Intelligence More Evidence That Google Search Trumps Social Media for Retailers

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.