Create a Standard Shopping campaign

Note: As Google enhances the new user onboarding process, new Google Ads users may experience an updated workflow. The content below pertains to Google Ads users who have already created, and logged into, their Google Ads account. This page will be updated with more information in 2023.

Shopping campaigns help you promote your products by giving users detailed information about what you're selling before they even click your ad. Using retail-centric reporting tools, you'll then be able to track the performance of your products over time.

In this article, we'll walk you through how to set up a Shopping campaign in Google Ads.

Before you begin

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If you're not familiar with Shopping campaigns, learn more about Shopping campaigns and Shopping ads.

Before you create your Shopping campaign, make sure that you meet the requirements.

Instructions

Here are step-by-step instructions for creating a Shopping campaign:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the plus button , then click New campaign.
2. Choose 'Sales', 'Leads', 'Website traffic', 'Local shop visits and promotions' or 'Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance' as your campaign objective.
   • Based on your objective, you can choose to 'Add goal' or use the account-default goal.
3. Select Shopping as your campaign type.
   • You can choose to create a Performance Max campaign or proceed with your Shopping campaign.
4. Select the Merchant Center account that has the products that you want to advertise. If you don't view any accounts here, you'll need to link your Merchant Center and Google Ads account first. You can't change the merchant after you've created the campaign.
5. (Optional) Select feeds that contain the products that you want to advertise in this campaign:
   • Select feeds by feed label: The feed label that you select for this campaign determines which feeds from the selected Merchant Center account can be advertised in this campaign. You can edit your feed labels in Merchant Center.
   • Select feeds by country of sale: Select the country where your products will be sold and dispatched to. Ads will only be shown to people from the country that you select. To advertise, you'll need to make sure that product data in the selected Merchant Center account is available for the country you select. If no product data is available, there won't be any products to advertise in the campaign until you add them.
6. Select Standard Shopping campaign as your campaign subtype.

7. Choose your advertising preferences:

   • Campaign name. Enter a name for the campaign. You'll use this name to find the campaign later. You can change the name after the campaign has been created.
   • Additional settings. Expand the drop-down to edit the following settings:
     • Inventory filter You only need to adjust this setting if you want to limit the number of products used in your campaign. To do so, choose the criteria a product must meet in order to be advertised. Only products that match all the requirements you select will be added to your campaign. You can change this setting after the campaign has been created.
     • Local products. Enable ads for products sold in local shops. With local products, you can use local inventory ads to promote products that are sold in physical shops. Before including local products, make sure that you have local product data in the selected Merchant Center account.
     • Campaign URL options. You can set up a tracking template and add a Final URL suffix. Add custom parameters to your tracking template and final URL.
   • Bidding. Select which type of bidding to use in your campaign. You can change this setting after the campaign has been created.
   • Daily budget. Select how much you're willing to spend on this campaign.
   • Campaign priority. You only need to adjust this setting if you're advertising the same product in multiple campaigns for the same country of sale or feed label. Campaign priority determines which campaign's budget will be used when products overlap in your campaigns.
   • Networks. By default, Shopping campaigns show ads in a few places. The default setting can help you drive traffic to your products and increase conversions. If you want to limit where your ads can appear, deselect the box for any networks that you want to exclude.
     • Google Search Network
     • Google search partners
   • Devices. By default, ads can appear on any device, including computers and mobile devices. You can change this setting after the campaign has been created.
   • Locations. You can use this setting to limit where your ads show to specific locations. You can change this setting after the campaign has been created.
   • Local inventory ads. You only need to adjust this setting if you want your Shopping campaign to include products sold in local shops. To advertise local products, you'll need to submit local product data in Merchant Center. Then, select the box for 'Enable ads for products sold in local shops'.
8. Click Save and continue.
9. Create your first ad group by entering a few pieces of information. Your ad group will include individual product ads that are created automatically using information from your Merchant Center account.
   • Ad group name. Enter a name for the ad group. You'll use this name to find the ad group later. You can change the name after the campaign has been created.
   • Bid. Enter the bid for the ad group. After you create the ad group, this bid will be applied to the first product group in the ad group: 'All products'. You can change the bid on the product group after the campaign has been created.
10. Click Save.
11. You'll be taken to the product groups page, where you'll notice one product group 'All products' that contains all products in the campaign. From this page you can manage your campaigns and create more product groups using subdivisions to make bidding more specific.

Related links

• Requirements for Shopping campaigns
• Manage your Shopping campaign with ad groups
• Manage your Shopping campaign with product groups
• Use feed labels to advertise products from specific feeds
• Create a Performance Max campaign using a Merchant Center feed
• Troubleshooting performance fluctuations and changes in Shopping campaigns