Google News

Google Now Has Auto Ads in Search

You can now use Google’s dominant search engine to locate cars for sale near you.

Just enter a car brand and model and you will see corresponding vehicles for sale in your area right at the top of Google search results.

Google says 89% of new car buyers researched their new vehicle online.  And shoppers aren’t just looking up information online — they’re purchasing there, too. In 2021, 16% of new car buyers purchased their car online, up from only 1% three years prior.

The auto ads feature is currently available in the U.S. and coming to more countries soon.

Google announced the debut of Auto ads at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Show in Las Vegas.

Car deals can create a vehicle inventory data feed and connect it to Google Merchant Center. This feed contains all the details about vehicle inventory, like make, model, price, mileage and condition. Google uses those details to match shoppers with the most relevant cars as they’re searching. By using Merchant Center, dealers can keep track of key inventory and ad performance insights.

Google says advertisers who complemented their existing Search campaigns with vehicle ads saw a +25% average increase in conversions during beta testing.

Miran Maric, CMO and SVP, Strategy and Innovation, for Asbury Automotive Group, said: “The results from the pilot far exceeded our expectations. With vehicle ads, we can help customers by bringing them right to the car they’re interested in. This helps us maximize traffic and conversions to vehicle pages and increase efficiency.”