Google has now released their free ‘Rising Retail Categories’ tool to help make sense of the unpredictable market changes and consumer behaviour many businesses have faced amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Rising Retail Categories tool is interactive, and shows you what the fast-rising retail categories are in Google Search. It also shows you what locations have the highest volume of searches and the top growing queries associated with them. This tool will update on a daily basis to reflect any changes in consumer behaviours and interest.
How to Navigate the Rising Retail Categories Tool
So, what’s the number one trending category in May 2020? Patio heaters with 200% increase in searches.
As you can see from the screenshot, you can change the country of interest, and percentage increase. Currently, this tool only has data in Australia, United States and United Kingdom. You can also choose to see the percentage change either weekly, monthly or yearly.
You can click onto each top trending category and see the corresponding data i.e. growing queries and location. In the screenshot below, we clicked on ‘deep fryers’ on the left hand side. The data on the right and bottom have changed accordingly as well.
Read & react with the Rising Retail Categories tool.
Build on keywords
By giving you this information, the Rising Retail Categories tool allows you to understand and see how your consumers are searching in Google. Using this, you are able to identify gaps in your advertising campaigns and ensure your campaigns are capturing these searches (if the top categories are related to your business or products).
- Search ads: ensure you are targeting these keywords and that your ad also has this keyword (Read more about how to improve your ad relevance)
- Shopping ads: ensure your product titles or descriptions mention these keywords (where relevant) so your ads have the ability to show when someone is searching
If you are looking for data on other categories not available in the Rising Retail Categories tool (that are off interest to you or something you sell), we recommend checking out Google Trends.
Increase your budget if your category is trending upwards
Are one of the top categories in the Rising Retail Categories tool what you sell on your website? If so, check your budgets in Google Ads and whether they are limited. If they are, look at allocating more budget to these trending categories. As the demand for these categories is currently high, increasing your budgets will allow you to capture more consumers who are in-market to buy. Being there when consumers are looking gives you a better chance of making that sale than not being there at all! For more information on when to increase your budgets, check out our blog on “Google Ads Budgets: When Should I Increase or Decrease?“.
