Following the EU antitrust ruling last year, Google created a programme for comparison shopping sites such as Kelkoo to appear in the general search results page from September 2017. The objective of this initiative is to increase the competition in Google’s shopping ad space so that users don’t just experience ads just ‘by Google’.

Google have confirmed that they are offering favourable CPC rates to advertisers who use the new Comparison Shopping format. Advertisers are expected to see between a 15-20% reduction in their CPCs from the same position in the Shopping results. To encourage advertisers Google are also offering an ad credit of up to 32k Euros every 30 days based on a spend match against an advertisers spend each month using the new Comparison Site format.

Clearly, Google are under pressure by the EU Commission to make positive traction in improving the impression share of alternative shopping comparison sites in the general search results page. This initiative should be highly attractive to advertisers who for once are seeing a potential reduction in their media costs on Google. A growing number of EU retailers are now waking up to this lucrative opportunity including Sainsburys Argos in the UK.