Are you a retailer, and you want to offer the very best omnichannel shopping experience to your customers?
To achieve that, Google has developed Local Inventory Ads. These ads offer you a more comprehensive web-to-store strategy.
Local Inventory Ads (LIA) allow you to display Shopping ads in the Google search engine which promote your product inventory available in local stores. These ads trigger a strong local signal, like when a user is searching for a product and includes the term "In Paris".
This omnichannel format allows you to enter several pieces of information: the price, stocks available in store, opening times and how to get to the closest store where the product in question is located. It helps push purchases both in store and online.
This article reveals all the secrets of LIA. So, why not take a look at our video on the subject too?
If you put yourself in a typical LIA buying journey, this is what a shopper may be faced with.
In the first case, a shopper is searching for a product and Google shows them Shopping ads that should interest them, with products available on a website. In addition to the product details, key information appears, such as the availability of the product in a nearby store.
In the second case, we see that Google is adapting to retailers' omnichannel paths. The “click & collect” option can be added, for example. The shopper sees the richness of the omnichannel path on offer, right at the very moment when they're searching for a product.
In the third case, it's more like a showroom scenario. Local Inventory Ads can inform the shopper that a product is in a store without being available for purchase. This option triggers visits to stores to see/try out the product, and goes on to trigger an order, either in-store or online.
LIAs offer great performance. On average, these ads have a 20% higher click rate than traditional ads and generate 3.5x more visits to stores than text ads.
A certain number of steps are involved in setting up Local Inventory Ads:
To get the best out of your advertising campaigns, we recommend that you carry out certain optimisations. LIA campaigns aren't managed in the same way as other Google advertising.
In terms of the customer experience, certain options can be activated. Like the local shop window hosted by the seller or the on display to order below.
In addition, ensure good visibility of your mobile campaigns. Because these ads respond to local searches, it must be possible to pick up the searches on a smartphone. To achieve that, you can increase your bids on this device.
For the same reason, you must pay attention to the localisation of your ads. To achieve that, just apply higher bids depending on the catchment area and position of your physical stores.
Lastly, don't forget to increase the bids for your ads so that they match your opening times and busy periods identified from your reports.
Once Local Inventory Ads have been activated, you can take advantage of a range of free opportunities.
If you have uploaded the product feed information by store to Google, the store's Google My Business page will display your bestselling products with the right price and level of availability
This increases traffic to your website free of charge.
Secondly, Google can also highlight your ad free of charge in the search results.
This option is activated for searches with a “strong local signal” and will display your stores in the Google Maps results with the indication that you sell similar products, all free of charge.
That's what the Pick-up Later in Beta programme is offering. It enables highlighting of products that aren't available in-store straight away.
This option is very similar what we see on Local Inventory Ads, it's not necessary to provide stock feeds by stores .
We have observed an extra 17% higher click rate compared to traditional Shopping ads. It's a good way to begin LIAs
Local Inventory Ads are therefore an excellent way to improve your omnichannel strategy.