Google unveiled new updates for businesses using its Google Merchant Center aimed at making it easier for merchant's to access reports and obtain insights.
Updates for sellers include:
#1) New Product Trend Insights that will highlight keyshopping search and purchase trends such as what's popular at any given time.
Google wrote, “This means you can jump on viral moments, make better-informed inventory decisions and ensure your product descriptions use the same terms shoppers are.”
#2) More AI elements to Merchant Center analytics including summaries of recent product performance.
Google shared an example of a summary that gave insight into products that are gaining the most traction.
#3) Conversational queries in Merchant Center that use generative AI to translate a user's request into a custom report that highlights their own performance data.
Google wrote, “With a simple description of the data analysis you'd like to review – like, ‘show me the performance of my best-selling dresses' – we'll produce a custom data set with the answers you care about… This means you can skip the process of building custom reports manually when you need something more tailored.”
I'd love to have that capability on GA4!
#4) New Custom Acquisition Goals in Performance Max and Search campaigns so that merchants can better refine their target customers.
Google also added new AI Chrome features aimed at helping buyers search, discover, and compare products across the web.
Updates for buyers include:
#1) Tab Compare – uses AI and page scraping to round up information about products open in various tabs and then displays a grid showing their price, reviews, and other info.
#2) Visual Search – brings the visual search capabilities from Google Lens, which is only available on mobile, into desktop browsers. Users can select, search, and ask questions about anything they see on the web without leaving their current tab.
#3) Enhanced History – starting in the US in the coming weeks, users will be able to search for sites they visited (but didn't save) in a more natural, conversational way. For example, you can access your history and type, “What was the ice-cream shop I looked at last week?” or “What coconut opener was I looking at on Amazon?” and Chrome will show you relevant pages from your browsing history.
Now these are the types of user features that get me excited about AI!