Google's Mobile Image Search Will Soon Have Shopping Ads

Google is going to add shopping advertisements to its image search, presenting related products to browsers and giving them a way to click-through and buy. The advertisements will show up for users on mobile, with Google saying that this year has seen 34-percent of online purchases happening through mobile devices. Likewise, the company says it has seen the number of mobile shopping searches on its own service jump 30-percent in the past year.

The change will be fairly straightforward — when a mobile user searches for images of products on Google using their phone or tablet, they will see ads for related products. These advertisements will include the price of the product and the store it is available through. Clicking the ad, obviously, will take the individual to the product's page.

The advertisements will be pulled from the Google Search Network. In some cases, the ads will include locally available options — stores that offer the product for pickup at a local retail store rather than having it shipped. Companies that use Google's local inventory ads option will also have their inventories added to Google's Knowledge Panel.

The move is akin to Pinterest's monetization efforts; when someone is browsing product images, even if they're not shopping in that moment, something may catch their eye and they may want to know more about it. The new ads could help Google regain ground lost to online retailers, as consumers have increasingly turned directly to sites like Amazon rather than looking for options through Google Search.

SOURCE: Google