ServicesGoogle Shopping Ads

Google Shopping Ads

Shopping ads show your product photo, price and store name at the top of Google results. What appears is driven by the product feed in your Merchant Center account, so we fix the feed first, then decide between Standard Shopping and Performance Max for each part of your range.

Discuss Google Shopping Ads
Explore the service

For online stores and retailers selling products people search for by name.

GOOGLE SHOPPING
Merchant Center diagnostics

Clear disapprovals and price mismatches.

Titles and attributes

Write titles the way buyers search.

Campaigns split by margin

Spend more where the profit is.

Feed first · Campaign structure second

What we can help with

The feed, the campaigns and the store

Shopping is the one Google format where product data does the job of keywords, so most of the early work happens in the feed.

  • Merchant Center account and policy review
  • Feed rewrite: titles, product types and GTINs
  • Custom labels for margin, stock and best-sellers
  • Standard Shopping or Performance Max structure
  • Purchase tracking that passes order value
  • Product-level reporting and feed monitoring

Google Shopping Ads in practice

Why product titles matter more than bids

Google matches Shopping ads to searches mainly from your feed: the title, description, brand, GTIN and product type. A title like “Classic Tee Navy” competes poorly against “Men’s Organic Cotton Crew Neck T-Shirt, Navy, Size M” because the second one matches what people type. We rewrite titles in a supplemental feed so your store’s own product names stay untouched, fill in missing identifiers, and fix the price, availability and shipping mismatches that lead Merchant Center to disapprove products.

Clean product data also helps your free listings and organic product pages, so this overlaps with eCommerce SEO. Clothing stores with big size and colour ranges tend to feel feed problems first, because every variant needs its own clean data.

Planning and implementation

Performance Max or Standard Shopping

Performance Max is now Google’s default suggestion for retailers. It runs your feed across Shopping, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Discover, and relies on automated bidding. It can perform well once there is enough conversion data, but you see less about where the money goes. Standard Shopping gives tighter control through product-group bids, search-term reports and negative keywords. A setup that suits many stores runs both: custom labels send high-margin lines and best-sellers into Performance Max, while new or slow-moving products sit in a Standard campaign where they can be watched closely. Retailers with a physical shop can add local inventory so nearby shoppers see what is in stock.

Feed exports differ by platform, so the store side is handled with our Shopify SEO work, and Shopping budgets are planned against other channels through performance marketing.

How we work

From feed audit to steady trading

01

Audit the feed and the store

We pull Merchant Center diagnostics, work through every disapproval and warning, and compare feed prices and stock with what the product pages show.

02

Restructure around profit

Products get custom labels for margin band, stock depth and sales history, so campaigns can bid differently on a slow mover and a best-seller.

03

Trade it week by week

Product spend, search terms and feed errors are reviewed weekly, with adjustments ahead of EOFY, Click Frenzy, Black Friday and the Christmas shipping cut-off.

Measurement and review

Measuring profit, not just revenue

Reported conversion value is only a starting point. We check it against actual orders, refunds and returns, then read return on ad spend by product group with margin in mind. A low-margin product can show a healthy ROAS and still lose money once shipping and payment fees are counted.

We also watch how much of the revenue comes from new customers, because Shopping can quietly spend on people who would have bought from you anyway after searching your brand name.

Good questions

Shopping campaign questions

Answers for store owners and ecommerce managers.

Can a service business use Google Shopping?

Generally not. Shopping ads need a physical product with a set price, a product page and a clear way to buy, and Google's policies exclude most services. A business that also sells goods with listed prices, such as a tyre shop, may qualify for those products. A plumber, cleaner or electrician is better served by Search campaigns and a strong Google Business Profile.

Why are some of our products disapproved?

Common causes are a price or availability that doesn't match the landing page, missing GTINs on branded products, images with promotional text or watermarks, and missing shipping or returns details. Merchant Center lists the reason against each item. Some fixes happen in the feed and others need the product page or store settings changed, so we sort them into those two lists and work through them in order of revenue.

Do we need a paid feed app?

Not always. Shopify connects to Merchant Center through Google's own sales channel, and WooCommerce has several feed plugins. They cover the basics but rarely produce good titles or useful custom labels. We usually keep the native connection and add a supplemental feed in Merchant Center for rewritten titles and labels, so nothing breaks when the store updates a product.

How much should we spend on Shopping ads?

It depends on catalogue size, average order value and margin rather than a set figure. A store with a few hundred low-margin products needs a different budget from one selling high-ticket items. Our marketing budget guide covers how we set a first-quarter test, and spend limits are tied to the return each product group needs to stay profitable.

What will the free audit look at?

We review Merchant Center for disapprovals and warnings, compare a sample of your product titles with real search terms, check purchase tracking against your store's order count, and look at whether the current campaign split reflects your margins. The result is a prioritised list of feed and campaign fixes. Find out what the free audit includes.

Connected services

Where Shopping connects to the rest of the store

01

eCommerce SEO

Category and product pages that rank without paying per click.

Explore eCommerce SEO

02

Shopify SEO

Store-side fixes for themes, collections and product data.

Explore Shopify SEO

03

Performance Marketing

How Shopping budget sits next to Search and social spend.

Explore Performance Marketing

A useful starting point

See what your feed is costing you

A short review of your Merchant Center account, feed quality and campaign structure, with fixes ordered by how much revenue they affect.

  • Disapproved and limited products, and the reasons
  • Title and attribute gaps compared with what shoppers search
  • Whether purchase tracking matches your real orders
See the 100% free audit offer

Get a 100% free audit with an actionable checklist.

Send us your store and we’ll start with the Merchant Center account.

Get my free audit & checklist