share their reviews with us.

Product ratings are one of several extensions we may show with Product Listing Ads, so please note that just because a product has reviews does not mean that we’ll always show ratings.

How to share your review content

If you would like to enable product ratings on your Product Listing Ads, please begin the process of submitting your review content to us by completing our product ratings form. During the initial launch, we expect high inquiry volumes and appreciate your patience as we work to address all inquiries.

We also plan to open up product ratings to merchants targeting countries outside of the United States in the coming months, so please stay tuned.


Posted by Mike Capsambelis, Product Manager, Google Shopping

Manage your gift cards, request money and send money for free from your debit card with the Google Wallet app

Today, we’re introducing several new features to the Google Wallet app* for Android and iOS devices that make it easier to shop in stores and get paid by friends and family. First, you can now easily manage your gift cards and redeem them in stores using the Wallet app. Never worry about forgetting your gift cards at home again. You can also request money from friends, which means you can settle the dinner bill while you're still at the table. Lastly, sending money with your debit card is now free, making it even easier to pay your friends or the babysitter using Wallet.

Store gift cards and instantly check your gift card balance

You can already store your loyalty cards and offers in Google Wallet, and now you can easily keep your gift cards in Wallet too. Add your cards to Wallet just by snapping a picture of them or typing in the card info. Then, when you want to use the gift card at the store, just show your phone to the cashier at checkout.

For certain gift cards, you can check your gift card balance in real-time and get reminders to use your card when you are near stores. Participating merchants with these features include:

If you received a gift card electronically, you can also save it to your Google Wallet directly from the e-gift by clicking “Save to Google.” This feature is currently available through merchants including Sephora, TGI Friday’s, Whole Foods and more.

Request money from friends with the Google Wallet app or Gmail

For all those times when your friends forget to pay you back for dinner, you can simply request money using the Google Wallet app (for U.S. users, 18 years and older). They will receive a notification and can instantly pay you back. If they need a reminder, you can send them a friendly nudge from within the app. You can also send your friends a message right within Gmail, and request money just like you would attach a picture.

Send money fast and for free using your debit card

You can now send money for free in Wallet by using your debit card. No more searching around for a checkbook or waiting for your funds to arrive. With Google Wallet, your money is at your fingertips.

Use Google Wallet in Spanish

If you’ve activated Spanish language settings in your Android or iOS device, the Wallet app will now display in Spanish.

Download the new version of the Google Wallet app on the Google Play Store and the App Store rolling out this week in the US, to use these new features.


Posted by Glenn Thrope, Product Manager, Google Wallet


*Android devices v. 4.0+, USA only, iOS devices v. 6.0+, USA only

Scale your Shopping campaigns with bulk uploads and AdWords Editor

With less than eight weeks left until regular Product Listing Ad (PLA) campaigns retire, we're excited that the majority of PLA advertisers have already started taking advantage of Shopping campaigns, and 85% of these have already fully upgraded. Advertisers who’ve upgraded like Farfetch, US Mattress, LiBoutique and ValuePetSupplies are seeing great success thanks to the retail-centric interface, item-level reporting and competitive benchmark data.

For those of you who’ve upgraded, we’re excited to introduce two new tools to make campaign management, specifically bid optimization, easier.

• Bulk Uploads: You now have the ability to download a product group report, edit your bids and destination URLs, and import your changes using bulk uploads. 
• AdWords Editor: We’ve heard your feedback, and with the latest version of AdWords Editor, you can edit your bids and destination URLs for individual product groups at scale. At this time, AdWords Editor doesn’t support the creation of Shopping campaigns or product groups, so please plan time to create your campaigns and subdivide your product groups directly in AdWords.

If you haven’t upgraded to Shopping campaigns, we strongly encourage you to start as all regular Product Listing Ad campaigns will retire at the end of August.

Many third-party agencies and platforms are upgrading advertisers to Shopping campaigns, so if you work with one, reach out and see how they can help. Here are a few resources to answer questions and get you started:

• Shopping Campaign Tutorial Videos
• How to create a campaign
• How to prep my data feed
• How to optimize my product groups
• Upgrade Hangouts on Air
• Shopping Campaigns Upgrade 101: Where and how to start (beginner)
• Shopping Campaigns Upgrade 201: What to do now (advanced)
• Help Centers
• AdWords Help Center
• Merchant Center Help Center
• AdWords Community

Posted by Eric Tholomé, Director of Product Management, Google Shopping