Surfaces Across Google offers retailers’ different programs, one of them being their Free Listing Ads; meaning that retailers in the US can show their products in specific areas on the Shopping Tab. Google describes the program as followed:

‘Show your products in unpaid (non-ads) product results on Surfaces Across Google. With this program, you can increase the number of places where your product listings may appear and help users find your products more easily. Just as Google doesn’t charge sites to be part of the Google Search index, your products will show on surfaces across Google for free.’

No. Free Listing Ads are not yet available in the EEA and Switzerland but uniquely in the US which is not part of the CSS Program.

Some changes in the backend have been already rolled out in anticipation of a possible launch later this year in the EEA – depending on the results of the test in the US, the exact date is still to be communicated by Google.

This new service will not apply to PLA/Google’s Shopping Ads, the product listings you see on the search engine result page (SERP) are still all paid results and will remain driven by the auction that we know and love today.

When you work with Kelkoo Group to access Google’s Shopping Ads, your products are already automatically present on the Shopping tab. The Shopping tab alone however represents a minimal part of the shopping traffic delivered by Google. So far there will be no impact as the Free Listing Ads are only available in the US.

You will always have the choice of which CSS you wish to participate in Surfaces Across Google with. This choice can be made at any point in the CSS dashboard and will not affect the CSS selection for Shopping Ads.

It’s possible that you have kept your Google Shopping Merchant Center and been given a new Merchant Center from Kelkoo Group. Then by default, the CSS with the most uploaded inventory will be selected.

The CSS dashboard can be found uniquely in a Merchant Center under Google Shopping Europe – Google’s own CSS. Therefore, if you haven’t previously selected a CSS for this new service and you can migrate your Google Merchant Center to Kelkoo Group; the offers for Surfaces Across Google get automatically disapproved. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the Shopping Ads and therefore won’t affect it.

To be able to choose a CSS for Surfaces Across Google within the CSS dashboard, you’ll need to create a separate Merchant Center account under Google Shopping CSS, where you have to claim your domain. This is entirely free of cost and there’s no need to upload data in the account.

From here, you’ll then be able to manage the selection of CSS for Surfaces Across Google at any time.

If Surfaces Across Google is rolled out in Europe towards the end of the year, Kelkoo Group will be best company to partner with for 2 reasons:

• We will help increase value and enhance products performance on PLA/Google’s Shopping Ads as we presently do with hundreds of retailers – as we have been doing since Sept 2017

• We will help you ensure that your entire catalogue is visible on the Shopping tab whilst creating value, and incremental effects on traffic – even for the parts of your catalogues that are not producing enough returns to be advertised on paid channels