In this article you will get information on the following issues:
Google Merchant Center Account
GMC Account Setup
Preparing a product file
Connecting your Google Merchant Center account to Google Ads
First product campaign in Google Ads
Standard product campaign
Campaign name, rates, budget
Networks, Devices, Locations
Smart product campaign (Smart Shopping)
Campaign name, rates, budget, start and end dates
Product selection
Google Shopping Results for the word: dog bed
Google Shopping results for the word: dog bed.
Google Merchant Center Account
Product ads use data from a product file, commonly known as a feed, which must be sent to Google Merchant Center (GMC). To create and configure an account, you must have a Google account, e.g. Gmail. Otherwise, you must create one.
GMC Account Setup
Once the account has been created, we go to the GMC website and click the get started button. Then we fill in the company information: country, store name, contact details and store website address.
Google Merchant Center Account Setup
Google Merchant Center Account Setup.
The next step is to accept the terms of service and verify the site, which can be done in many ways. Verification can be skipped, but it will result in the inactivity of the account.
As the next selection options, a window appears in which moj database you must select which ads you want to use. We select Product Ads, after clicking next a summary view will appear. After accepting the summary results, the account is created.
Choosing a Product Advertising Method - Google Merchant Center
Choosing how to advertise your products - Google Merchant Center.
Preparing a product file
The vast majority of online stores allow easy export of a product file to the GMC platform. If there is such an option, it is worth using it, because manual preparation of the file is time-consuming work.
To add a new product feed to GMC, click the plus button in the Data Feeds tab. After doing so, you need to configure its settings.
Adding a product feed - Google Merchant Center
Adding a product feed - Google Merchant Center.
We choose the country of sale, language and select the destination. After moving on, we need to choose the method of sending the file to Merchant.
Select Country, Language and Destination - Google Merchant Center
Select country, language and destination - Google Merchant Center.
Methods to upload a file to GMC
Uploading a feed to GMC requires going through several steps. In the first step, we select the country and the feed name, then the import method. We have three options to choose from:
Google Sheets - product information is stored and automatically updated in the sheet,
Scheduled fetches - thanks to this, after creating an upload schedule, Google will automatically update the product list,
Regular uploads - data stored on your computer is automatically sent to your GMC account,
Content API - an interface that allows applications to work directly with Google Merchant Center.
Choosing how to configure your feed - Google Merchant Center
Choosing how to configure your data feed - Google Merchant Center.
After completing the above steps, Google Merchant Center will check the correctness of the uploaded file. It takes from a few minutes to a few days to download products to your account, it depends primarily on the number of products in the online store.
A well-prepared product file must be saved in the following formats : xml, gz, zip, bz2, txt. On the GMC help page we will find a specification of what data it should contain, but it is not required to use all attributes.
It is very important to secure the store with the SSL protocol, because it is not possible to conduct product advertising without proper protection of user data.
Connecting your Google Merchant Center account to Google Ads
Once Google accepts your product feed, you need to link your Google Ads account to your Google Merchant Center account. Simply go to the “Linked Accounts” tab in your Google Ads panel and link your Merchant Center account.
