Product listing ads

Product listing ads (PLAs) are dynamic, image-based ads that showcase individual products directly within search engine result pages, shopping tabs, or social commerce platforms. Unlike traditional text ads, PLAs include key product details like:

• Product image
• Title
• Price
• Store or brand name
• Promotions or availability

These ads typically appear on platforms like Google Shopping, Microsoft Advertising (formerly known as Bing Ads), and Meta (ie. Facebook, Instagram) through catalog-based ad formats. Key benefits of PLAs for businesses:

• High visibility: PLAs often appear at the very top of search results, ahead of organic listings and text ads.
• Visual engagement: Shoppers see product images and prices before clicking, making them more likely to engage.
• Better-qualified traffic: Because buyers already have key information upfront, they’re more likely to convert.
• Automated targeting: Instead of bidding on keywords, products are shown based on relevance to a user's search query.
• Cost-effective: Operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) model, giving businesses control over spend and ROI.

Now that you know what makes them powerful, let’s walk through how to set them up, starting with your product feed.

How to set up product listing ads

Launching a PLA campaign involves a few technical and strategic steps, but once set up properly, it can become a powerful revenue driver. Here's a simplified walkthrough:

1. Create a product feed

Your product feed is the foundation. First, you have to create a product feed, depending on the shopping platform that you are planning to use. Most ecommerce platforms offer built-in tools or plug-ins to simplify the feed creation process, especially if you're targeting Google Shopping. Here are a few popular tools that make this easy:

• Shopify: Use the Google and YouTube app
• WooCommerce: Install the Google Product Feed extension
• Adobe Commerce (Magento): Try the Google Shopping extension
• BigCommerce: Use the Google Shopping Feed and Ads app

These tools help you generate a feed that includes all the necessary product attributes like title, price, image link, availability, and more based on Google’s requirements. Or if you prefer to do it manually, you can build your own feed following Google’s product data specification or partner with feed management platforms like Productsup to automate, enrich, and syndicate your product data across multiple channels with ease.

Once your feed is ready, you’ll upload it to Google Merchant Center (GMC) or your chosen advertising platform.

2. Set up a Merchant Center account

Next, upload your product feed to a platform like Google Merchant Center. This account connects your product data with Google Ads and enables your products to appear in relevant searches.

3. Link to your Ads account

Link your Merchant Center account to Google Ads (or another ad platform) to start running PLA campaigns. Once your products are approved in GMC, head over to Google Ads to set up your PLA campaign. Here’s where you’ll define the campaign structure and targeting settings to control how, where, and when your ads appear.

Start by creating a new Shopping campaign and linking it to your Merchant Center account. From there, you can:

• Create ad groups to organize products by category, brand, or custom labels
• Set your bids based on product performance, margin, or competition
• Choose your target locations, devices, and networks (Google Search, Shopping tab, or search partners)
• Define your daily budget and campaign duration

Although PLAs don’t rely on keywords, your ads still participate in auction-based placements, so your bids and product relevance determine when and where your listings appear.

Pro tip: Once your Google PLA campaign is live, you can easily expand your reach by importing it into Microsoft Ads using the Google Merchant Import tool—great for tapping into Bing Shopping with minimal effort.

4. Monitor and troubleshoot

Platforms often flag issues like missing attributes, policy violations, or disapproved items. Resolving these promptly is essential to keep your ads live and effective.

Feeling overwhelmed by all the setup steps? We’re here to help.

Best practices to maximize PLA performance

Getting PLAs live is just the beginning. Optimization is where the real results come in. Here’s how to make the most of your campaigns:

1. Prioritize high-quality product data: Rich, accurate, and up-to-date data ensures better ad relevance. Ensure all mandatory fields are filled, and include optional fields where possible (e.g., color, size, material).

2. Optimize titles and images: Use keyword-rich, descriptive titles that match how shoppers search. High-resolution, clean product images also improve click-through rates. Dynamic creative optimization tools like Productsup’s Image Designer can help you create contextualized images at-scale.

3. Segment your campaigns: Group products by brand, category, or performance to apply more targeted bidding and budget strategies. This helps prioritize bestsellers and high-margin items.

4. Use negative keywords: Even though PLAs aren’t triggered by traditional keywords, you can exclude certain terms to prevent irrelevant impressions and reduce wasted ad spend.

5. Automate feed updates: Manually updating product feeds across multiple channels is time-consuming. Invest in a product feed management solution that automates workflows, enabling you to scale, standardize, and optimize product data across channels like Google, Meta, TikTok, and more.

Schedule a demo to see exactly how the Productsup platform can be tailored to your specific business needs to help you launch high-performing ad campaigns.

Explore more resources

• [Overview] Feed management for advertising
• [Customer success] How ALDI increased its reach by 30% on the Google Marketing Platform
• [Guide] Your guide to perfect product listings on Google Merchant Center