What:  Two decades after launching its shopping vertical, the search engine giant has become a force in how people shop for clothes.

Why is it important:  Facebook and Instagram are more for brand awareness than getting people to actually convert. With Google, people are looking for specific things.

Google’s shopping function isn’t exactly new. But it was in spring 2020, after the search engine made it (indefinitely) free for brands to list products on its Shopping tab, that the service began to really take off. This drew in many small brands with the promise of appearing on equal footing in searches with bigger rivals. Google Shopping being cheaper than Facebook and Instagram in general, it’s an untapped opportunity for young brands.

For consumers, Google Shopping offers the promise that they can type in a search term and expect to find a comprehensive selection from the site’s enormous database. The site also makes it easier to comparison shop.

In the past year, Google said it saw 80% growth in the number of merchants that use Shopping and a 70% increase in products listed. The tool is helping Google compete with Facebook and especially Amazon, which has gained market share in digital advertising at the search giant’s expense.

Many brands use a combination of free listings and paid ads, which appear on the top panel as the first results but are marked as “ads.” Emme Parsons, a luxury sandal maker, said her return on ads purchased on Google Shopping is nearly 800%, compared with 136% and 30% on Instagram and Facebook, respectively. Larger brands also haven’t been as quick to shift their spending because they have less developed direct-to-consumer channels and prioritise brand awareness marketing over conversions.

Google’s answer to its rivals is its “Shopping Graph,” a database that tracks products, brands and customer reviews. In addition to powering the Shopping search function, Shopping Graph connects with information collected by Google’s other services. Users can now see if a product is available at a specific store location, for instance.

Google is the directory of the internet. Brands say Google Shopping still has its limitations. There are only so many ads that can appear on the site before returns would theoretically start to trail off, while Facebook seems to have a higher ceiling. Instagram also offers more ways to showcase products beyond the standard e-commerce grid. Brands rely on both Google and Facebook. A brand that sees more sales from Google ads might have only acquired those customers thanks to sponsored posts on Instagram.

The Rise of Google Shopping