Klarna Rolls Out CSS Tool To Help European Retailers Save

Digital bank Klarna is rolling out a new Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) solution to help its European partner retailers increase their return on Google ads.

Klarna CSS is launching in 21 markets across Europe and aims to assist merchants with increasing their customer reach and driving traffic from high intent customers. The new service also offers “new opportunities for brands to reach browsing consumers with their products,” the company said in a press release on Tuesday (June 15). 

David Sandström, Chief Marketing Officer at Klarna, said that this latest product will help merchants “list their Google Product Listings Ads more efficiently.”

“Concretely, this means that we offer retailers a more effective and cheaper way to increase their customer reach and convert highly relevant traffic from consumers who are searching for products they want to purchase, thereby maximizing merchants’ return on advertising spend,” Sandström said.

Google’s CSS program is intended to “diversify the search results for Product Listing Ads (PLA), per the release. “A CSS partner can facilitate the publication of a PLA on Google and is then the link between the advertiser (the retailer) and Google.” 

Klarna CSS offers PLA hosting for a monthly flat rate that aims to save merchants as much as 20 percent on their Cost Per Click spend by avoiding a fee charged by Google CSS. The company also will incorporate merchants’ products on the Klarna comparison shopping web pages.

The new service is available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, according to the release. 

Founded in Sweden in 2005, Klarna was valued at $45.6 billion after notching $639 million in venture funding last week led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. 

Klarna also launched a new shopping feature in the U.K. that lets shoppers buy products interest-free using its app at any online merchant — even if they’re not a Klarna partner.