Google Ads Shopping flashcards
Google Ads Shopping · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Merchant Center product feed
- A structured file (XML, TSV, or API) listing products with required attributes such as id, title, price, and availability; it is the source of truth for Shopping ads and free listings.
- Required feed attributes
- At minimum id, title, description, link, image_link, availability, and price; physical goods also need condition, and brand/GTIN where applicable. Missing attributes make an offer ineligible.
- Feed id stability
- The id is the primary key per item per country/language. Changing it creates a new product and resets historical performance and product-level status.
- Price mismatch disapproval
- Occurs when the feed price differs from the landing-page price. The item stays disapproved until the feed or page is corrected and recrawled.
- GTIN and brand matching
- Providing correct GTIN, MPN, and brand lets Google match your offer to its product catalog, improving eligibility for rich results; wrong GTINs cause limited-performance warnings.
- Merchant Center diagnostics
- A triage view separating account-level issues (suspension, misrepresentation), item-level disapprovals (policy, missing attribute), and warnings (limited performance).
- Automatic item updates
- A Merchant Center setting that corrects price and availability from the landing page. It does not fix title, image, or policy problems.
- Standard Shopping campaign
- A Shopping campaign type using product groups split by brand, category, item id, or custom label, with bids set per group and negative keywords for query control.
- Product group hierarchy
- Product groups subdivide by attribute; a child group inherits no bid until set, and a parent bid applies only to items not further subdivided.
- Campaign priority setting
- Low, Medium, or High on Standard Shopping campaigns. When multiple campaigns target the same product, the higher-priority campaign bids in the auction.
- Smart Shopping upgrade
- Legacy Smart Shopping campaigns were upgraded to Performance Max. New accounts should use Performance Max or Standard Shopping, not the legacy type.
- Target ROAS bidding
- A bid strategy that sets bids to hit a return-on-ad-spend target. It requires conversion values and enough conversion volume to learn effectively.
- Shopping negative keywords
- Query-level exclusions applied to Shopping campaigns, since Shopping has no keyword targeting. They are the main control over which searches trigger ads.
- Custom labels
- Up to four free-form labels per product, set in the feed or Merchant Center, used to segment bids and reports by margin, season, or bestseller status.
- Everything else group
- The catch-all product group that holds items not placed in a named subgroup; review it to find wasted spend and add relevant negative keywords.
- Product-level reporting
- The Products page in Google Ads shows clicks, impressions, cost, and conversions per item id, enabling item-level bid changes or exclusions.
- Conversion value tracking
- Passing transaction value through the conversion tag so ROAS and value-based bidding can be computed; without values, ROAS is unavailable.
- Attribution model
- The rule deciding which click receives conversion credit (e.g. data-driven or last click). Switching models shifts reported conversions and ROAS, so compare like with like.
- Conversion window
- The period after a click or view during which a conversion counts (e.g. 30-day click, 1-day view). Shorter windows undercount long consideration cycles.
- Merchant Center vs Ads metrics
- Merchant Center reports product status and clicks; Google Ads reports cost and conversions. Reconcile the two by item id rather than by account totals.
- Auction insights
- A view comparing your Shopping performance to competitors on impression share and overlap; useful for spotting gaps, not as a direct bidding input.
- Misrepresentation suspension
- A Merchant Center account-level suspension, often for untrustworthy promotions or missing policy pages, that blocks all Shopping ads until fixed and reviewed.
- Restricted categories
- Product categories such as certain healthcare items, weapons, tobacco, and counterfeits that are ineligible for Shopping ads regardless of feed quality.
- Free listings eligibility
- Free listings and paid Shopping ads share the same Merchant Center feed; a disapproved item is ineligible for both surfaces until corrected.
- Promotional text in titles
- Words like 'sale' or 'free shipping' in titles or images trigger item-level disapprovals; fix them at the feed level, not by editing the ad.
- Merchant Center verification
- Identity and business-operations verification required for new accounts in many countries; incomplete verification can suspend the account.
- Shipping settings mismatch
- When Merchant Center shipping costs differ from the landing page, offers can be disapproved or suppressed; keep shipping and return settings consistent.
- Title formula
- Brand + product type + key attributes, with the highest-intent terms first. The first roughly 70 characters matter most in truncated placements.
- product_type vs google_product_category
- product_type is free-form and useful for product groups; google_product_category uses Google's official taxonomy and drives eligibility. Both should be set.
- Supplemental feed
- A secondary feed that overrides specific attributes of the primary feed without resubmitting it; suited to seasonal price or title changes, not structural fixes.
- Merchant Center feed rules
- Rules that transform attributes at scale, such as appending color to titles. Test them on a small subset before applying account-wide.
- Image quality in Shopping
- White background, product filling the frame, no text overlays. Image quality affects both approval rates and click-through, and is a ranking input.