Google Ads Shopping cheat sheet

A Merchant Center product feed requires at minimum: id, title, description, link, image_link, availability, price, and (for physical goods) condition and brand/GTIN where applicable; a missing required attribute makes the offer ineligible for Shopping ads.

id is the primary key: it must be stable and unique per item per target country/language. Changing id creates a new product and resets historical performance and any product-level status.

title is the strongest relevance lever: front-load brand + product type + key attributes (size, color, model), keep under roughly 150 characters, and avoid promotional text, all-caps, or keyword stuffing that triggers policy disapproval.

image_link must be a crawlable URL (no login, no robots block) showing the product on a plain background; apparel may show a model but the product must fill most of the frame. Image quality drives both approval and click-through.

price must match the landing page and include currency; mismatch between feed price and landing-page price causes a 'price mismatch' disapproval that persists until the feed or page is corrected and recrawled.

GTIN/MPN + brand enable matching to the Google product catalog; unmatched or incorrect GTINs reduce eligibility for rich results and can trigger 'limited performance' warnings.

Use Merchant Center diagnostics categories to triage: account-level issues (suspension, misrepresentation), item-level disapprovals (policy, missing attribute), and warnings (limited performance). Fix the root cause, then request a review or wait for recrawl.

Automatic item updates can be enabled to correct price and availability from the landing page, but they do not fix title, image, or policy issues; they should not substitute for feed accuracy.

A Standard Shopping campaign organizes products with one or more product groups, split by attributes such as brand, category, item id, or custom label; listing all products in a single 'All products' group gives no bid or reporting granularity.

Product groups are hierarchical: subdividing a group moves items into the child group, and the child inherits no bid until you set one; bids set at a higher node apply only to items not further subdivided.

Priority settings (Low/Medium/High) apply only to Standard Shopping campaigns and decide which campaign bids when multiple campaigns target the same product; the higher-priority campaign wins the auction for that item.

Smart Shopping campaigns were upgraded to Performance Max; new accounts should use Performance Max or Standard Shopping, not the legacy Smart Shopping type.

Target ROAS bidding requires conversion tracking with values; without values, use Maximize clicks or Target CPA. Target ROAS needs enough conversion volume (typically tens of conversions per campaign) to learn.

Negative keywords and negative keyword lists apply to Shopping campaigns and are the main query-level control, since Shopping has no traditional keyword targeting.

Custom labels (0-4 per product) are the primary segmentation tool for bidding and reporting, e.g. label 0 = margin tier, label 1 = season, label 2 = clearance; they are set in the feed or Merchant Center.

Use the 'Other' / 'Everything else' product group and the search terms report to find wasted spend; add converting queries as negative keywords only when they are irrelevant, not when they are merely broad.

Shopping campaigns report at product-group and item level; the product report (Products page) shows clicks, impressions, conversions, and cost per item id, enabling item-level bid or exclusion decisions.

Conversion value must be passed via the conversion tag (e.g. transaction value) for ROAS reporting; without values, ROAS and value-based bidding cannot be computed.

Attribution models (data-driven, last click, etc.) change which click receives credit; compare periods using the same model, since switching models shifts reported conversions and ROAS.

Conversion windows (e.g. 30-day click, 1-day view) determine which clicks count; a shorter window undercounts long consideration cycles typical of higher-ticket retail.

Merchant Center and Google Ads report different metrics: Merchant Center shows product status and clicks, Google Ads shows cost and conversions; reconcile by item id, not by totals.

Use custom labels and product groups to build reports by margin, season, or category; segment by device and by network (Shopping vs. Search partners) to isolate performance.

The 'benchmarks' and 'auction insights' views compare your Shopping performance to competitors; use them to spot impression-share gaps, not as a bidding input.

Merchant Center misrepresentation suspension (often 'untrustworthy promotions' or 'misrepresentation') blocks all Shopping ads account-wide; resolve by fixing site policy pages, contact info, and pricing claims, then request review.

Prohibited and restricted categories (e.g. certain healthcare, weapons, tobacco, counterfeit goods) are ineligible regardless of feed quality; check the Google Ads and Merchant Center policy lists before listing.

Free listings and paid Shopping ads share the same Merchant Center feed; a disapproved item is ineligible for both surfaces until corrected.

Product data must not contain promotional text, watermarks, or misleading claims in titles/images; these trigger item-level disapprovals that are fixed at the feed level.

Business operations verification and identity verification are required for new Merchant Center accounts in many countries; incomplete verification can suspend the account.

Return policy and shipping settings must be configured in Merchant Center; missing or inconsistent shipping costs cause 'shipping mismatch' issues and can suppress offers.

Tax and delivery estimates shown on the landing page must match Merchant Center settings; mismatches are a common cause of item disapproval and account warnings.

Title formula: Brand + Product Type + Key Attributes (gender, size, color, material, model). Put the highest-intent terms first; the first ~70 characters matter most in truncated placements.

Use product_type (Google's taxonomy) for category structure and google_product_category for the official taxonomy; product_type is free-form and useful for product groups, google_product_category drives eligibility.

Custom labels are free-form strings (0-4) that you control; they are the main lever for segmenting bids by margin, bestseller status, or seasonality.

Supplemental feeds let you override specific attributes without resubmitting the primary feed; use them for seasonal price or title changes, not for structural fixes.

Feed rules in Merchant Center can transform attributes (e.g. append color to title) at scale; test rules on a small subset before applying account-wide.

High-quality images (white background, product filling the frame, no text overlays) improve both approval rates and click-through; image quality is a ranking input in Shopping.

Availability must be accurate: 'out of stock' items are suppressed; use automatic item updates or frequent feed refreshes for fast-moving inventory.