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.

Note: To ensure that your Shopping campaigns run effectively, you should add products to your linked Merchant Center feed for Shopping ads destination. This step is important for your campaigns to have relevant products displayed.

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 listed, you'll need to link your Merchant Center and Google Ads account first. You can't change the linked Merchant Center account after you've created the campaign.
5. (Optional) Select data sources that contain the products that you want to advertise in this campaign:
   • Select data sources by feed label: The feed label that you select for this campaign determines which data sources from the selected Merchant Center account can be advertised in this campaign. You can edit your feed labels in Merchant Center.
6. 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.
7. On the 'Budget and bidding optimisation' page, select optimisation options that work best for your goals:
   • 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 per day on this campaign. You can change this budget after the campaign has been created.
   • Customer acquisition: Select whether you’d like to bid on your products for new customers only. By default, campaigns bid equally for new and existing customers.
   • Campaign priority: You only need to adjust this setting if you're advertising the same product in multiple campaigns for the same targeting options or feed label. Campaign priority determines which campaign's budget will be used when products overlap across your campaigns.
8. On the 'Campaign settings' page, set up the following:
   • 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 products: With local products, you can use local inventory ads to promote products that are sold in physical shops. To advertise local products, you'll need to submit local product data in Merchant Center. Then, tick the box for 'Turn on ads for products sold in local shops'.
   • Click More settings to edit the following settings:
     • Start and end dates: If you create a campaign and don't want it to start right away, or know the specific date when you want your campaign to end, you can set automatic campaign start and end dates.
     • 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.
     • 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, untick the box for any networks that you want to exclude.
       • Google Search Network
       • Google search partners
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.
   • Ad group bid: When you choose a manual CPC (cost per click) bid strategy, you can set the bid for the ad group.
   • Product groups: 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 that 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.
10. Click Next. You’ll be taken to a summary page where you can review all your settings to ensure that everything is set up correctly.
11. Click Publish campaign.

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