Google Shopping Ads and Merchant Center Management

How Google Shopping works

Shopping ads show a product image, price and shop name directly in Google results and the Shopping tab. Unlike search ads, you don't choose keywords. Google matches searches to products using the data in your Merchant Center feed, so the feed is your targeting. A vague title, missing GTIN or wrong category means your products show for the wrong searches, or not at all.

Today most retailers run Shopping through Performance Max with a feed attached, sometimes with a standard Shopping campaign alongside for tighter control. We manage both inside your wider Google Ads account.

Before we change any bids, we check the basics in Merchant Center: shipping and returns settings, tax handling, website verification and claim, and whether the feed updates often enough to keep price and stock in line with the website. Mismatches between feed and site are one of the commonest reasons Google limits or suspends products, and they are usually simple to fix once the cause is found.

The feed is the work

Google's product data specification sets the rules. The attributes every product needs are id (up to 50 characters), title (up to 150), description (up to 5,000), link, image_link, availability and price. Brand is required for new products, GTIN for any product that has a manufacturer GTIN, and MPN only when there is no GTIN. Variants need item_group_id plus colour, size or other variant attributes.

• Titles. Put the words shoppers search for first: brand, product type, key attribute, size or colour. 'Oak 6-Seater Extending Dining Table 180cm' beats 'Harrogate Table'.
• GTINs. Google checks GTINs against GS1 rules, including the check digit, and disapproves wrong ones. Never invent them.
• Images. No promotional text, watermarks or borders. Google's specification says new images must be at least 500 x 500 pixels, with enforcement from 31 January 2027.
• Product type and custom labels. Your own category path, plus labels for margin or seasonality, so campaigns can bid differently on different products.

We fix feeds through Merchant Center rules, supplemental feeds or your platform's feed app (Shopify, WooCommerce and others), whichever is least fragile for your set-up.

CSS: a UK detail most shops never hear about

Following a 2017 European Commission decision, Shopping ads in the UK and much of Europe are placed through Comparison Shopping Services. Google's Merchant Center Help explains that you can use any CSS, including Google's own Google Shopping, or several at once. It also says Google Shopping deducts a fixed percentage margin from each bid before it enters the auction, in order to run profitably as a separate business. Google doesn't publish that percentage; CSS providers such as Cobiro claim the saving from using a third-party CSS is around 20% of CPC, but that is a vendor estimate. We'll tell you whether switching CSS is worth exploring at your spend.

Bidding by margin, not just revenue

ROAS treats a sale of a 10%-margin item exactly the same as a sale of the same value on a 60%-margin item, even though one earns six times as much. We use custom labels to group products by margin and set different Target ROAS goals for each group, or pass profit-based conversion values where your platform allows. Bestsellers, seasonal lines and clearance stock can each get their own budgets. Zero-sale products that keep getting clicks are reviewed monthly and either fixed or excluded.

Shopping works best alongside remarketing and ecommerce email flows, so the visitors you pay for get a second chance to buy.

Price

Shopping ads management is from £150 a month + VAT, or 10 to 15% of ad spend, whichever is higher, plus ad spend paid directly to Google. Large one-off feed rebuilds are quoted separately at £45 an hour + VAT or a fixed price. Monthly, cancel with notice.

What you get

• Merchant Center audit and fixes for disapprovals and warnings
• Feed optimisation: titles, product types, Google product category, GTIN, brand and variants
• Custom labels for margin, price band, seasonality or bestsellers
• Shopping or Performance Max campaigns split by those labels
• Free listings enabled and checked
• Monthly product-level reporting: spend, revenue and ROAS by product group

How it works and what it costs

Google Ads management from £150 a month, social media management from £125 a month and email marketing from £95 a month, all + VAT. Ad spend is separate and paid to the platform. No long contracts.

1. Free review

   We look at your current ads, social, email and analytics, or your plans if you are starting out, and tell you plainly what we would change.

2. Plan and price

   You get a written plan with targets, budgets and a fixed monthly fee before anything starts.

3. Set up properly

   Tracking and consent first, then campaigns, audiences, content calendars or email flows, all in accounts you own.

4. Run and improve

   We manage it every week: search terms, bids, creative, posts and tests, cutting what does not pay and doing more of what does.

5. Report in plain English

   A monthly report on leads, sales and cost per result, not vanity numbers, with what we will do next.

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