Google’s vehicle ads, which launched as a beta in January 2022 and then became available to all US advertisers in March 2022, are now available to Canadian advertisers this month.
Google said, “Starting in April 2023, vehicle ads will be available to all Canadian advertisers. Vehicle ads will expand to more countries at a later date.”
Vehicle ads are a performance focused, omnichannel, lower funnel ad format which allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory to interested customers shopping for vehicles on Google.com. This format shows customers an image of the car, plus information such as make, model, price, kilometers, and advertiser name. Clicking on a vehicle ad takes the customer to the Vehicle Description Page (VDP) on the advertiser’s website, where they can perform further actions, like contacting the dealer, submitting a lead form, or other actions, before visiting the dealership.
Vehicle ads are a performance-focused, lower funnel ad format which allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory of vehicles to interested customers shopping for vehicles on Google. This format shows customers an image of the vehicle with important information such as make, model, price, mileage, and advertiser name. Showing inventory of available vehicles both enriches the customer’s purchase experience and provides more qualified leads for auto advertisers.
Vehicle ads help advertisers drive sales by optimizing for both online conversions (leads) and offline conversions (store visits).
Google said, “Vehicle advertisers can participate by uploading their vehicle feeds in the Merchant Center and running smart shopping campaigns in Google Ads to serve vehicle ads. Learn more about vehicle ads, the implementation process, and policies to follow.”
As a reminder, Google posted a blog post on this with some screenshots of how they look, which is what we saw in the tests we covered a while ago:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
