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Google Shopping ads for online stores: first campaign setup

· by Digitelia 3 min read
On this page (6)
  1. Check the catalog first
  2. Link the correct accounts
  3. Measure purchases, not button clicks
  4. Create a Standard Shopping campaign
  5. Evaluate against margin
  6. Launch checklist

A Shopping campaign needs more than a daily budget. It draws its products from Merchant Center, so feed quality, approval status, purchase tracking and store economics all affect the result. Set those foundations before changing bids.

Check the catalog first

Open Merchant Center and confirm the products you want to advertise are eligible for the target country. Check titles, images, prices, stock and shipping. If many products are rejected, fix the feed and diagnose the rejections before spending on a narrow surviving subset.

Connect Merchant Center and Google Ads. Verify the account IDs when you manage several stores or clients. Confirm the linked catalog is the one intended for the campaign; changing the selected Merchant Center after setup may require rebuilding the campaign rather than editing one field.

Measure purchases, not button clicks

Use the completed order as the primary ecommerce conversion. Send its real value and currency. Google also recommends an order ID to help prevent duplicate purchase counts. Test an order end to end and check that the conversion appears once with the expected value. If refunds or cancellations matter to reporting, define how those adjustments are handled.

Create a Standard Shopping campaign

In Google Ads, choose the Shopping campaign type, linked Merchant Center, target market, budget and bidding strategy. Google’s Standard Shopping instructions describe the interface. Start with a budget you can sustain long enough to collect useful data and product groups you can actually analyze. Separate products when their margins, stock or goals differ materially.

Evaluate against margin

ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend, not profit. A product with high reported ROAS can still lose money after product cost, shipping, payment fees and returns. Compare campaign results with contribution margin and check product-level performance. Do not declare a winning campaign from a handful of clicks or one sale.

Launch checklist

  1. Products are eligible in Merchant Center for the intended market.
  2. Ads and Merchant Center are linked to the right store.
  3. A test order records one purchase with value and currency.
  4. Product groups reflect meaningful business differences.
  5. Shipping, returns and landing pages match the offer.
  6. Reporting reviews margin alongside ROAS.

For the full account sequence, start with Merchant Center setup. If your team wants a feed and campaign review, see our Google Shopping service.

Tagged

#google-merchant-center#google-shopping#ecommerce#product-feed