Google announced that on April 1st 2021 Showcase shopping ads will be stopped and removed. Companies using these ads would have received a notification last week on February 23rd.
Showcase Shopping ads will be added to the Product Shopping ad groups. However, advertisers who have been using Showcase Shopping ads will still be able to have access to performance data from past Showcase Shopping ads.
Showcase Shopping Ads Background
In 2016 Google introduced Showcase Shopping ads, which were implemented to provide a curated group of products. They were created with the intention to appear for broad and non-brand searches since 40% of all searches were broad match terms.
In 2018 Google added video to Showcase Shopping ads in search. And a year after it was extended to Google Images, Discover feed and YouTube feed. In March 2020 Showcase Shopping ads became an eligible option in Gmail campaigns. Prior to this, Smart Shopping campaigns were the only way to get Shopping ads into Gmail.
Tips For Using New Showcase Shopping
After April 1st, Showcase Shopping ads will be included in Product Shopping ad groups. With this new change anyone wanting to use these ads should closely monitor them for a few weeks. You might see more top funnel placements than you are used to, so staying aware of what you campaign is doing will make sure you are optimizing them accordingly.
Another tip is that due to this change you might see a change in the number of sales businesses are obtaining through Showcase Shopping. So be ready to circle back on your Google Ads strategies. Companies should be ready to find sales in other avenues if this change affects future projections.
Google has been making many changes throughout the last few years. Showcase Shopping has also already been integrated into Smart Shopping Campaigns so you can leverage in this format as well. Hopefully everyone can see success with this new change. Just keep in mind businesses might need to make different changes to strategy depending on the new results.