Ad campaigns can help you to boost sales by reaching customers from more places across Google. Your ads use the product information in your account (such as images, prices and shop names) and are shown to people searching for the products that you advertise (across Google Ads channels like YouTube, Search and Discover).
On this page
- Before you begin
- How Google Ads campaigns work in Merchant Center
- Instructions
- Frequently asked questions
Before you begin
Before you can create campaigns in Merchant Center, there are a few steps that you need to follow.
When you sign up for Merchant Center, you can select that you want to run paid ads for your products. You can also set up ads after you've signed up by selecting 'Ad campaigns' in the left navigation menu.
You can stop and resume setup at any point. Once you've started setup, ad campaigns will automatically be added to your list of pending tasks on the 'Overview' page.
Set up the required information in Merchant Center:
- Add your business details.
- Complete your tax information (US only).
- Verify and claim your website to confirm that it belongs to you.
- Set up your delivery settings.
- Add your product information to Merchant Center.
Link a Google Ads account to Merchant Center or set up a new Google Ads account.
Set up a payment method in the Google Ads account to pay for your ads when you start running campaigns.
When you're ready, start creating campaigns in Merchant Center.
After you've successfully created a campaign, you can view performance data or edit your campaign by going to 'Ad campaigns'.
How Google Ads campaigns work in Merchant Center
- You link a Google Ads account to Merchant Center and then create a campaign that runs ads for your products.
- We use your existing Merchant Center product data to decide how and where to show your ads.
- The product data that you submit through Merchant Center contains details about the products that you sell. We'll use these details when we match a user's search to your ads, making sure that it shows the most relevant products. All available products in Merchant Center will be advertised in your campaigns by default.
- Potential customers will discover ads for your products on Google's channels (e.g. whilst they're searching for a video on YouTube). Based on the information in your feed, customers will view things like a photo of the product, its title and price, the shop name and other important information in the ad.
- Customers can click on your ads to learn more about your products before making a purchase. You only pay for performance (for example, when your ad receives clicks or engagements).
Frequently asked questions
Which Google Ads campaign type does Merchant Center use?
Any campaign that you create in Merchant Center is a Performance Max campaign. Performance Max is a performance-based campaign type that helps you to find more customers and meet your goals. To do this, Performance Max looks at campaign inputs like your budget and your product feed and then optimises performance based on those inputs.
When you create a Performance Max campaign in Merchant Center, you provide the budget and campaign name.
If you want even more control over the campaign (such as bidding options), you can use Google Ads to edit the ad. Learn more About the features available for Performance Max in Google Ads.