Vehicle ads activation

Vehicle ads are a performance-focused lower funnel ad format that allows auto advertisers to promote their entire inventory of vehicles to interested customers shopping for vehicles on Google. This format shows customers an image of the vehicle with important information such as make, model, price, mileage, and advertiser name. Showing inventory of available vehicles enriches the customer's purchase experience and provides more qualified leads for auto advertisers.

Vehicle ads are in open beta in the US, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia.

Benefits

More qualified leads: Showing customers key information and visuals about the car before they click helps provide more qualified leads.
Omnichannel goals: Optimize for both online conversions (leads) and offline conversions (store visits).
Automated targeting: Vehicle ads show your most relevant listings for a related user query.

Needed before activation

Activate the Vehicle ads add-on

Follow these steps to manually activate Vehicle ads:

Note: If you want to participate in Vehicle ads in the EEA and the UK, check the prerequisites and then submit the contact us form after the requirements are met.

Step 1 In your Merchant Center account, click the Settings and tools icon.

Step 2 Select Add-ons.

Step 3 Select the Vehicle ads add-on card under the “Discover” tab.

Step 4 Click Add in [country name]. Note that [country name] will be populated with the applicable country.

Implementation guide

Step 1 of 3: Add Stores

Add your stores. If you haven’t added stores to your Merchant Center account, you can either add stores or connect your existing stores’ business profiles to Merchant Center to enable Vehicle ads. Below are the requirements to keep in mind when linking your Business Profile and Merchant center account:

Ensure each business listing has a physical address that is valid and current. Learn more.
Ensure the store code assigned to each business listing is unique within the linked Business Group. Learn more.
- This is to ensure that the correct listing is mapped to the intended vehicle offer or offers.
Ensure that your business listings are open, active, and have accurate business hours displayed. Learn more.
Ensure the category of the business listing is in the “Store and Shopping” vertical. Learn more.

Finally, if you don’t have access to the Google Business Profile account that contains your store listings, you may use a “Store Feed” to provide locations. To ensure a valid match between your Store Feed and your vehicle inventory, we strongly recommend submitting all specified attributes. Contact us to request access to the store feed.

After receiving confirmation that your account has been enabled for store feed:

Click the gear icon , and in the dropdown menu click Data sources.
Select Point of sale sources, and click Add store data.
Refer to the store feed specification, and ensure that you submit required attributes in your store feed.

Step 2 of 3: Add your vehicles

To upload your vehicle data in Google Merchant Center, you'll first need to create a data source to which you can submit your data. This step is required for any new data source, and when a data source is registered, you can update the existing source without having to register it again.

The data source can be a file, a Google Sheet or the Shopping Content API.

A primary data source is the main source of information that Merchant Center uses to access and display your product data. Learn more about Creating a product file for Merchant Center.

Supported Vehicle Types: Only non-commercial, passenger vehicles such as cars and pickup trucks (utes in AU) are supported. Vehicle ads can't be used to promote RVs, boats, buses, trains, and others of that type.
Supported Offers: Your feed should only include vehicle offers. It shouldn't include offers for spare parts, accessories, or any other shopping offers.
Attribute headers: You must use the exact attribute headers for your feed to be processed correctly.
Unique Vehicle Offers: Ensure that you submit each vehicle offer only once in the feed by checking the vehicle identification number (VIN). If the same vehicle is available for multiple store codes or has multiple fulfillment types, these are supported by repeated fields for store codes and the group attribute for vehicle fulfillment, and there is no need to submit a VIN multiple times for these scenarios. If a VIN is submitted for more than one vehicle offer, those offers will be disapproved in the feed.
- Exception: If you’re submitting offers in multiple languages, the VIN can be submitted once for each language (if available).
- In the UK, VIN is optional. You should submit ID [id] as an alternative identifier. The ID must also appear on the vehicle’s landing page.

Refer to the Vehicle ads data specification and ensure that you submit required attribution in your primary feed.

Step 3 of 3: Complete website policy review

To be eligible for Vehicle ads, your website must meet the following requirements:

Display dealership name, dealership location, vehicle price, MSRP (if listing a new vehicle), VIN, mileage (if listing a used vehicle), and availability information on the landing page.
- Make sure the information (including dealership name, dealership location, vehicle price, VIN, and availability) is clearly visible upon loading the page without requiring the user to scroll.
- When you first open the page, the dealership name and city can represent the dealership location if the full dealership address isn't present. In this case, the full dealership address should be displayed when the user clicks to view dealership location details.
- In the UK, VIN is optional. You should submit ID [id] as an alternative identifier. The ID must also appear on the vehicle’s landing page.
Display your vehicle availability prominently. Availability that reports the vehicle as “sold”, “out of stock”, “reserved”, “unavailable”, or “incoming unit” are not permitted.
Display your vehicle price. The price displayed on your landing page should match the price submitted in your primary feed for the selected dealership location.
- You may provide the option to “Check today’s price”.
- Any disclaimers about the vehicle MSRP price must be clearly displayed on the landing page.
Be able to display a landing page based on the codes from your Business Profile or store feed to populate location-specific pricing and availability. Vehicles included in your primary feed are expected to be listed as available on your vehicle landing page.
Meet all local requirements around new or used vehicle disclosures on the landing page. Learn more about Local legal requirements and safety standards.
(If listing a used vehicle) Display the vehicle mileage prominently on the landing page. Ensure mileage matches the mileage [mileage] attribute in your primary feed.

Landing page recommendations

In addition to the landing page requirements above, we recommend the following:

Link to additional fulfillment options, such as home delivery.
Show dealership details, for example, the phone number, directions, and hours.
Offer the ability to browse similar or related vehicles on your website.
Provide information about your sales and promotions.

After you have updated your feed attributes and reviewed the landing page requirements, contact support to complete your website review for Vehicle ads.

Policies

Google’s policies provide important guidance for retailers participating in Vehicle ads. To make sure you understand the expectations, review the Vehicle ads policies. Google disapproves products and accounts that don't comply with these policies.

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