What’s the one platform you can use to list ads and get loads of impressions and clicks from users throughout the funnel? Google, of course. And Google Shopping is the advertising powerhouse that enables businesses around the globe to speak to Googlers.

Whether you’re selling t-shirts, family trips, or used cars – even if you’re selling products at brick-and-mortar locations – Google Shopping ads can help.

Plus, Google offers the analytics tools that makes managing campaigns (and quantifying returns) easy.

However, in order to list products on Google Shopping, you’ll first need to compile a Google Shopping feed and upload it to Google. That feed needs to follow Google’s unique requirements and also be fully optimized for Google users.

Let’s start with the feed, and then move on to campaigns and ROI.

Google Merchant Center is Google’s platform for managing your Shopping product data. Product information (including product titles, images, links, and everything else) is kept here. There isn’t much work to do on this side, as you’ll be optimizing your Google data feeds before uploading them to the Merchant Center. The data uploaded here will be leveraged to automatically generate Shopping ads – no extra writing required.

Google Ads (once known as AdWords and changed recently for branding purposes) will be used for the campaign side of your Google Shopping ads. This is where you’ll make decisions on bidding, audiences, and other common campaign steps.

Google manufacturer Center is Google’s platform for helping manufacturers influence the way their product information appears across Google. This helps them drive more interest and sales in their products by providing users with better product information. (More on this at the end.)

4. Upload data to Google, and regularly upload new data to keep information up-to-date

If you’re a small retailer, you may adapt and enhance your feed using Excel. However, if you’re a larger business or have complex feeds, you’ll likely need to use software like Productsup in order to make bulk edits and maintain clear, reliable oversight of your many products.

Solutions like this exist to help with Google Shopping feed automation and optimization.

To set up a Merchant Center account, check out the video below.

These strict rules are in place to ensure high quality and reliability among all of Google’s advertisers. Because the platform boasts such an incredible reach, it’s important to Google that ad images are clean and consistent. Never mess with these rules. Just take gorgeous, realistic photos, and let your products do the advertising.

Image quality matters. Users don’t click on an ad just because the title sounded cool. It was the image that compelled them to look, read, and then click. High-quality images are an absolute requirement for Google Shopping ads.

• Don’t scale up images
• Only use photos of the actual product
• Only show one product per image
• Don’t submit thumbnails
• Don’t use borders

• No watermarks or logos
• No graphics or illustrations
• No promotional text
• Use gorgeous images

In most countries, the following demographics can be targeted.

• Age
• Gender
• Income bracket
• Parental status

Beyond this, there’s also the Audience Targeting option.

• Affinity: This is Google’s own way of describing a user’s interest in or “affinity” for a certain topic
• Intent: Life events like graduating or repeated searches related to a topic can show intent to make a type of purchase
• Remarketing: If a searcher has clicked on your site before, or had a near-purchase, they’re going to be more valuable

This Google tool tracks what happens after a user has taken a specific, pre-defined “conversion action.” This could be clicking an ad, subscribing to your newsletter, making purchases in your app, or something similar. You can define Conversion Actions within Google Ads. To determine whether your site needs Conversion Tracking enabled, answer these two short questions:

will you be using enhanced CPC? Would you like to be analyzing user behavior after they engage with your ads? If the answer to either of these is yes, enable the Conversion Tracking tool sooner rather than later. This process will involve installing the tag on your website or using Google Tag Manager. It’s very specific, so please check out the complete instructions here.