Track your product performance

You can track traffic by viewing the performance reporting section of your Merchant Center account. This reporting is available for Shopping ads, free product listings, and Buy on Google. For a more detailed view of the performance of your products on Shopping ads, please review the features available in your Google Ads account.

If you wish to track clicks using cross-domain redirects, please note this can be done only for Shopping ads or free listings that use Google ads tracking templates.

If you wish to track clicks using a third-party or proprietary web analytics tool (for example, Google Analytics), you may do so by implementing the tracking setup on your website or application. Clicks from the products in your Merchant Center account will then automatically show up in these tools. You may want to verify that the split between Google Ads traffic and unpaid traffic is reported accurately.

Options for tracking

Option 1: Use Google Ads for tracking clicks

• Use Google Ads tracking templates with a final URL suffix or auto-tagging. This will segment the traffic from Google Ads so that the source is shown as “google” and the medium as “cpc” in Google Analytics. Learn more about tracking in Google Ads
• Traffic from free listings will be shown as “Google unpaid traffic” wherein the source is shown as “google” and the medium as “organic” in Google Analytics if the link and mobile_link attributes are specified in the feeds. Learn more about traffic sources in Google Analytics

Option 2: Use separate URLs in Merchant Center feeds, by using the ads_redirect, link, mobile_link, and canonical_link attributes

• Use the ads_redirect attribute in your product data for landing page URLs intended for Shopping ads. Note, this attribute will override the link or mobile_link attributes for Shopping ads traffic. You can use the {ifmobile} ValueTrack parameter in this attribute to provide specific landing pages for mobile ads. This can be set up in addition to Google Ads tracking templates and auto tagging.
  
  Example: “https://www.example.com/product123.html?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=cpc”
   
• Use the link or mobile_link attributes for landing page URLs intended for unpaid traffic (such as traffic from free listings and local free listings). If you intend to add tracking parameters, we recommend using separate tracking parameters for ads and free listings.
  
  Example: “https://www.example.com/product123.html?utm_source=feed&utm_medium=free”
   
• If you use tracking parameters in your link or mobile_link attributes, it is recommended that you use the canonical_link attribute to provide a canonical URL. Use the canonical_link attribute to ensure that products are associated with the correct URL in the Google Search index. The URL in this attribute is not served to users; however, it will improve Google’s understanding about the product.