Chapter 1
How to set up a product
feed on Shopify?
Product feed plays a key role in your setup if you want to run your shopping campaigns through Google Ads.
Although it looks like a very simple setup for Shopify merchants, there are still some important tips & tricks & common issues that would be useful for you to dig in.
As the Analyzify team, we have prepared an ultimate guide to walk you through the Product Feed for Google Ads and share the best practices.
What is a Product Feed?
A product feed includes a list and data of the products such as price, brand, category, etc. you want to advertise through Google Merchant Center. Once you add products to your feed, you need to assign some attributes to each one so that the product feed you create can use those attributes to group your products together.
Attributes are the data points that explain your products. While some of the attributes such as ‘condition’ and ‘availability’ have accepted values, you can fill out some others such as ‘ID’ or ‘title’ to describe your products in the best way possible.
What is Google Merchant Center?
Google Merchant Center helps you deliver your shop & product data to Google. It allows you to provide essential information about your products and works as a bridge that secures the connection between your products and shopping ads.
How to set up a product
Method 1: Google App
You can use the official Google app to have a seamless Product Feed setup. It’s important to note that setup is fully compatible with the official Google App setup which can help you get the best outcome possible.
Your product feed will automatically be created and uploaded to your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads automatically once you connect your Google App with your Google account.
Method 2: Create Manually
Go for the ‘create manually’ option if you don’t offer a big number of products. It’s possible to get things done in the right way once you provide adequate information about your products in line with Google’s shopping algorithm.
The bottom line is that you need to find a place for your products. That’s why you need a set of well-crafted details about your products way more than some fancy product titles and descriptions.
See this article to discover more about how to provide the perfect manual product feed that matches Google’s product specifications.
The biggest handicap of manual feeds compared to dynamic feeds like XML is that they need to be constantly updated. While dynamic feeds can automatically update themselves when there is any change in the price or descriptive information of the products. However, manual feeds must be controlled and regulated by you.
In addition, manual feeds must be reprocessed periodically in the Merchant Center. Otherwise, the product feed may not be approved.
Method 3: Other Apps
Opt for some of the recommended apps below to create a product feed that meets your demands. It’ll help you save time especially if you have a big list of products.
Feed For Google Shopping
is one of the best-serving apps you can find on the Shopify app store, allowing you to have a decent advertising experience for your products.
View on Shopify App Store
Data Feed Watch Shopping Feed
is another application that does a good job for creating an effective product feed. You can try and create complex rules for your shopping feeds with ease.
View on Shopify App Store
Multiple Google Shopping Feeds
provide you with an opportunity to create multi-currency and multilingual product feeds.
View on Shopify App Store
Chapter 2
Google Ads Remarketing
Setup & Data Validation
Your product feed is connected to Google Ads through Google Merchant Center. You have three options for remarketing data setup: Google Ads Tag (aka Global Site Tag), Universal Analytics, and GA4.
The best method stands out as Google Ads Global Site Tag
Elevate Your Google Ads Performance!
Count more conversions with enhanced data. Expert audit & validation included.
Global Site Tag – Shopify
Google Ads Tag (aka Global Site Tag) is responsible for passing visitor actions to Google Ads.
Remarketing Pixels (through gtag.js or GTM) sends the visitors’ data dynamically to Google Ads, such as:
- Visitor X visited Product A’s product page
- Visitor Y added Product B to the cart
- Visitor Z purchased Product C
This helps Google Ads run remarketing ads or get the data related to the Ads’ performances, and optimize the ads accordingly.
The official Google app does the Global Site Tag set up perfectly for your Shopify store. Alternatively, you can use Analyzify’s Google Tag Manager container for this purpose.
Shopify Remarketing Setup Data Validation
You can follow the steps below to validate your marketing setup and/or detect the problems you have.
- Visit Google Ads – Products tab and make sure about your product ID format
- Download Google Tag Assistant Google Chrome Extension and view a product page
Make sure to see:
- The remarketing events that are sent as requests
- The same product ID and product name in the remarketing events
Alternatively, you can contact Analyzify’s support team if you are an existing client.
Common Problems on Shopify Google Product Feed
Product ID Mismatch:
This is the most common problem we have seen on Shopify & Google Ads connection: The product ID format you are using is different in the product feed than the one on your remarketing pixels. This usually happens when you use multiple solutions at the same time.
If you are using more than one app for Google Ads, you can reduce this to one and it should help with the solution. You should contact the support team of the related apps to get help. If you are an Analyzify client, we have an interactive guide on our dashboard to help you fix this problem quickly.
Product Feed Problems for Multi-language:
The merchants that serve in multi-region need to use different product feeds for different regions and this might cause issues if the setup is not done the right way. The Analyzify app and the support team would help you overcome this issue, as well.
Missing product/order data:
If your remarketing pixels miss some important product-level or order-level such as Product ID or Order ID; you might see some errors on your Google Ads dashboard.
Important Note: The Analyzify app doesn’t provide you with a Google Product feed. However, based on our experience, we can say that most of the problems are not related to your feed but related to your setup and your pixels. We are proud to inform you that we have been fortunate to fix Google Ads problems for all of our clients so far.
Chapter 3
FAQ on Google Product
Feed
This error shows that your Google dynamic remarketing tags aren’t set properly and they don’t match with your product feed. Most probably, you are using a different product ID format (e.g. shopify_US_11111_2222 vs. 1111_2222) on your product feed compared to your dynamic remarketing tags.
Follow our tutorial to audit & validate your dynamic remarketing setup. You can also use Analyzify’s remarketing pixel setup to prevent all sorts of issues and get expert help.
We have interactive troubleshooting guides to help you detect and fix any possible issues.
We strongly recommend that you read our “Shopify – Google Ads Playbook” if you wish to have a great understanding of the topic. You can be sure that there won’t be any mess if you use the official Google app for remarketing events and Analyzify for conversion tracking.
Our support team is also always ready to help if you have trouble solving your issues.
While it is possible to manage multiple currencies and target markets through Google Merchant Center, the native Shopify Google app doesn’t support this.
If you still wish to achieve this, you should use another Google product feed solution.
To verify your store, you should get an HTML tag from Google Merchant Center (GMC), and place it into your Shopify store. Here’s how:
Click the gear icon on top of GMC, then click “Business Information” > “Website” > “Add an HTML tag Method”.
Enter your website URL, pick “I have access to my server”, and move on with “Add an HTML tag to my homepage”.
Copy the HTML snippet and paste it into your theme by going to your Shopify account and clicking “Admin” > “Online Store” > “Themes” > “Active Theme” > “Edit” > in the “theme.liquid file”.
Now your store is verified on GMC!
You will see these kinds of errors if the product IDs on your product feed don’t match with the product IDs on your remarketing pixels. They usually appear when you use multiple solutions for Google Ads, or if your product feed app uses another product ID format.
Follow our Google Ads Remarketing validation guide to find out where the error is, and then you can connect with the related parties to fix the issue. You can also contact our support team if you are an Analyzify client.
Check out our complete guides: