Shopping Ads: Know How To Run Them And Common Ads Disapprovals

Starting an online store means you need customers. Getting noticed on Google can feel like a competition. However, there is one tool that gives product sellers a massive advantage, i.e., Shopping Ads.

These advertisements are the single most important way to sell physical products online today. Shopping Ads display your products right on the Google search results page.

Shopping Ads Show Customers Immediately a clear photo of your product, the exact product title, the price of the item, and your store’s name. This visual approach captures attention right away.

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How Shopping Ads Change Your Profits?

Shopping Ads fundamentally change the quality of the traffic you receive.

They Pre-Qualify Buyers: A customer sees the price and the image before clicking. This means anyone who clicks the Shopping Ads has already accepted the price and appearance. They are serious buyers.
Wasted Clicks Drop: If a customer is only willing to pay 10 dollars, but your price is 50 dollars, they will not click your ad. This saves you money instantly. This built-in screening process dramatically reduces wasted ad spending from price-sensitive users.
Stronger Performance Metrics: Because the clicks are higher quality, the performance is stronger. Studies show that Shopping Ads can achieve click-through rates (CTR) up to 30% higher than traditional text ads.
Higher Sales Rates: Businesses selling products see better conversion rates with Shopping Ads. The average conversion rate for Shopping Ads is approximately 1.91%, compared to approximately 1.60% for traditional text ads.
Better Cost Efficiency: Often, the Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for Shopping Ads can be cheaper than for text ads. This offers better value because you are getting better clicks for a potentially lower price.

How to Run Shopping Ads?

Before you can start running powerful Shopping Ads, you must build the correct foundation. This foundation is based in the Google Merchant Center (GMC). GMC is where all your product information lives.

The setup process is simple and can be broken down into three main steps– you need to upload your products, connect your accounts, and create your campaign.

Step 1: Get Your Google Merchant Center Ready

GMC is the mandatory home for your product listings. You need a Google Account email and password to sign up for GMC. Here’s how you can set up GMC:

You must tell Google about your business, including your store name, business hours, and services.
You select how customers buy from you (online, physical store, or both).
You must verify and claim your website URL within GMC. This simple step confirms that you own the store you are advertising.
You need to accurately set up your shipping information. This information is crucial for policy compliance later on.

Step 2: Giving Google Your Product Information

The “Product Feed” is essentially a digital catalog of your entire inventory. This file contains all the titles, prices, images, and links for every product you sell. Google uses this product data to automatically create your Shopping Ads. Without a correct, complete product feed, you cannot run Shopping Ads.

Upload the product data to GMC.
Common ways to give Google this data include direct upload of a file, setting up a scheduled fetch (where Google pulls the data regularly), using a connection through Google Sheets, or utilizing a Content API.

Step 3: Connect Your Accounts for Shopping Ads

Google Merchant Center holds the products and the rules. Google Ads holds the money and the bidding controls. They must be linked to work together.This linking process is usually simple:

Log into your GMC account.
Find the settings menu, often represented by a gear icon.
Navigate to “Access and services” or “Apps and services”.
Under “Google services,” select “Add service”.
Choose your Google Ads account from the list. If it is not listed, you can enter the 10-digit customer ID number manually.
Click “Link.” The two accounts now share information, allowing your Google Ads campaign to use the product listings stored in GMC.

What is Product Feed for Shopping Ads?

The product feed is a critical factor for success with Shopping Ads. Unlike standard text ads, where you manually choose keywords, Google reads your product feed to decide which customer searches match your item.

If your product data is wrong, Google matches your products to the wrong searches, leading to wasted money and low sales.

Mandatory Product Details:

ID: A unique identifier for the item. This is often your SKU (Stock Keeping Unit).
Title: The product name. This is extremely important for matching searches.
Price: The exact cost. This must match your landing page and must include VAT/tax outside of specific countries (US, Canada, India).
Link: The direct URL to the product page where the customer can buy the item. Category or search pages are not allowed.
Image Link: The URL for the main product photo.
Availability: Must accurately state the stock status (e.g., in stock, out of stock, pre-order).
GTIN: The Global Trade Item Number (bar code). If the manufacturer assigned one, you must submit it.
Google Product Category: You need to assign your product to Google’s taxonomy list. The right category increases the chance that your Shopping Ads will show up for the right queries, improving performance.

What is the Importance of High-Quality Images for Shopping Ads?

The image is the first thing a customer sees and is the primary driver of the click. High-quality images improve performance significantly. Below are the Image Requirements and Best Practices:

Quality is Key: Use clear, high-quality images. A white background is often recommended.
Size Minimums: The minimum size is 100×100 pixels for non-apparel and 250×250 pixels for apparel. However, 800×800 pixels is the recommended standard.
Strict Rules on Overlays: Google is very strict here. You must NOT use images that contain text overlays, logos, watermarks, people (unless apparel), or borders. These are very common reasons for quick disapproval.
Supported Formats: Use JPEG, PNG, or GIF formats.

If you fail to meet these image rules, your Shopping Ads will be taken down.

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Common Shopping Ads Disapprovals

Google maintains high standards for trust and accuracy in its Shopping Ads platform. Most failures for new advertisers stem from simple, correctable policy violations, not from a lack of budget or bidding errors.

The most common and immediate cause of product disapproval is a price mismatch.

The price listed in your product feed must exactly match the final price visible on your website landing page. This price needs to be clearly visible.
When a customer clicks on your Shopping Ads, they expect to see the price shown in the ad. If the price changes or is wrong, the customer loses trust and leaves without buying. Google sees this as a bad user experience and breaches the trust required to run Shopping Ads.
Common Causes of Mismatch:
- Sales or temporary promotions ending, but the feed file was not updated.
- Failure to account for tax (VAT) in non-US countries.
- Variant pricing errors, where a small size has one price in the feed, but the landing page defaults to the price of a larger size.
- Infrequent updates.

Google uses automated crawling to check the website price against the feed price. If a discrepancy is found, the product is flagged instantly.

How to Fix Price Mismatch Issues:

Find the Source: Check the warning email from GMC for examples of affected products. Investigate whether the error is in the feed file or on the website.
Ensure Identical Values: Correct the discrepancy. The price, sale price, and any sale effective dates must match across the feed and the landing page.
Implement Automation: Manual updates are a compliance risk. You must schedule frequent updates for your data feed, ideally daily or whenever stock/prices change. Use automation tools to synchronize data between your store and GMC.
Request a Review: Once fixed, resubmit your product data and request a courtesy review in GMC to reinstate the products.

Landing Page Requirements for Shopping Ads

The landing page is the last link in the chain before a sale. It must be reliable, trustworthy, and easy to use. Here are the mandatory landing page standards:

The landing page must clearly show all the key details of the product, including the title, price, description, image, currency, availability, and a visible “buy” button. These details must match the data in your Shopping Ads feed.
If your page shows multiple products (like variants), the specific product clicked in the Shopping Ads must be the primary focus.
You cannot link to category pages, search results pages, or the homepage. Every link must go directly to a buyable product page.
All checkout steps, including where personal information is entered, must be secured with an SSL certificate (HTTPS protected).
Pages must be the same and accessible for all browsers and countries. Do not use IP redirection to show different pages to different visitors.

If these basic requirements are not met, customers are likely to leave, and your Shopping Ads will face disapproval.

Campaign Structure for Your Shopping Ads

Once your product feed is perfect and approved in GMC, you move to Google Ads to manage spending. The key difference here is how you manage bids. Since Shopping Ads do not use keywords, you must bid on collections of products called Product Groups.

When you start a new campaign for Shopping Ads, Google automatically places all your inventory into one default group: “All products”. Here are some ways to organize your products:

Group products based on Google’s standardized taxonomy (e.g., separating “Women’s Clothing” from “Men’s Shoes”). This is helpful for large, diverse catalogs.
If you carry multiple brands, isolate them. A well-known, premium brand usually has higher demand and margin, allowing you to bid more aggressively on those products.
You can define up to five custom attributes (Custom Label 0 through 4) in your feed. This allows segmentation based on your business metrics, not just Google’s categories.

Effective segmentation immediately creates a profitability lever for your Shopping Ads. By isolating a high-value item into its own Product Group, you can confidently set a high bid to win key auctions, knowing that the potential return on investment (ROI) justifies the higher cost. This precise control over bidding for specific inventory is fundamental to scaling profitable Shopping Ads campaigns.

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Shopping Ads FAQs

What are Shopping Ads?

They are visual advertisements showing a product photo, price, and store name in Google Search results.

How do Shopping Ads differ from text ads?

Shopping Ads use images and product data instead of text keywords, leading to higher click-through rates.

What is the Google Merchant Center?

It is the tool that stores your product information, images, and prices for your Shopping Ads.

Why do my Shopping Ads get disapproved?

Usually due to price mismatch, low-quality images, or policy violations on your landing page.