Opportunity Assessment: Adding Product Recommendations Beside Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping already shows a block of ads on its pages. The team is considering adding a "You may also like" block of product suggestions alongside that existing ads block. As the product manager, how would you assess whether this is an opportunity worth pursuing? ```hint Name the block's job first Before reaching for numbers, decide what the new block does for a shopper and for Google, because that determines which outcomes you count as gains and which as losses taken from what is already on the page. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Would the items in the new block be paid placements, unpaid listings, or a mix of both? - Which page would carry the block (the results page for a shopping query, the page for a single product, or both), and on which devices? - Does the new block add space to the page, or must it share the space the ads block uses today? - Is the decision judged mainly on Google's revenue, on shopper satisfaction, or on outcomes for merchants? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - The purpose of the block for shoppers, merchants and Google, stated before any metric - A sizing of the potential upside built from labeled assumptions about traffic, engagement and monetization - An explicit account of how the block could take clicks or attention away from the existing ads block and other listings - A primary decision metric with guardrails for shopper experience and merchant value - An experiment design with launch criteria that would settle the decision ### Follow-up Questions - If the test showed more total clicks but lower revenue from the existing ads block, how would you decide? - How would your assessment change if the block's items were unpaid listings instead of ads? - How would you decide how many items to show and where the block should sit relative to the ads?