You may be familiar with using price quotes in your ad creative, whether it’s in the title or ad description. Many sales people will tell you this is a wise and proven selling technique. Show your customers a hot price up front and the purchase will follow. Some search engine marketers have caught on to this idea and transferred it over to the online world. Type in the keyword “hot tub” and you will find half of your competitors using price points to lure visitors.

But have you ever noticed that small section – it occasionally shows between the top position sponsored ads and organic listings? This is Google Product Search, formally known as Froogle. It consists of three product listings, their price and company name. The key here is price. This tiny piece of information in Product Search could be hurting your PPC performance.

Being aware of your surrounding in Google’s SERP could pay off. Here are a couple thoughts on how to use this feature to your advantage, even if you’re not in Product Search itself.

It appears that price or cost in the query will almost always bring up Product Search results, but that’s pretty obvious. So if those keywords are in your Adwords account you’ll be directly competing with Product Search results. Use this knowledge and go head to head with Product Search results by adding a lower price point in your PPC ad. If you’re looking for a full list of keywords that will prompt Product Search, unfortunately it doesn’t exist. Our Google rep informed us that it’s all intertwined in the algorithm and will display when a query includes words that indicate the visitor is looking to buy something.

I recommend if you’re going to use price in your PPC ad creative that you check to see if your keywords, at least the popular ones, trigger Product Search results. If so, compare your price to those shown and determine if this is a good strategy for you. If competitors (especially those in Product Search) are offering significantly lower prices then your ad will not be as effective. But if you can beat their prices then you’ll surely steal all those potential clicks for yourself.

This second approach might be time consuming, but the results could be rewarding. Test out your own keywords to explore the Product Search results in your industry, in many verticals it’ll never show up at all. Just think, we’re all vying for that top notch real estate whether on the PPC side or Organic side. Now there’s the Product Search side too. You could potentially have your business showing for all three areas at once! Now of course Google does not disclose how you’re picked to be in the Product Search Results, but if you’re one of those lucky winners than why not put in the little extra work. Did I mention this service is still free?! If anyone tests this out or already has, would be very interested in your experience or dealings.

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