Google's shift of free product search listings over to a paid model caused considerable hand-wringing among retailers last fall, but that didn't stop them from buying them.
According to an analysis by Adobe into the paid-search spend in retail under its management for Q4, 10.7% was allocated for inclusion in the new Google Shopping. The channel's "product listing ads" show up as image thumbnails with prices and links to the merchant sites where the items can be bought in searches for keywords that imply purchase intent like "cameras" and "boots."
As of Oct. 17, these campaigns were being run entirely through AdWords in the U.S., and Google's former practice of surfacing relevant product listings for free had been suspended.