Retail Sales From Google Shopping Grew by 52% YoY in the First Quarter
Mobile drove the majority of the growth, with revenue from smartphones increasing by 164%
PHILADELPHIA, April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Retail sales typically slow down after the holiday season -- but that wasn't the case for sales from Google Shopping ads. E-commerce marketing technology company Sidecar found that revenue from Product Listing Ads (PLAs) grew by 52% year over year in the first quarter of 2016.
The biggest growth driver? Mobile. Sales from mobile PLAs grew by 164%. In addition, clicks were up by 171%, orders were up by 171%, and ROAS was up by 23%. At a sitewide level, retailers' revenue from mobile devices grew by 45% year over year.
"Google Shopping has paved the way for product advertising as a whole -- particularly on mobile devices," said Andre Golsorkhi, CEO of Sidecar. "The first quarter shows that Google Shopping is a key customer acquisition channel, and it catapulted to the top priority of more online retailers in the U.S. It is a must-have channel -- and, more important, a must-do-well channel."
Lumens, for instance, was experiencing firsthand the pressure to improve its Google Shopping strategy.
"We reached a tipping point in what we were able to manage ourselves without automated technology," said Jeff Romero, Manager with Lumens.com. "We have a sizeable product catalog and equally sizeable Google Shopping budget. It also became overwhelming to try to bid our products differently on mobile versus desktop devices. We started using Sidecar because it evaluates and adjusts every product's bid more accurately and more frequently than we could ever achieve."
Retailers across verticals are showing increased confidence in the channel. PLA spend grew by 47% YoY in Q1. And from Sidecar's perspective, the company's customer base doubled over the past two quarters, with Boscov's, Case-Mate, Lumens, and other leading retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500 and the SMB segments adopting its technology.
Other findings from Q1 further show that retailers have a growing opportunity to convert more traffic from Google Shopping PLAs. Click growth reached 98% year over year -- exceeding the click growth during Holiday 2015 of 65%. And impressions in the channel were up by 130% year over year.
About Sidecar
Sidecar is an e-commerce marketing technology that uses machine learning to solve the complex, data-intensive process of connecting consumers to relevant retail products, in all paid marketing channels where consumers shop. The Sidecar technology takes relevance to the next level, allowing retailers to display the right product ads to the consumers most likely to purchase them, at the right moment.
Sidecar considers an average of 1.2 million data points each day to analyze and index every product in a retailer's catalog, ensuring profitable growth out of paid customer acquisition channels across all devices.
Retailers that use Sidecar drive millions of dollars of new, measurable revenue and save time and internal resources, while maximizing ROI and improving the conversion journey for customers. Brands like NewEgg, Nuts.com, GNC, and Choxi count on Sidecar to optimize their product advertising campaigns. Sidecar retail customers average an 87% increase in YoY channel revenue and a simultaneous 10% decrease in cost of sale.
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SOURCE Sidecar
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