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Cross-posted from the Google Inside AdWords Blog The holiday season is a time of the year when many of us spend hours finding the perfect gifts. It’s also a time when knowing that an online retailer is trustworthy is more important than ever. That’s where Google Trusted Stores comes in - we’re spreading holiday cheer by helping people find the best online stores and shop with confidence. Google Trusted Stores is a free certification program to highlight retailers that offer a consistently great shopping experience. Qualifying merchants display a badge on their website, and Google stands behind these stores by offering $1,000 of free purchase protection . Since we introduced the program last year, we’ve been working hard to expand it, including launching a new integration with seller ratings on AdWords, updating the badge with more helpful information for shoppers, and broadening store participation around the world. Shopper feedback powering seller ratings Google Trusted Stores now ...

Can online search ads impact offline store sales? The connection seems counterintuitive, but the answer is a firm "yes." A milestone meta-analysis of experiments with 13 top U.S. retailers, conducted by Applied Predictive Technologies, proves that search ads drive incremental offline sales. Results vary by industry and advertiser, but the research offers guidance for multi-channel retailers: Create a seamless connection between your channels and use digital to efficiently drive sales across the board.  To read the full article visit Google Think Insights .  Posted by Nina Thatcher, The Google Technology Team

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog Thanksgiving is just a few days away, and if you’re like us, you still have loads of stuff to buy on your expanding holiday gift list. If you can’t imagine braving the crowds to get everything picked and purchased, don’t worry: our elves have made some improvements to Google Shopping in time for the holidays. Find the hottest toys and get inspired with our holiday shortlists We’ve curated holiday shortlists for top gift categories including Hot Toys , Electronics , Google & Android Gadgets , Gifts for the Home , Gifts for Her and Gifts for Him . For those of you looking for something to delight the kids in your life, here are some of the top trending toy searches on Google Shopping this month: Rainbow Loom Minecraft Legos Monster High Sets Doc McStuffins Playsets Nerf Rebelle Heartbreaker Bow Blaster And for those of us wanting to relive our childhoods, we’re also seeing many nostalgic toys making a comeback this year: My Little Pony B...

(Cross-posted from the DoubleClick Search Blog ) Running top-notch digital campaigns for the holidays can be a lot of work, and your to-do list can seem never-ending. On top of the festivities of the season, you’re juggling fleeting promotions, revising stale ads, and trying to balance your budget -- all in hopes of reaching holiday shoppers at the moment they’re looking to buy. So how do you succeed online during one of the busiest times of the year, and reach the right people with the right message, at the drop of a (Santa) hat? Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared some best practices to whip your campaigns into shape, just in time for the holidays. Today, we wanted to recap a few of our favorite search marketing “stocking stuffers” to put the cheer back in your holiday and help you go faster, smarter, and better than ever before. With tools to scale and streamline your seasonal campaigns, find some extra time to sit back and enjoy your toasty apple cider -- while we take care of th...

Recently the Google Shopping team introduced Shopping Campaigns , to better utilize Product Listing Ads (PLA). These campaigns allow you to streamline how you manage and bid on your products, report your performance, and find opportunities to grow your traffic from Google. Learn how to put this new campaign type to work for you in this week's Learn with Google webinar. We'll walk through campaign how-to's, best practices, and optimizing your PLAs. This webinar will feature a live question and answer session with Nicole Premo, a Google Shopping partner manager. Be sure to register and have your questions answered. We'll kick things off on November 20, 2013 at 10am PT / 1pm ET and the webinar will run for about an hour. Click here to register. Posted by Matt Ludwig, The Learn With Google Team

Holiday shopping is already in full swing, and people are increasingly turning to the internet to get advice on what’s hot, who they should buy from and where they should purchase their gifts. In our study conducted with Millward Brown Digital, we found that searchers are 1.5x more likely to buy than those who don’t use search, making them a particularly valuable audience for marketers. Find out what you need to know about the search habits of 2013’s holiday shoppers on Google Think Insights . Posted by Nina Thatcher, The Google Technology Team

Last year, we introduced Google Trusted Stores in the US to help consumers shop online with confidence while creating new opportunities for businesses to build trust and loyalty with their customers. Since then, we’ve been working hard to bring the program to more countries around the world. Last week, we launched Google Trusted Stores pilot programs in the UK ( Google Certified Shops ) and France ( Google Marchands de confiance ). And today, we’re introducing a pilot of Google Trusted Stores in Australia. Google Trusted Stores is a program that helps shoppers identify online stores that offer a great shopping experience. For retailers, it creates an opportunity to differentiate their business, attract new customers, and increase sales by displaying a Trusted Stores badge, awarded to merchants that demonstrate a strong track record of on-time shipping and excellent customer service. When a shopper hovers over the badge on the merchant’s site, they’ll see helpful performance metrics, p...

This is the year the store window goes digital. According to our new research, conducted with Ipsos, more people are researching and purchasing holiday gifts online than ever before. They’re also shopping across screens and channels, looking for great deals, and starting earlier than before. So, with the holiday season already underway, we take a look at these and more trends marketers should know for 2013, including the hottest products on Google. Head on over to Google Think Insights to read a summary of the research and download the top stats .

Brands are engaging their audiences on YouTube by creating powerful stories that integrate with their digital advertising campaigns. This issue of YouTube Insights sets out to help brands build strong connections with their fans in the most effective way. We showcase learnings from such brand stories, along with data and stats on audiences, and reveal the results of advertising on YouTube and other Google properties. Join us for the YouTube Insights Hangout on 11/7 at 1pm EST moderated by Tara Levy, Managing Director, Google Ads Marketing. She will facilitate a discussion around the YouTube audience and methods for leveraging YouTube to successfully engage active viewers, including highlights from the You Insights Report . Panelists include experts: Mike Henry, CEO, Outrigger Media  Ann Greene, Millward Brown  Rob Davis, Executive Director, Ogilvy Content Practice  Gun Johnson, Advertising Research Director, Google  To RSVP and find out more information, please clic...