This page details how to set up and optimize a Standard Shopping campaign to run your vehicle ads. If you don’t have one, Set up a Google Ads account. Learn more About Shopping ads.
On this page
- Get started with Standard Shopping campaigns for vehicle ads
- Set up Standard Shopping campaigns for vehicle ads
Get started with Standard Shopping campaigns for vehicle ads
Before you begin, you need to link your Google Ads account to a Merchant Center account and a Google Business Profile. A store feed alternative to Business Profile linking is available if you don’t own or manage the profiles for your dealer locations. Learn how to Create, register, and submit your store data.
Standard Shopping campaigns are best:
- For campaigns with specific budgets or inventory targets
- For advertisers who want full control over their ad assets
- For campaigns targeting new customers or specific audiences
Standard Shopping campaigns can be used together with Performance Max for cross-channel goals. Learn more About Performance Max campaigns and how to Enable vehicle ads in your Performance Max campaigns.
Set up Standard Shopping campaigns for vehicle ads
Here are step-by-step instructions for creating a Shopping campaign for vehicle ads:
- Go to Google Ads and select the plus button
, then select New campaign.
- Choose “Sales”, “Leads”, “Website traffic“, “Local store 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.
- Select Shopping as your campaign type.
- You can choose to create a Performance Max campaign or proceed with your Shopping campaign.
- Select the Merchant Center account that has the products 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.
- Select data sources that contain the vehicle products you want to advertise in this campaign:
- Select data sources by feed label: The feed label 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.
Note: You may select a Vehicle Feed for your standard Shopping campaign if you advertise vehicle inventory. Ensure your Merchant Center account contains approved vehicle offers to turn on this option. - Select Standard Shopping campaign under the campaign sub-type.
- 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.
- On the “Budget and bidding optimization” page, select optimization 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.
- Total budgets: You can set a total campaign budget and Google Ads will aim to evenly spend, but not exceed your total budget over the duration of your campaign.
- Note: Setting a start and end date for your campaign is required for this budget type. Learn more About campaign total budgets.
- 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.
- 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 stores. To advertise local products, you'll need to submit local product data in Merchant Center. Then, check the box for "Turn on ads for products sold in local stores.”
- Select 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, uncheck the box for any networks you want to exclude.
- Google Search Network
- Google search partners
- Create your first ad group by entering a few pieces of information. Product and listing groups help organize your inventory for your Shopping campaigns with the data provided.
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 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. Learn how to Manage a Shopping campaign with product groups.
- Select Next. You’ll be taken to a summary page where you can review all your settings to ensure that everything is set up correctly.
- Select Publish campaign.
Related links
- Vehicle ads overview
- Vehicle ads policies (Beta)
- About the Vehicle Feed Service Provider program (for dealers)
- About the Vehicle Feed Service Provider program (for providers)
- Vehicle ads activation
- Vehicle ads image guidelines
- Vehicle ads Content API guidelines
- Vehicle ads Troubleshooting
- Enable Vehicle ads in your Performance Max campaigns
- About Performance Max campaigns
- Create a Performance Max campaign using a Merchant Center feed