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Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer one-day events. Facing a shorter holiday season, retailers rolled out deals earlier than ever this year, and shoppers followed suit. In fact, people were searching for Cyber Monday deals as early as Thanksgiving Day when Cyber Monday was a top trending search on Google. What else does our data show? Not only did consumers start early, but they also hunted for deals all weekend long, often on mobile devices. Tech gifts dominated and vloggers shared their finds in “haul videos” on YouTube. Savvy advertisers are tracking these trends to inform and improve their efforts all season long. Click here to read the full article on Google Think Insights. Posted by The Google Retail Team

(cross-posted from the Inside AdWords Blog ) The holiday season is about giving.  And, of course, buying.  You know this, and your holiday paid search plan is almost definitely in place by now - but is there anything that could have slipped through the cracks?  We want to help you get every drop of retail goodness out of the busy weeks ahead, so we put together this checklist to ensure that your plan accounts for everything it should. Download the Essential Paid Search Holiday Checklist Does your plan account for all of those little things that may get overlooked? Efficient communication with your team Driving performance with the right strategies and messaging Contingency plans if things don’t go as you imagined they would Regardless of what your account and account team looks like, it’s never a bad idea to double check that the pieces to your master plan are all in place. With every day during the holiday season being critically important, decisions can get magnified. ...

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