Google Shopping for online stores

What Shopping is

The product ads with an image and price at the top of Google search. They come from a product feed you upload to Google Merchant Center, and Google matches the products to searches based on the titles and data in the feed. Shoppers see the image and price before they click, so the people who click already know what it costs.

In three online stores we manage, a Shopping click cost NOK 4–17 in June–September 2026. The most expensive of them also advertises in Germany and Denmark. More click prices are in What does Google Ads cost?.

The feed

Google only understands what the feed tells it. The product title “Modell X-200” says nothing. “Barnesolbriller polarisert 1–3 år, Modell X-200” (polarized kids’ sunglasses, ages 1–3) matches what people actually search for. What matters most in the feed:

• Titles with product type, key attribute, brand and model, in the order people search.
• GTIN (barcode) where the product has one, and the correct product category.
• Custom labels for margin, bestseller, season and sale. These are what you use to split up your campaigns.
• Disapproved products. Check the diagnostics in Merchant Center regularly. In one foreign Merchant Center account we have worked with, around 40% of the products were disapproved.

You don’t need to change your online store to change the feed. With a supplemental feed you can override titles or add labels. When QualiPet ran a clearance sale, the feed extension in the online store didn’t send the sale prices, so the discounts would never have shown in the ads. We added the sale prices and the link to the sale page with a supplemental feed in Merchant Center.

Smart bidding does the math on revenue

With target ROAS, Google tries to get as much conversion value as possible for the money. The conversion value is whatever the online store sends in, which is almost always revenue. A NOK 500 product with a 20% margin and a NOK 500 product with a 60% margin look exactly the same to the algorithm. It will happily sell the most of whatever is easiest to sell, no matter what you make on it.

There are two ways to fix this:

• Split products by margin. Label products with their margin level in the feed and put each level in its own campaign. High-margin products get a lower ROAS target and can take more budget. Low-margin products get a higher target.
• Send profit as the value. Then Google optimizes for what you actually earn. It requires a separate setup in the online store, but gives the most accurate control. See POAS in the ROAS article.

Also check whether the value is sent including VAT. If it is, your breakeven ROAS has to be multiplied by 1.25 (25% Norwegian VAT). Target ROAS also needs data: around 15–30 conversions over 30 days per campaign. If you have fewer, start with “Maximize conversion value” without a target.

Standard Shopping or Performance Max?

Performance Max (PMax) uses the same feed but shows the ads across all of Google’s surfaces: Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display and Gmail. Visibility is much better than when PMax launched. You now have a channel report showing where the money goes, a search terms report and campaign-level negative keywords, and you can also exclude branded searches.

• Standard Shopping fits when you want tight control per product group, have a small budget, or are running something limited like a sale.
• PMax fits when the feed and tracking are in order and the campaign gets enough conversions. Check the channel report for how much goes to Display and YouTube, and exclude branded searches so you can see what the campaign does for new customers.

Many online stores end up with both, with a clear division of labor. How we work with the full Google setup.

Checklist

• Feed titles that describe the product the way customers search
• No important products disapproved in Merchant Center
• Conversion tracking that counts actual purchases, checked against the online store
• Value sent excluding VAT, or breakeven adjusted by 1.25
• Product groups by margin, or profit as the value
• Branded searches separated out, so you can see how much new revenue Shopping creates