How to Set Up Shopping Campaigns in Google Ads

Google Ads Shopping Campaigns promote products with visual ads that include images, prices, and key details across Google Shopping and Search. But before setting up a campaign, your Google Merchant Feed needs to be linked and optimized to maximize results.

More than a third of product searches happen on Google. This makes Google Shopping Ads a highly effective way for ecommerce businesses to reach new customers and boost sales.

Unlike traditional search campaigns or text ads, Google Shopping ads are geared toward online shoppers with product images and clear information that makes it easy to click (and buy).

But if you’re new to this campaign type in Google Ads, there can be a bit of a learning curve.

In this tutorial, HawkSEM Lead Strategist Rachel Corak helps explain how to create a Google Shopping campaign, provide expert tips to increase profitability, and outline best practices you should follow along the way.

Google Shopping campaign pre-setup requirements

Before setting up your Google Shopping campaign, there are a few key prerequisites:

Create a Google Ads account

To begin, sign up for a Google Ads account and follow the guided steps.

Set up a Google Merchant Center account

Then head over to Google Merchant Center to register your account.

The Merchant Center is where you’ll manage all your Google Shopping product details.

The process is easier if you have a Shopify or BigCommerce store — you can connect them directly to Google Merchant Center to automatically create your product feed.

If you don’t have a compatible ecommerce platform, you’ll have to manually create your feed.

Meet product feed requirements

Your product feed must follow Google’s formatting and policy requirements to be eligible for Shopping ads.

Required attributes typically include:

• Product title and description
• Price and availability
• Product image
• Brand and GTIN (when applicable)

Link Merchant Center to Google Ads

After your product feed is approved, link your Merchant Center account to Google Ads.

This allows Google Ads to pull product data directly from your feed and use it in Shopping campaigns.

To do this:

• Sign in to Google Merchant Center
• Click Settings
• Select Linked accounts > Google Ads
• Click “Link account” and enter your Google Ads customer ID
• Send the linking request
• Log in to Google Ads
• Go to Tools & Settings > Setup > Linked accounts
• Approve the request from the Merchant Center

How to set up Google Shopping campaigns

It’s time to set up your first Google Shopping Ads campaign. Here’s an overview of what you need to do to complete the setup:

1. Create a new campaign
2. Select conversion goals and your Merchant Center account
3. Apply campaign settings
4. Create an ad group
5. Review and publish

1. Create a new campaign

Log in to your Google Ads account, and click the “+ Create” on the left panel. In the dropdown, choose “Campaign.”

Then select “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.”

Then, select “Shopping.”

2. Select your conversion goal and Merchant Center account

Next, confirm your conversion goals and select the Google Merchant Center account that contains the products you want to advertise.

For a typical ecommerce campaign, your conversion goal should be “Purchases.”

Select the Merchant Center account with the relevant product feed.

Google will then prompt you to choose a campaign type: Performance Max or Standard Shopping.

By default, Google will recommend creating a Performance Max campaign.

You can run Shopping through Performance Max, but if you want to create a Shopping campaign that only serves on Shopping placements, select Standard Shopping campaign.

3. Apply campaign settings

Here, you’ll complete your campaign settings, including:

Campaign name: Choose a clear, descriptive campaign name so it’s easy to manage and report on later.

Bidding strategy: Choose how you want to pay for traffic and optimize performance.

Common strategies include:

• Manual CPC: Full control over bids (available in Standard Shopping)
• Maximize Clicks: Drives traffic within your budget
• Maximize Conversion Value: Prioritizes revenue
• Target ROAS: Optimizes toward a specific return on ad spend

Daily budget: Define how much you’re willing to spend per day on the campaign.

Network settings: For Standard Shopping campaigns, review where your ads can appear:

• Google Search Network (Shopping tab and search results)
• Search partners (optional)
• Display Network (can usually be excluded to maintain efficiency)

Location and language targeting: Choose the countries or regions where you want your ads to show and match them to your shipping settings in the Merchant Center.

Also, select the languages your customers use.

Under “More settings,” you can also optionally:

• Set an ad schedule
• Define campaign start and end dates

Campaign priority: If you run multiple Shopping campaigns with overlapping products, set priorities.

• High priority: Broad or generic searches
• Medium priority: Category-level intent
• Low priority: Brand or high-intent queries

This helps control which campaign enters the auction first.

4. Create an ad group

Ad groups are required for Standard Shopping campaigns, and they give advertisers control over product organization and bidding.

• Name the ad group
• Select ad group type (product shopping)
• Organize products into product groups using feed attributes (product category, brand, item ID, product type, custom labels)

5. Review and publish

Review your campaign settings to ensure accuracy. Once everything looks correct, click Publish to launch your Shopping campaign.

Monitor your campaigns, landing pages, and website traffic with Google Analytics.

5 expert tips to increase revenue with Google Shopping campaigns

Have your click-through rates (CTRs) and conversion rates plateaued? Try these tips from our in-house industry pros for boosting revenue with Google Shopping Ads:

1. Optimize your product feed
2. Create promotions in Google Merchant Center
3. Add negative keywords
4. Use high-quality ad images
5. Leverage Google Shopping ad extensions

1. Optimize your product feed

As Google relies more on automation and AI to determine when and where Shopping ads appear, data feed quality has become even more important.

Optimizing your feed helps Google understand your products and match them to shopper intent more effectively.

To do this, include:

• Descriptive product titles
• High-quality images
• Detailed product descriptions
• Relevant keywords

Also, make sure that you’ve completed all fields within the product feeds, including ID, title, link, price, and description.

To ensure your product feed is up to date, use automated fetching to update the prices, titles, and photos automatically.

However, optimizing your Google Shopping feed isn’t just about titles and images.

It also means configuring Merchant Center settings like product ratings, shipping details, return policies, and promotions that enhance how your products appear to shoppers.

2. Create promotions in Google Merchant Center

Promotions help your brand stand out on the search results pages by highlighting special offers like free shipping or discounts.

These offers can appear directly on your Shopping ads and free product listings, making them more compelling to shoppers.

Before creating promotions, make sure you enroll in Merchant Promotions within Google Merchant Center.

There are a few ways to create special offers:

Promotion builder

Use the promotion builder in the “Promotions” dashboard of Google Merchant Center. This allows you to enter individual promotions manually.

It supports the following types of promotions:

• Amount off
• Percent off
• Free gift
• Free shipping

You can specify spend thresholds, discount amounts, gift descriptions, and more. Just follow the prompts to get started.

Promotions feed

For advertisers running frequent or large-scale promotions, a promotions feed may be a better option.

A promotions feed is a spreadsheet that contains all your active and scheduled promotions. This method is ideal if you need to manage promotions in bulk or automate updates.

To get started, go to the Promotions dashboard in Merchant Center and select Promotions feeds in the top-right corner.

Third-party

If you’re using Shopify or WooCommerce to sell products, you can connect your product discounts from these third-party platforms to your Merchant Center account.

This option can save time, but availability and supported promotion types may vary depending on the platform and setup.

It’s important to verify that promotions are correctly imported and approved in Merchant Center before relying on them for Shopping ads.
Pro tip: Always preview and test promotions after submission to ensure they’re approved and displaying correctly in Shopping results.

3. Add negative keywords

Negative keywords help prevent your Standard Shopping ads from showing for irrelevant or low-intent searches, improving efficiency and return on ad spend (ROAS).

To add negative keywords in Google Ads:

1. Navigate to the All Campaigns view and select your Shopping campaign
2. Click Keywords > Negative keywords tab
3. Add the search queries you want to exclude

If you’re unsure which terms to exclude, review your search terms report; this shows the exact queries shoppers used when your ads were triggered.

Look for search terms that don’t align with your products or indicate low purchase intent and add them to your negative keywords.

4. Use high-quality product images

High-quality product images play an essential role in Shopping ads’ performance.

Product images are pulled directly from your Google Merchant Center feed, so it’s important to upload clear, compelling visuals during feed setup.

Best practices for Shopping images include:

• Clear, high-resolution photos
• Strong lighting with no heavy shadows
• Products are shown prominently and in focus
• Clean, uncluttered backgrounds

5. Leverage Google Shopping assets

Google Shopping ad assets (formerly ad extensions) help your brand stand out and capture the attention of your audience.

While Shopping ads already display key details like product images, prices, and availability, assets allow you to enhance your listings with extra context that can improve visibility and performance.

Some are automatically pulled from the Merchant Center if available.

Here are just a few of the assets you can take advantage of:

• Promotion assets: Highlight discounts, free shipping, or special offers (pulled from Google Merchant Center).
• Customer ratings: Show star ratings pulled from reviews, which can boost credibility and CTR.
• Free shipping or local inventory: This can also be automatically pulled from the Merchant Center if it’s included..
• Local inventory ads: If you have physical stores, you can show store availability.
• Price assets: Include product pricing or price ranges to set expectations.
• Callout assets: Emphasize key selling points such as “Free Returns” or “Sustainable Materials.”
• Business information assets: Include your business name, logo, and other brand identifiers to build trust.

What are Google Shopping campaigns?

Google Shopping campaigns are a Google Ads campaign type that promotes products using a merchant’s product feed across Google Search and the Google network to help shoppers discover and buy products.

These product listing ads (or PLAs) include:

• Images
• Product listing title
• Price
• Product rating
• Where to purchase

Shopping ads can appear across Google Search, Images, YouTube, Discover, and AI-powered shopping results based on the shopper’s intent.

A unique feature of Shopping campaigns is the filter menu on the side and the buttons at the top of the page. You can select between type, size, style, and other characteristics to narrow the search results:

(Image: Screenshot)

How does Google Shopping work?

Google Shopping works by pulling product information from an ecommerce brand’s data feed — a file containing all the details about your products, such as title, price, product images, availability, and description.

Google’s algorithm then matches those products to relevant shopper searches and placements across Google, then charges the advertiser when someone clicks on their ad.

Benefits of using Shopping campaigns in Google Ads

Google Ads Shopping campaigns make it easy to target the right audience to increase sales fast.

Here are just a few of the benefits of using Google Shopping Ads:

• Meet shopper intent: When someone searches for your specific product, they’re looking to buy, which increases the odds of them making a purchase that day or sometime soon.
• Reach a larger audience: You can use Shopping campaigns in Google Ads to target shoppers worldwide, allowing you to reach more potential customers.
• Increase visibility: Shopping campaigns make it easier for your products to stand out in search results, increasing the chance of shoppers clicking on and purchasing them.
• Easily track performance: With Google Ads Shopping campaigns, you can easily track how well your product ads are performing and make adjustments as needed.
• Cost-effective advertising: Shopping campaigns are generally more cost-effective than other forms of digital advertising, making them an attractive option for businesses with limited budgets.
• Targeted ads: Shopping campaigns allow you to target specific audiences based on their interests and demographics, ensuring that your ads reach the right people at the right time.

Standard Shopping vs. Performance Max

You can create Shopping ads with Standard Shopping or Performance Max campaigns.

“Standard shopping campaigns are the traditional style campaigns that serve in the Google Shopping carousel either at the top or on the right panel within the SERP,” explains Corak.

“Performance Max is a hybrid placement campaign that can serve in shopping and across all placements within Google properties. That means it can also serve in Search Network, Display Network, YouTube, Gmail, etc.”

Performance Max replaced Smart Shopping campaigns and allows ecommerce sellers to automate their ad campaigns.

When to use Standard Shopping vs. Performance Max

“Standard Shopping campaigns provide greater control, and you know exactly where and how your ads are showing,” Corak continues.

Performance Max, on the other hand, provides less control but uses Google’s advanced algorithm to serve your ads to the right people when and where it matters.

In other words, both offer a ton of value for your campaigns.
“I recommend testing both and seeing which works better for the account,” advises Corak. “I never go for a ‘one size fits all’ approach; it’s all about testing.”

How to use Google Shopping ads to boost SEO

Ecommerce brands can also appear in Google Shopping organic results. These appear in the middle of the search results as you’re scrolling:

You can use your Google Shopping campaigns to boost organic Google product results.

“When you optimize Shopping feeds and feed attributes, such as product titles, descriptions, and so on, it has a positive impact on your paid shopping ads, and it’ll help you rank better for organic shopping placements, too,” says Corak.

The takeaway

Whether you’re a small business or an ecommerce giant, Google Shopping campaigns can help direct more high-quality traffic to the right product pages and increase your bottom line.

Need help getting started?

HawkSEM is a team of digital marketing experts specializing in search engine marketing and Google Shopping. Reach out for PPC campaigns that yield higher revenue faster.

This article has been updated and was originally published in May 2024.