Setting up Google Shopping

Is your advertising budget melting away while orders remain elusive? Or have you just launched an online store and can’t decide on your first advertising channel? Then it’s time to understand what Google Shopping is — and why this format deserves your attention.

For Ukrainian e-Commerce, this is one of the most effective channels in terms of return on investment. Judge for yourself: a regular search campaign tries to hook users with text — a headline and a couple of lines of description. Meanwhile, shopping ads immediately show an image, price, sometimes even a rating. Visually, they win. And, more importantly, they attract those who have already decided to buy and are simply comparing options.

In this article, we’ll explore how Google Shopping works from the inside, what you’ll need to launch it, and how to get maximum returns from it. No abstract advice — only practical steps you can apply immediately.

What is Google Shopping?

Imagine this scenario: someone types “buy Nike Air Max sneakers” into their browser’s search bar. And even before the usual links appear, a carousel with photos of specific pairs, prices in hryvnias, and online store names appears before their eyes. So Google Shopping is an advertising format that displays product ads directly on the search results page.

Essentially, this is your online store’s showcase built right into the search engine itself. Not a dry text ad, but a full product card. Sometimes a rating or delivery note is pulled in as well. A person instantly assesses whether the offer interests them. And all this — before even visiting your website.

Why does this work so well specifically in Ukrainian e-commerce? Because a user who types a specific product into the search bar is already “hot.” They’re not reading reviews out of curiosity — they’re comparing and choosing where to buy. And these advertising messages catch them at exactly this moment.

By the way, the service became available in Ukraine in 2018 — much later than in the US or European markets. But it caught up quickly. Today, for many online stores, this is the main source of paid traffic. In certain niches, according to specialists, up to 80% of inquiries come specifically from shopping campaigns.

Important: this platform is not a marketplace. You don’t sell inside Google. The buyer clicks on the card, goes to your online platform, and places the order there. Google acts strictly as an advertising platform — a link between you and the buyer.

How does Google Shopping work?

The entire mechanics of how Google Shopping works rests on three elements. They are linked in a single chain — and if even one link is configured poorly, the entire result will suffer. Let’s examine them in order:

1. Product feed. This is a structured file (XML, CSV format, or a regular Google Sheet) describing every item in your store. Names, prices, photos, stock availability, links to product cards, brands — all collected in one place. Think of this file as a catalog you pass to Google. No feed — no advertising. Period.
2. Merchant Center. This is where the ready feed is uploaded. The platform checks your information, compares it with what’s stated on your website, and decides whether to allow you to display ads. For example, if your document lists a price of 2,400 UAH, but your website shows 2,600 UAH, such a discrepancy will lead to rejection.
3. Advertising campaign. This is configured in Google Ads. Here you set the budget, choose bidding strategies, and configure geotargeting. But there’s an important difference from regular search advertising: you don’t manually select keywords. Google itself determines which search queries to show your offer for — based on the feed’s contents.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s say you sell electric kettles. Your feed states: “Electric kettle Bosch TWK3A014 1.7 L red.” A user enters “buy Bosch kettle red” — the algorithm matches the query with the feed information and displays your card in the first row of search results. Sounds simple. But it’s precisely the quality and completeness of the feed that determines how often and accurately Google Shopping will show your products to your audience.

Advantages of advertising in Google Shopping

So why has Google Shopping advertising become so popular among online store owners? There are specific reasons — and each directly impacts sales:

• Visual presentation. The user immediately sees all necessary information. No need to guess what’s behind the link — everything is already before their eyes. Compare this with a regular text ad, where the headline can be anything, and the actual offer only becomes clear after clicking. In our case, clicks are made consciously — meaning the traffic is higher quality.
• Clicks are cheaper. Compared to search ads, the cost per click in shopping campaigns is typically 20–40% lower. The logic is simple: you’re not fighting over vague keywords — you’re showing a specific product to someone searching for exactly that. “Junk” clicks become noticeably fewer.
• Privileged position in results. Product cards appear at the very top — above text ads, above organic results. On mobile, they can take up a good half of the screen. Honestly, it’s harder not to click on them than to click.
• Data updates without advertiser involvement. If the feed is configured correctly and synchronization is connected, prices, availability, and characteristics are pulled automatically. Price changed by 50 UAH — no need to go into the advertising account and change anything manually.
• Quick start even with a huge catalog. A ready feed and automatic export from your CMS — and you can launch a campaign literally in a day. Whether you have 50 items or 50,000. The feed is generated from the store’s database, not assembled manually. For comparison: classic search promotion for the same assortment would require at least a week of preparation.
• No need to fuss with keywords. In regular search advertising, you spend hours collecting semantics, grouping queries, adding negative keywords. Here the algorithm takes this work upon itself. And it catches not only popular phrases but also long-tail low-frequency ones, like “buy red Bosch kettle 1.7 L with delivery to Kyiv.” And such queries, by the way, often convert best.

Tip: Google Shopping advertising integrates excellently with other channels. For example, a person sees your product in Shopping, gets interested, but doesn’t buy. Then you “catch up” with them through dynamic remarketing — and they return ready to place an order.

When does product advertising work well?

Google Shopping is a powerful tool, but not perfect. In some niches it fires on all cylinders, in others — it’s better not to waste the budget and look toward alternatives. Let’s figure out where shopping advertising really brings results:

1. You sell physical products. This is the starting point. Shopping is designed for selling specific products — electronics, clothing, cosmetics, furniture, auto parts, home goods. If your business is services, online courses, or subscriptions, the format simply won’t fit.
2. Products are searched for with specific queries. When searching for “Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 256 GB black buy,” the person has already decided — no reviews or comparisons needed, they’re choosing where to place the order. At this moment, a card with a photo, price, and store name works perfectly. The rule is simple: the more specific the query, the higher the conversion from shopping advertising.
3. Prices are at or below competitor levels. This is strict. Product ads stand side by side in results — the user covers three to four offers from different stores with one glance. If a competitor is 200 UAH cheaper, plus free delivery — the click will go to them.
4. Medium or large catalog. A store with 500–5,000+ items extracts maximum value from shopping campaigns. The algorithm matches buyers to dozens of different products, creating a steady stream of orders in total. With an assortment of 10–15 items, the campaign will still launch, but scale will noticeably drop.
5. Product looks good in photos. Seems like a small thing — but surprisingly often forgotten. Stylish sneakers, bright gadgets, beautiful cosmetic sets — all of this catches the eye and gathers clicks. Meanwhile, say, a gray industrial pump on a white background won’t evoke much emotion. Advertising such products in Shopping is possible, just the CTR will be different.

Attention: there’s one less obvious scenario — seasonal spikes. Before New Year, March 8, Black Friday, people massively search for gifts and discounts. Here shopping advertising can bring 2–3 times more sales than in regular months.

And where does Shopping work poorly? These could be unique handmade items where no formed demand exists. Expensive B2B solutions with long deal cycles. Anything people simply aren’t used to searching for directly in Google. Here it’s more reasonable to choose other channels — targeted advertising in social networks, content marketing, or direct sales.

What are the website requirements for connecting to Google Shopping?

Before diving into advertising settings, it’s worth making sure your website is ready for Google Shopping. The system checks platforms quite meticulously, and with poor performance, your Merchant Center account will be blocked. And this can happen right before campaign launch or some time after.

Here’s what must be in order:

• Orders can be placed and paid for online on the website. Google cares that the buyer can complete the entire journey — from product card to payment — without leaving home. If you only have a “Leave request” form and no immediate payment option — that’s a problem.
• Contact information. Phone, email, physical company address — all must be present on the website and correspond to reality. And one contact method is not enough.
• Pages with delivery conditions and return policy. They should be written in clear language and easily found. Don’t hide them in the “footer” with 8-pixel font — moderators will notice.
• SSL certificate. All pages where users enter personal data — cart, checkout — must work in HTTPS. Otherwise, it’s not worth trying.
• Up-to-date product data. Prices, availability, descriptions on the website must match the feed. For example, if the kettle is 1,800 UAH in the feed but 2,100 UAH on the website — Google will notice and reject the product.
• No prohibited categories. Counterfeit, alcohol, tobacco, medical products, gambling goods — all of this cannot be advertised. If such items appear in your catalog, exclude them from the feed in advance. Otherwise, you risk losing the entire account.

Attention: for our market, Google recommends using Ukrainian language in ads. This is related to legislation on the state language. Formally, Russian-language ads are allowed, but it’s better not to test fate and prepare content in Ukrainian.

How to create your first campaign in Google Shopping?

Theory is good, but it’s time to move to practice. The entire journey from zero to working advertising can be broken down into five sequential steps: registration in Merchant Center, linking with Google Ads, preparing the product feed, uploading it, and creating the campaign itself. Let’s go through them in order.

Creating an account in Google Merchant Center

The registration itself isn’t complicated, but requires attention. With mistakes, moderation can stretch for days. Go to merchants.google.com and sign in through your Google account.

Next, specify your store name — not the legal one, but what buyers recognize you by. Fill in data about country, time zone, contact information.

Next, confirm that the website actually belongs to you. There are several methods: you can upload an HTML file to the root folder, insert a meta tag into the homepage code, or do this through Google Tag Manager.

For those going through this for the first time, the process may seem confusing. But in reality — from half an hour to a couple of hours, depending on how prepared your website is for moderation.

Linking Google Ads and Merchant Center

Without this link, a shopping campaign simply won’t launch. Merchant Center stores product information, Google Ads manages advertising, so they must “see” each other.

Good news: if both accounts are registered to the same email, the system will recognize the match and link them automatically. With different addresses, you’ll need to do a couple of manual actions.

Go to Merchant Center, open the menu in the upper right corner, select “Link with other services.” Click “+”, enter the numeric ID of your Google Ads account, and send the request. Then switch to the Google Ads interface and confirm the incoming request.

This takes literally a couple of minutes. But upon completion of linking, additional opportunities open up, such as dynamic remarketing showing users those products they already viewed on your website.

Exporting the product feed

The data feed is the file on which everything rests. How well it’s compiled determines how well your products will be shown. Even a perfectly configured campaign won’t pull results if the feed is assembled haphazardly.

Required attributes:

• id — unique product identifier;
• title — name;
• description — product description;
• link — URL of the card on the website;
• image_link — link to the main image;
• price — price in hryvnias (format: “1299.00 UAH”);
• availability — stock status (in stock, out of stock, preorder);
• brand, gtin, or mpn — brand and product identifiers.

In Ukraine, there are often difficulties with GTIN — not all products have it. If this is your case, specifying brand and MPN (manufacturer’s article) is sufficient. But if we’re talking about well-known brands, it’s still better to fill in GTIN — it noticeably increases your chances of getting into results.

The title deserves separate discussion. Many fill it in “for show,” and quite in vain. Google determines how relevant a product is to a user’s query based on the title. A good title contains the name, brand, model, and important characteristics. Compare: “Kettle Bosch” and “Electric kettle Bosch TWK3A014 1.7 L 2400 W red.” The difference in number of impressions can be several times.

Tip: look at how titles are formatted by competitors already in the top of results. Study the structure of names, length, what characteristics they include. This will quickly give you understanding of what works specifically in your niche.

Creating a feed manually is quite possible — in Google Sheets. But with hundreds or thousands of items, this is simply irrational. Most popular CMS (Horoshop, OpenCart, Shopify, WordPress with WooCommerce) can generate feeds automatically thanks to built-in modules and plugins. Such a feed synchronizes with Merchant Center up to four times a day, and your data stays fresh.

Uploading the product feed to the system

Feed ready — now it needs to be delivered to Merchant Center. Go to the “Products” → “Feeds” section and click “+” to upload your file. Specify the sales country (Ukraine), content language, and mark which services the feed is intended for — “Shopping ads” and, if desired, “Free product information.”

The next step is the upload method. For most stores, the most convenient option is to simply specify the URL of the feed that your CMS generates. Google will visit this link itself and retrieve fresh data on schedule. Optimal — at least once a day, so prices and availability on the website don’t diverge from what the system sees.

Then verification begins. This can take from several hours to a couple of days. If something is wrong — missing required attributes, data doesn’t match information on the website — Merchant Center will show warnings in the “Diagnostics” section. Don’t ignore them: too many rejected products — and the entire account will be at risk.

Note: if prices or availability change frequently for you, it makes sense to create an additional feed for updates. It contains only five attributes (id, price, availability, sale_price, sale_price_effective_date) and allows you to promptly update the most important data without overloading the main feed.

Creating the advertising campaign

Feed uploaded, products passed moderation — time to launch the advertising campaign. Go to your Google Ads account, create a new campaign with the goal “Sales.” Select the type — “Shopping,” then connect the linked Merchant Center.

For starters, it’s better to choose the Standard Shopping campaign type. This will give you understanding of which products sell, what queries bring buyers, how much a conversion costs. And only then, when statistics accumulate, can you try Performance Max and compare results.

Set the campaign name, daily budget, and bidding strategy. If launching for the first time — start with manual CPC assignment. This way you’ll understand how much you’re paying for each click and quicker figure out the economics of your products. Specify the sales country and, if needed, refine the geography of impressions.

At the first stage, you can safely advertise the entire assortment with one campaign. Segmentation by categories, margin, or popularity — that’s the next step when you already have real data.

After all settings, click “Create campaign” — and Google Shopping will start showing your products. First results typically appear within several hours.

Types of shopping campaigns in Google Shopping

We’ve launched Standard Shopping — and for starting out, this is an excellent solution. But sooner or later the thought will arise: what about Performance Max? Is it worth switching? Let’s figure out how these two formats differ and in what situations each works better.

Standard Shopping

The main advantage is full control. You manage bids yourself, see exactly which search queries show your products, can add negative keywords, and precisely distribute budget between categories. Everything is transparent: you understand where money goes and what result it brings. That’s exactly why we recommended starting with this format — to gather statistics and figure out your store’s economics.

Performance Max (PMax)

The approach here is completely different. You set the budget and goal — maximum conversions or target ROAS — and then Google’s algorithm works on its own. It decides whom to show the product to, where, and when. And not just in search: PMax covers all Google platforms at once — YouTube, Gmail, Display Network, Discover, Google Maps. Essentially, one campaign instead of five.

Sounds attractive. But there’s a downside. PMax is, essentially, a “black box.” You won’t see the full picture of search queries, can’t fully work with negative keywords, and reporting is much less detailed than in Standard Shopping. Sometimes the algorithm spends budget on platforms that generate impressions but not sales — and you learn about this far from immediately.

Which is better to choose?

If you’ve already launched a standard shopping campaign and gathered data for at least 4–6 weeks — you know your average CPA, see which products sell, understand ROAS — you can try PMax.

For example, in Standard Shopping the “vacuum cleaners” category consistently shows ROAS at 500%. Launch Performance Max with target ROAS 500% on the same category and let it work for a couple of weeks. Then compare. Sometimes PMax scales sales better. Sometimes — not. This is always an experiment, and there’s no universal answer.

Important: don’t launch Standard Shopping and Performance Max on the same products simultaneously without clear separation. The campaigns will start competing with each other for auction and “eating” each other’s budget. Want to test both formats — divide the assortment between them.

How to improve advertising efficiency in Google Shopping?

Launching a campaign is only half the job. The main work begins afterward: when you look at the numbers and understand what can be improved. Here are several recommendations that really impact results:

• Work with negative keywords. Yes, in shopping campaigns you don’t manually select keywords. But Google shows which queries had clicks — and this report needs to be reviewed regularly. Found something irrelevant — exclude it. Say, you sell new laptops, but part of clicks come from the query “laptop used.” Add “used” to negative keywords — and stop paying for people who definitely won’t buy anything from you.
• Segment your products. Advertising the entire catalog with one campaign and single bid — not a great strategy. Divide assortment by categories, margin, popularity. On bestsellers and high-margin items, bids can be raised. And low-profit items — lower bids or remove from advertising entirely. For example, you have an electronics store: it makes sense to spend more on flagship smartphones with good markup, but on cheap accessories with 30 UAH margin — hardly.
• Optimize the feed on an ongoing basis. This isn’t a “set and forget” task. Improve titles, add additional attributes — color, size, material, google_product_category. Make sure photos are current and high quality. One telling fact: according to research, proper title optimization can increase impressions by 100–150%.
• Configure bid adjustments. See that conversion from mobile devices is noticeably lower — reduce the bid for smartphones. Notice that sales go more actively in evening hours — raise the bid for this time. Google Ads allows bid adjustments by device, time of day, and geography. Seems like a small thing, but in total this noticeably impacts profitability.
• Connect remarketing audiences. People who have already visited your website buy much more readily. Add a remarketing audience to your shopping campaign and raise the bid for it — this is one of the most effective optimization techniques.

Note: Google recommends waiting at least 6 weeks after launch before making radical conclusions or seriously restructuring the campaign. The algorithm needs time to gather statistics and “learn.” Hasty changes in the first days — one of the common mistakes of beginners.

Common mistakes when setting up Google Shopping

Mistakes in shopping campaigns are made by everyone — both beginners and those who have been setting up advertising for years. But some of them are especially costly. Here’s what to pay attention to first:

1. Discrepancies between feed and website. Probably the most common reason for product rejection and account blocking. Feed says 2,500 UAH, website already shows 2,700 UAH. Google will notice this. And quickly. Set up automatic feed updates and make it a habit to regularly check for discrepancies. Especially after mass price changes or promotions.
2. Low-quality photos. Blurry image, watermarks, text over the image, colorful background — all of this reduces chances of being shown and kills clickability. Photo should be sharp, on white or neutral background, without extra elements. By the way, Google may simply reject a product with an image that doesn’t meet requirements — and you won’t immediately understand why impressions dropped.
3. Formal titles. “Women’s dress” — this isn’t a product name, but rather a hint at it. The algorithm won’t figure out whom to show this to, and will show it rarely. Add brand, color, size, material, season — everything that helps Google more accurately match the product with the buyer’s query. The difference between “Nike sneakers” and “Nike Air Max 90 men’s white size 43” — this is the difference between ten impressions and a thousand.
4. Wrong or empty categories. Google has its own product category taxonomy. If you specified the wrong category — or didn’t fill in the google_product_category attribute at all — the product may be shown to completely the wrong audience. Use Google’s official classifier and select the most accurate match.

Marathon for learning Google Shopping: