Marketing
01 September 2022
Google helps merchants get ready for the holidays
Google laid out insights and tools for peak shopping season at Think Retail 2022.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
Google laid out insights and tools for peak shopping season at Think Retail 2022.
Holiday prep is underway for many brands and retailers, and Google is providing resources to help get ready.
The company this week held Think Retail, a virtual event designed to help businesses prepare for the busiest shopping season of the year. In a series of presentations, Google shared insights on what to expect this year, as well as new tools for commerce and advertising.
Google shared a few data points that help to characterize this year’s holiday season:
Google laid out several recently-launched features that it believes will come in handy for merchants during the holiday season:
List online and in-store product inventory on Google for free through Google Merchant Center. Updating the product catalog ahead of the holidays can help to ensure that products stand out in ads.
Demand forecastson the Insights page predict upcoming trends for a business, so that merchants can review when demand increases, and identify events and expansion opportunities.
Product-specific insights are now available in the Google Ads products tab. “These insights let you spot underperforming offers, identify products with missing feed attributes and compare your bidding strategy with your top competitors,” Google said.
Performance Max campaignsallow merchants to access all Google Ads inventory across YouTube, display, search, Discover, Gmail and Maps through a single campaign that syncs with a product feed. Google said it plans to release templates this fall that will allow merchants to create video ads for Performance Max campaigns in a “matter of minutes.”
Performance Max campaigns help attract customers for in-store shopping. Merchants can promote in-store promotions or seasonal specials using these tools.
YouTube video action campaigns allow merchants to make video ads on YouTube shoppable. Through these ads, a panel below the video automatically expands to showcase products. Users can then click on a product to visit a landing page and learn more, or make a purchase.
The Content API is now a tool that merchants can use to add deals and promotions to listings. This is designed to help upload and manage deals at scale.
Delivery and returns can be noted alongside a product. Shopping Ads now allow merchants to make annotations that list expected delivery times, (“Get it by 12/20”) or generous return policies (Free 90-day returns).
For more, check out Google’s full library of resources at Think Retail on Air. A keynote from this week’s event is below:
The grocer is expanding a partnership with Cooler Screens.
(Photo courtesy of Cooler Screens)
You may have heard of offsite retail media. How about offline?
Retail media holds out the opportunity that brands and marketplaces can reach customers with advertising, anywhere that there’s a screen. Through a new partnership, that capability is extending to the store.
Kroger is set to add smart screens to 500 stores, bringing retail media activations to aisles and checkout lines.
It’s the result of an expanded partnership with Cooler Screens, a company that developed software and enabling hardware to provide advertising and analytics on in-store screens. The company started by developing screens for the cooler doors of frozen food sections, but has since expanded to other areas of the store, like endcaps, banner aisles or existing screens.
Kroger and Cooler Screens piloted the technology for three years, and set out to determine whether they could improve customer experiences through interactive media and digital merchandising. The companies now have conviction that the content available on screens can enable consumers to make “better-informed decisions based on their own preferences, diets, health needs, budgets and lifestyles,” according to an announcement detailing the activation.
In turn, providing in-store retail media allows brands to reach consumers while they are shopping at a brick-and-mortar location. It extends the digital ad opportunities available via ecommerce to a new channel. Unlike a traditional static display ad, digitally-powered retail media is measurable, and Cooler Screens said it offers tools that help brands provide contextually relevant promotions and product information, as well as analytics on performance.
Kroger has made retail media a central part of its digital strategy. The grocer provides advertising through the Kroger Precision Marketing arm, and customer insights through its 84.51° data science team. Executives have talked about how retail media is helping the company unlock new, high-margin business lines, and see the growth of available data as a key driver of the company’s proposed merger with Albertsons.
“We’re excited about this continued collaboration as it extends our vision for the future of retail media, offering brands another powerful marketing lever inside the store,” said Cara Pratt, senior vice president at Kroger Precision Marketing, in a statement. “Cooler Screens shares and further enables this vision by bringing the best of digital experiences directly into our retail stores while integrating with our 84.51° data science platform to create an engaging and valuable experience for our customers, associates, and brands.”
Cooler Screens said it reaches more than 90 million viewers monthly in stores. Along with Kroger, customers include Walgreens and Giant Eagle’s GetGo convenience stores.
While retail media is primarily a means of advertising on ecommerce marketplaces today, the expanded appearance of advertising on in-store screens underscores how the first-party data that powers it can be foundational for a growing range of channels.