Report: Google Captures Nearly 80% Of All Retail Search Ad Spend

American retailers now spend 76.4% of their search ad budgets on Google Shopping ads. They also generate 85.3% of their clicks there, according to a new report from Adthena that analyzed 40 million ads from 240,000 advertisers in the U.S. and UK. Essentially, Google is the new storefront. No wonder Amazon is doubling down on its advertising platform. “The dominance Google Shopping ads have in search is incredible,” Adthena’s VP of marketing Ashley Fletcher said in a statement. “From desktop to mobile, our data reveals that Google Shopping ads have become the most attractive units for retailer advertisers and are truly setting the stage in terms of search.” Google’s shopping ads are not the blue underlined links of the past. For shopping campaigns, Google lets merchants upload essentially their entire product catalog. When Google determines that a search relevant to one of those products is occuring, one of your products could show up … depending, of course, on how much you’re bidding for that ad spot. If your product does, searchers see a picture, title, price, your store name, and perhaps even an inventory count. Read more at Forbes.