As data privacy regulations evolve, retailers are facing pressure to adapt. Taking action to ensure your digital marketing and measurement remain effective is now essential. Luckily, you can put Google AI to work for you to help measure results, reach and convert mindful customers, and create engaging shopping experiences.
1. Grow profitability with a durable measurement foundation
Privacy is not only top-of-mind for shoppers, it also presents businesses with an opportunity to grow. In response to a positive privacy experience with a second-choice brand, 49% of participants across the four markets in the Americas said they would choose to switch from their preferred brand to their second-choice brand.1
Retailers need to forge a new relationship with their customers that’s built on trust.
This means retailers need to forge a new relationship with their customers that’s built on trust and rethink how ROI is measured. Google AI can predict and model rapidly changing customer journeys and deliver precise measurements while still protecting user privacy. But, as marketers know, in order to get high-quality results, you need high-quality data.
To really understand what your audiences are looking for, building meaningful customer relationships is critical. And, to do that effectively, you need consented first-party data. A strong foundation of reliable information will fuel your AI-powered solutions and improve ROI, while respecting users’ privacy choices.
2. Find and engage your next customer
For potential customers to become actual customers, they need to know why they should opt for your brand and products. Many shoppers are already leaning on Google and YouTube as trusted sources of information as they move from awareness to conversion. For example, in the U.S., online users are on average 2X more likely to use YouTube to discover new products or brands versus other social sites or apps.2 And, according to Ipsos, surveyed online users are, on average, 67% more likely to buy a product after seeing it in an ad on YouTube versus social platforms.3
You can tap into the power of YouTube to reach and engage with as many potential customers as possible at scale by using Google AI-powered video campaigns like Video Reach campaigns and Video View campaigns. Based on your inputs and goals, Google AI will deploy campaigns to a unique mix of YouTube formats and screens, ensuring your message shows up exactly when and where people are most receptive.
You can also guide shoppers from discovery to purchase with Google AI-powered Demand Gen campaigns, which use visually appealing, multiformat video ads to capture engagement and action across YouTube.
In an effort to find new ways to engage with its target audiences, Samsung experimented with Demand Gen campaigns in Germany. The test campaign’s performance exceeded Samsung’s expectations, achieving a 400% uplift in its click-through rate (CTR) for its ads, and a 70% lower cost-per-click (CPC).
3. Convert shopper intent into action
As most retailers can attest, capturing shoppers’ attention doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve captured their business. However, with people shopping more than a billion times a day across Google,4 you can rely on Google AI to help you encourage hesitant shoppers to act by delivering the right message — such as relevant information on deals, shipping, and online or local fulfillment — to the right place and at the right time.
Use Google AI to amplify your search query coverage and drive additional conversions by pairing Performance Max campaigns with Search campaigns that use broad match and Smart Bidding.5 Performance Max will help you promote your products with Shopping ads, while also allowing you to find untapped growth opportunities across all of Google’s ad inventory based on your retail goals — whether you want to drive online sales, offline sales, or both. Then, broad match and Smart Bidding in Search campaigns will help you drive sales and ROI from more relevant search queries and text ads.
When it can improve your relevance to customers, your Shopping ad from Performance Max and your Search text ad can appear at the same time, so your business can stand out even further. And, if you want to focus on winning new business, you can prioritize new customer acquisition in both Performance Max and Search.
A great example of a business pairing its Search campaigns with its existing Performance Max campaigns is Gossby, a print-on-demand retailer in Vietnam. It successfully achieved a 22% increase in orders and a 33X conversion rate increase, while also maintaining its return on ad spend.
4. Deliver relevant and engaging experiences at scale
The creativity of your campaigns is just as important as where and how you deploy them. With so much choice available to shoppers, they now expect highly relevant and personalized experiences from the brands they engage with. Younger generations have specifically indicated that they want to be delighted: Nearly half agree that shopping is a form of entertainment, with Gen Z (61%) and millennials (57%) in strongest agreement.6
You can meet these creative expectations with Google’s rich shopping experiences that help people browse products in new ways. With generative AI in Performance Max, you can create assets like headlines, descriptions, and images to bring your creative vision to life.
An example of generative AI in Performance Max
By applying the power of Google AI across the funnel, retailers can reach and convert today’s consumers by safeguarding their privacy, engaging them on the platforms they trust, sending the right message at the right time, and offering relevant and entertaining creative.
In the next chapter, we’ll show you how you can use Google AI to engage holiday shoppers during major moments throughout the year.
Explore this series
Part 1: Connect with customers throughout their increasingly complex journeys
Part 2: Lean into AI to engage and convert customers across the funnel
Part 3: Engage shoppers during peak days (coming soon)
