Search Engine Marketing

Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores, a retailer fighting for every sale, has evidently found a weapon in Google's Local Inventory Ads that it says works to drive consumers to its stores. The digital marketing product is still fairly new from the search giant, launched last year, and holds the promise of finally helping brick-and-mortar brands take advantage of the online world rather than always getting beaten by it. With that in mind, the Sears spinoff company has been running Google's shopping ads that target by location and reveal whether a product is actually in a location.

To help retailers prepare for the increased competition, Kenshoo has put together "The 12 Tips of Christmas." These best practices will help you guide your sleigh this season and deliver peak performance across your search and social marketing campaigns. Without further ado, here are the 12 tips:

Our marketing experts will discuss key online and offline merchandising best practices and strategies.

Amazon.com is the most talked about — and feared — company in retail today. You can argue that its success is simply because of low prices, but the truth is consumers also shop Amazon more frequently because of the company's consumer-centric approach.

Don’t listen to Google. This is one of 10 Google AdWords tips Sara Shikhman, president of Bedroom Furniture Discounts, has used to help her business grow from $100,000 to $10 million in three years. Shikhman offered the tips in a presentation during the Search & Display Summit at eTail West in San Antonio this week. The 10 tips include the following:

An everything guide on how to be a successful omnichannel retailer in 2014

While leveraging big data by using software, apps and point-of-sale technology can help retailers handle everything from holiday hiring to inventory management in the days leading up to and following Black Friday and Cyber Monday, one of the most useful applications for big data technology this holiday season is in countering showrooming, a phenomenon that's been on every brick-and-mortar retailer's mind as they make preparations for their busiest season of the year.

Product listing ads (PLAs) are search ads that include concise product information such as product image, price and merchant name without relying solely on text ads to entice online shoppers. PLAs are proving that a picture is truly worth a thousand (key) words, as they're consistently driving increased clickthrough rates and conversions. Given that the holiday season is quickly approaching, it's now more important than ever for merchants to understand how to maximize PLAs. Here are some tips on how to most effectively use PLAs this holiday season.

With search moving away from desktops for a mobile alternative, Google became aware of the need need for a new web design layout that could help better monetize search results across all devices.

Here's some more evidence that good old-fashioned Google search is more valuable to apparel brands than Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram combined. WWD is reporting monster growth in the number of Google Shopping listings over the past year. We're talking a 410 percent increase in the number of merchants paying for product listing ads (PLAs) between spring 2012 and June 2013. Take Etsy, for example, which told WWD that PLAs have resulted in "40 million visits directly to listings" since it began using them last September.