Google Shopping For Shopify – Setup Requirements

Stay in touch with Ojasweb blog to learn the basic requirements for Google shopping for Shopify. In the next few weeks i’ll be publishing the step by step practical guides on how to setup your Google shopping or product listings ads, and how to run the campaigns profitably without spending too much on clicks. If you’re new to Google shopping, i encourage you to ask questions after reading this guide and subscribe to the update.

What is Google shopping for Shopify?

Google shopping for Shopify helps eCommerce store owners to run product listing ads on Google shopping platform, Google search, YouTube and partnered websites. With this type of ads, you won’t have to bid on keywords, as Google serves the ads using the information submitted on the Google merchant center. Shopping ads or PLAs is a great way to drive quality traffic to your store at a cheaper rate. Some of the interesting things about PLAs is the ability to serve every products in your store as ads, along with the product image, title and price. See image below for example of product listing ads.

Basic requirements for Google shopping for Shopify

The setup process for Google shopping is different from the other campaigns in Google AdWords. Generally, setting up search and display network campaigns in AdWords is not as complex as setting up shopping campaign. In addition to the complexity of PLAs, there are some important requirements which must be completed before the ads can be approved to run. Highlighted below are the most important requirements for Shopify store owners.

Required Pages

Before your product feed can be approved in Google merchant center, you must fulfill the minimum requirement by adding all the relevant pages to your website. the most important pages you need to add to your website are:

1. Contact page with physical address. It is important to add the physical address so that Google can approve your products feed. Even if your business is 100% online base, you can add your home address.
2. Privacy policy page. Google wants to be very sure that you have a privacy policy that protect the information of website users. so, make sure you add privacy policy page to your website.
3. Return and refund page. It is almost certain that some of your buyers will request for return and refund. Google want to see your return and refund policy so that users can be more protected.

Merchant information

Your merchant center account need to be properly configured. It is important to setup your shipping information and also configure the tax settings. There are different options for tax settings. In the event that you do not require tax for your business, you might have to specify by selecting the best option. As regards the shipping settings, you need to specify the shipping days and the fee. In the event that you don’t charge for shipping, you can input $0.00 in the space for cost.

In your merchant center account, you need to add your business information and website address. after adding the website address, you’ll need to verify it.

Account linking and authorization

The complete setup for Google shopping for Shopify require linking of merchant center account with AdWords, and authorization of merchant center in your store. Without the linking and authorization of merchant center and AdWords, you will not be able to run PLAs. In some cases, you might not need to authorize merchant center in your Shopify store, however you’ll need to upload your products feed to merchant center manually using xml file.

Products upload/publishing

Once the setup is completed, you’d want to publish your products to merchant center or manually upload the xml file. whichever option you choose, it might take up to 72 hours for Google to complete the crawling and approval of your feed. If everything is properly set, your products feed will be approved and you can then start running your shopping campaign in AdWords.

Notice!

Google shopping is not available in all countries. It is available in the USA, UK, CA, AU, DE, IN, SA, ES, ND, Japan and few more countries. If you’re not very sure whether your country is supported to run Google shopping campaign or not, please contact us for more information.

Need Help?

Need help setting up your complete Google shopping campaign? No need to worry. Ojasweb Digital Solution is here to help you setup and run a successful shopping campaign without with the minimum advertising budget. Fee free to contact us. If you’re new to AdWords, you might also get FREE $100 AdWords voucher.