25 Google Shopping Feed Optimization Tips for 2025

Often, merchants who sell their products on Google ignore the value of a well-optimized feed. They upload incomplete and incorrect product data, and expect that their campaign or ad performance will go through the roof. However, without a structured, rich feed, Google cannot properly match your products to a user’s search. And therefore, as a result, you may see subpar performance from your advertising efforts.

This is one of the reasons why Google Shopping product feed optimization becomes so important. It helps you submit high-quality product data on Merchant Center, which in turn helps your ads and free listings perform well across Google surfaces. 

But what exactly does Google Shopping feed optimization entail? Are there any proven tips to optimize Google Shopping feed and boost the quality of feeds? Moreover, can a feed solution be used to optimize product data?

This blog will answer all these questions. We will explore how to optimize Google Shopping feed with 25 best practices, supported by easy-to-understand examples. We will also discuss which attributes you should prioritize during Google shopping feed optimization. As a bonus, you will also get a ready-to-use feed template at the end of the blog. Using that template, you can build accurate, structured feeds for maximum visibility and improve campaign performance.

Best Practices for Google Shopping Feed Optimization

In this section, we will cover some best practices for Google Shopping feed optimization. 

1. Assign Unique and Stable IDs

Even though product IDs are not visible to customers directly, they are very important from a structured feed’s perspective. 

IDs are required for all products and help to identify each item uniquely in your account. It is with the help of IDs that you can easily look up an item in GMC, track its performance, and perform other actions. 

While managing your Google Shopping feed, ensure that all products and variants have unique IDs. Google doesn’t allow duplication and that can result in product disapprovals. 

Moreover, your IDs should be stable. This means that you should decide upon an attribute value like “sample123UK” and try your best not to change it. This is because whenever you change it, all the performance data of the item, its history, etc., will be erased. From that point onward, Google will use the new ID to maintain the product’s performance database. 

Apart from that, even for multicurrency and multilingual Google shopping feeds, keep the IDs the same. Don’t use casing differences to make IDs unique in any case.

Lastly, if possible, always use SKUs as product IDs. Google recommends this as SKUs help its systems understand the structure of your landing page, and simultaneously your item.  

2. Use Detailed and Keyword-Rich Product Titles

Product titles strongly influence clicks on your listings. To stand out, create clear, specific, keyword-rich, and meaningful titles. Moreover, your titles should highlight important details that help Google understand your product and its relevance, and match it to the right search query. By important details, we mean including product attributes such as brand, gender, color, size, etc., in titles. 

In addition to the guidance shared above, there are some tips from Google for creating and submitting titles that you should follow. Those include:

1. Add the most important details of your product in the first 70 characters. This is because shoppers often see only that portion, depending on their screen. 

For example, have a look at the On Women Google Shopping ad below. It includes all the essential details of the product right at the front:  

• Brand (On Women)
• A specific use case of the item (Road Running)  
• Color of the product (White/Green) 
• Size (8.5) 
• Style (Cloudrunner) 

Adding these details at the beginning itself answers almost all potential questions a shopper might have regarding the product. This reduces friction in the buying journey. Moreover, in a competitive category like running shoes, such titles help your product stand out and build trust. They help garner more clicks in comparison to other listings with generic titles that lack specificity. 

2. Highlight the unique selling propositions of your product. For example, for a mobile cover, you can add, “Water and dust resistant.” Or if your item is made up of any special material (e.g., recycled polyester), you can share that in the title. 
3. Ensure all product titles in your feed are exactly similar to the item titles displayed on your website landing pages. 
4. The title should be grammatically correct and free of any promotions. 

Note: Read other Google Shopping title best practices and requirements on this Google page.

To strengthen your understanding and help you further, we have also compiled a list of popular Google product categories and their most ideal title structures. Also, the title structures are supported by real-world examples. Those examples display the title of the Google Shopping ads that appeared at the number one spot for an item belonging to that particular product category.  

3. Use Compelling and Informative Product Descriptions

A good product title can help you attract potential customers. But a good description will help you convert their initial interest into action. 

Thus, always ensure that your Google Shopping feed descriptions go beyond the basics and explain why the product matters. They should highlight your product’s features, benefits, use cases, and even unique selling points. All questions that product titles may fail to answer due to character limits should be covered via the description field. 

We will now cover some Google description tips and an example that follows these practices. 

1. The product description should always be specific, concise, and easy to understand. So, our example describes the Lumos Glow Hydrating Mascara simply and concisely. It doesn’t use jargon or flowery language just to sound fancy. Moreover, it is specific to one item. 
2. It should include essential information such as the product’s brand, type, ingredients, etc., in the first 160-500 characters. So, if you refer back to the example, it aligns with Google’s best practices. It covers the crux of the product in the first 200 characters. 
3. The description should clearly include the benefits of using the product. Like the example, it should specify how the item will make a shopper’s life easy and not sound salesy.
4. It should highlight the specific variant attributes as well, such as ‘Midnight Black, 0.3 oz.’ 
5. Spammy language should be avoided.  
6. It shouldn’t include any other attribute, such as the Google product category or custom labels within it. 
7. Lastly, the description should meet all editorial and professional guidelines from Google for Shopping ads and Local inventory ads. 

By following these practices, your descriptions stay clear, customer-friendly, and fully compliant with Google’s requirements for the description attribute.

4. Add Accurate Product Landing Page URLs

If a shopper has trouble accessing a product’s landing page, they will most likely scroll past your listing and explore other alternatives.  

Thus, while optimizing your Google Shopping feed, ensure that: 

1. You are using valid link and mobile link attributes for all items. Their values shouldn’t lead users or Google’s systems to pages that return 404 Errors, include too many redirects, etc.
2. The attribute values should match your verified and claimed domain in GMC. 
3. The URL should be accessible for crawling by Google. 
4. Your URLs should direct shoppers or Google’s crawlers to the right variant or item. If there is a mismatch between the product shown in the listing and the product available on your landing page, Google will flag the item. 
5. Ensure proper usage of URL protocols such as “http” and “https” and compliance with RFC 3986 standards. 
6. Avoid using symbols in your URLs and replace them with URL-encoded entities. 

Note: The list shared above isn’t exhaustive. Refer to Google articles for more information and other best practices for link and mobile link attributes.

When you follow all these suggestions, your URLs will be accurate and user-friendly and appear like this: 

5. Use High-Quality Images and Additional Images

As per Searchanise, 93% of customers consider a product’s image an important factor when deciding to make a purchase. 

Therefore, the product images that you submit in your feed via URLs should be high-quality and professional. They should give a clear overview of the product, and shouldn’t include any promotional elements. 

Some other guidelines for main and additional product images to follow include: 

1. Images for the apparel categories should be of 250 x 250 pixels. Non apparel images can be of 100 x 100 pixels. 
2. Your product image should display the entire product, and there shouldn’t be much staging. If you want to showcase multiple views of your product, then use the additional image link attribute. 
3. If your product has variants, then you should submit unique images for all variants. For example, if you sell a floral dress for women in green and blue color, then both should have different images. 
4. In the product image, the item should not take less than 75% or more than 90% space. 
5. Always use white or solid backgrounds for the product image. 

Pro tip: You can use a website like Remove bg for removing any image’s inconsistent or distracting backgrounds without incurring any cost. Once removed, graphic designing tools like Canva can help you add a clean while or any other solid background.

6. Use lifestyle images for certain product categories, such as apparel. Some websites, like Growmyads, report that using lifestyle images instead of plain background images can help boost the performance of Shopping ads. In fact, for one of their modular sofa clients, they saw that this particular change improved the ad CTR by an estimated 125%. 

Let’s quickly go through a real example to better understand how the tips shared above work in action.

Basically, in the image of this Google Shopping ad above: 

• You can see a real person wearing and displaying the dress. It makes the product more relatable. 
• The background follows Google’s requirements. 
• A good proportion of the frame’s space has been covered by the dress. It is clearly visible. 
• As such, the image doesn’t include any CTA, watermark, or even product identifier information. 
• No other additional products are visible with the dress in this JCPenney listing. This clearly demonstrates the product being sold and marketed. Otherwise, some listings like this Lilly Pulitzer one below include additional items in the frame (purse in this case). These can distract and confuse shoppers. 

6. Keep Product Availability Accurate and Consistent

Using the availability attribute, you inform customers and Google’s systems about the stock status of your item. Accurately highlighting availability in your Google Shopping feed will help you: 

1. Build trust with potential customers
2. Provide seamless shopping experiences,
3. Prevent any type of product or item-level issues in GMC. 

Here are some tips to follow while optimizing the availability attribute in your feed during the optimization phase: 

• Ensure that any item’s availability is consistent across your feed, website, structured data, and all other touchpoints. This applies to variants as well. Any discrepancies can lead to the mismatched availability error in GMC or other complications. 
• You only use one of the supported values for the availability attribute, which include: 

1. In stock 
2. Out of stock 
3. Preorder 
4. Backorder 

• Do provide an availability date if you provide ‘preorder’ or ‘backorder’ values for the availability attribute. 
• If there is an item that you no longer sell, remove it altogether from your feed. But don’t use the ‘out of stock’ value in the availability attribute for such products. 
• If your website is under maintenance or you are on holiday, don’t set the availability of products to ‘out of stock.’ Rather, use the excluded destination attribute. 
• Consider using automatic item updates, an add-on feature. Using it, Google will automatically update the availability of items in your feed based on your website information. 

7. Show Correct and Transparent Pricing in Feeds

The price attribute helps shoppers understand how much they will pay to purchase an item. This is why ensuring accurate and transparent pricing for all items becomes essential. 

Some best practices to follow for optimizing price attributes in your feed include:

• Ensure that any item’s price in your feed always matches the price on its landing page. Moreover, these values should be consistent with the price displayed during checkout, available in the structured data, and other touchpoints. Inconsistencies can lead to account suspensions or even different errors, such as price mismatches. 
• The currency should be of your target country, and be consistent across all sources.
• Use the sale price attribute to highlight the discounted price at which you are offering an item during a sale or promotion. This can help boost your conversion rate, as Opensend reports that even a 10-25% discount can improve your conversion rate by  25-35%. 

Pro tip: You can use Google Merchant Center Promotions for advanced promotional pricing strategies.

• Use the loyalty program attribute for highlighting member prices and promoting your loyalty programs if applicable. 
• Leverage currency conversion to expand beyond your current target country and showcase prices in a currency different from your current one. 
• Leverage automatic item updates for the price attribute, too. 

Note: Read more about the price attribute, some best practices for submitting its value, and other details on this page.

8. Provide the Correct Brand Information 

The brand attribute is one of the most important components of a well-optimized feed. It is required in two scenarios: 

• When the product being marketed is clearly associated with a brand or manufacturer.
• When the manufacturer is also the merchant for an item. For example, in the case of custom items. 

In all other cases, where an item doesn’t have an associated brand, you can skip submitting it. 

What’s important to note is that the brand attribute is essential for Google to present your items in Shopping ads and free listings accurately. Moreover, even your customers rely on brand names as trust signals.

So, during feed optimization, ensure that: 

1. A valid brand is submitted for all items. Moreover, along with the brand attribute, you must also submit GTINs and MPNs if they are available. 
2. You use a brand name that shoppers will recognize. 
3. You use the store name as the brand name in those cases where you, the merchant:
   1. Is also the manufacturer 
   2. And the only seller of the product that has no official brand

Note: For such cases shared in the point above, Google also expects you to share the MPN.

4. The brand attribute value is submitted in only one language or alphabet. 
5. In all cases, avoid submitting placeholder text, fancy names, or any made-up brand names. 

Compliance with these brand attribute guidelines will ensure that your products always stay eligible, and ad performance is maximized. 

9. Add Valid GTINs and MPNs

Valid product identifiers like GTINs and MPNs help Google better understand the products that you are selling. Moreover, on the basis of this enhanced understanding, Google will make your ads and free listings richer and connect your products better to search queries.

Thus, during optimization of your Google Shopping feed, some guidelines that you must follow for submitting product identifiers include: 

• For all products that are widely manufactured and have GTINs, you should submit these three attributes: GTIN, MPN, and Brand. 
• For all products that don’t have GTINs, you must submit Brand and MPN attributes. 
• Whenever submitting GTINs for items, submit accurate values you are sure of. Otherwise, you might start to notice GTIN errors in your GMC. 

Pro tip: Read our blog on ‘How to fix GTIN Errors?’

• Each product and even its variant will have its own unique GTIN. Do not submit duplicate values. This applies to MPNs as well, except for apparel products, where all sizes may have the same MPN.
• If you don’t have identifiers available for any item(s), submit a ‘no’ value for the identifier exists attribute. 

The list of best practices for submitting product identifiers doesn’t end above. There are many other requirements that merchants should always follow. To go through them, we recommend checking these Google pages: 

• GTIN
• MPN
• Unique Product identifiers 

10. Assign the Correct Google Product Category

Whenever you upload your products to GMC, Google automatically assigns a category to them. However, understand that automatic categorization of products can sometimes be incorrect. As a result, the performance of your shopping ads can be affected. 

But the good news is that by using the [google_product_category] attribute, you can override Google’s automatic categorization. 

Whenever assigning categories manually, make sure you follow these best practices: 

• You pick the most relevant and accurate product category from Google’s latest taxonomy. 
• Moreover, the chosen category should best describe your product and be at least 2-3 levels deep as recommended by Google. 

For example, if you are selling baby protective wear, don’t just submit “Apparel & Accessories.” That will be very broad. Rather, go with “Apparel & Accessories > Clothing Accessories > Baby & Toddler Clothing Accessories > Baby Protective Wear” (ID: 5626).”  

• For those items that you are selling in bundles, use a category that is suitable for all items within that bundle. If you are selling a complementary item along with a main product, use the main product’s category. 
• Lastly, submit Google’s recommended categories for some regulated products, such as alcohol or mobile phones with contracts. You can read more about them on this Google page. 

Pro tip: If you don’t want to use Google’s predefined categories, you can use the product type attribute. The values that you submit can also be used to organize bidding and reporting for your Shopping campaigns.

11. Specify Accurate Product Colors

Colors are required attributes when: 

• You are promoting apparel accessories
• Advertising in certain specific countries such as the US, UK, Brazil, France, Germany, and Japan.

They act as important filters that shoppers use whenever they browse items on Google Shopping. That’s why, submitting the right color values is essential, as that helps ensure that your products are matched to the right searches.

Incorrect usage of the color attribute can result in mismatched listings, just like the example below. When we looked up ‘Orange socks,’ the results showed a green sock listing as well. This indicates that the merchant probably submitted the wrong value for the color attribute, and Google is yet to review and flag it.

To avoid such situations, ensure that: 

• You submit accurate color attribute values that actually represent the item’s original color. 
• This color matches your landing page information. 
• In case of variants, you submit one valid color for all products that differ from each other in their color. 
• For multicolored items, submit one primary color followed by two secondary ones. Ensure that all values are separated by ‘/’. For example, ‘Blue/Orange/Pink.’
• Avoid submitting numbers like “2 2 5 6” as colors.
• You submit appropriate color values that are more than one letter. So, that means you cannot use a value like “Y” for yellow. Moreover, for Chinese, Japanese, or Korean languages, Google allows you to submit single characters like ‘红’
• Always add standard color names to product titles. 

12. Highlight the Actual Condition of your Products

During Google Shopping feed optimization, ensure that condition attribute values for all items are valid and accurate. These values will help customers understand if your product is new, used, or refurbished and prevent any type of confusion. 

At the same time, ensure that the value of the condition attribute for any item represents its original condition. For example, if a product is straight out of the factory, only then submit the ‘new’ condition value. Moreover, this ‘new’ value should be consistent with and verifiable from different sources, such as:

• The information on your landing page
• Structured data
• Other feed attributes, such as titles, descriptions, etc.

Any mismatch between these sources can lead to product disapproval in GMC. More importantly, mismatches or incorrect values can also erode customer trust. 

For example, if you list a used laptop as a new one, then you may succeed initially in getting clicks. But when customers purchase the product, open its packaging, and find it used, they will return it instantly. Moreover, they will also submit negative reviews, which will tarnish your Merchant profile, and as a result, Google may even permanently suspend you. 

Thus, always abide by Google’s policies and requirements for the condition attribute. 

13. Share Important Product Highlights

As per Information Week, online shoppers only have an attention span of 4 seconds. Beyond that, they will abandon any retail website page and leave. 

Such a short attention span means that your listing on Google must communicate value to them instantly. To achieve this, you can leverage the [product_highlights] attribute in your feed. Using it, you can provide shoppers with the most valuable information about your product in a bulleted, scannable format. 

Google allows you to submit 2-100 highlights for any item. However, you shouldn’t add more than 4-6 for any item. Moreover, when you submit multiple product highlight values for an item, ensure that you separate them with commas. 

Also, ensure that the highlight describes the product itself, is professional and grammatically correct, and doesn’t contain promotional language. 

Based on these best practices, enriching your Google Shopping feed with product highlights will help you easily capture shoppers’ attention. You will be able to make the most of their short attention spans, prompt them to engage with your listing, and take a desired action. 

14. Enrich your Data with Product Details 

If you think that Google’s extensive product data specifications aren’t enough to meet your needs, do not worry. Using the [product_detail] attribute, you can add extra product information that other attributes may not cover. 

This is specifically beneficial for product categories like apparel, electronics, etc., where customers look for granular details before purchasing an item. 

Just ensure that whenever you use the product detail attribute in your feed: 

• Do include the [attribute_name] and [attribute_value]  sub-attribute values with an optional section name for clarity. 
• Don’t add information that you have already covered with other attributes. So, for example, avoid submitting an item’s sale price and sale price effective dates via the product details attribute. 
• Avoid promotional elements, SEO keywords, etc. 
• Add only verified and valid information. If you are selling t-shirts, list “Material: 100% Organic” only if it is verified. 
• All submitted values must be in the sentence case. For example, “Made from organic cotton.”

15. Group Variants with Item Group ID

If your feed has products and their variants as well, then ensure that you add item group IDs properly. This is because item group IDs are required for: 

• All free listings for variants and; 
• Shopping ads for variants targeting Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

During feed optimization, when you either add item group IDs or review the existing ones, ensure that: 

• Each variant belonging to a particular product should have the same item group ID value. Moreover, the value of the item group ID should be unique for each different item group. 
• Additionally, you should submit variant attributes such as age group, gender, size, etc., for all variants grouped under an item group ID. These variant attributes that you submit should be the same for all products within that particular group. 

So, for example, if you submit a shirt in 3 sizes and 3 colors, each variant should have a value for both the size and color attributes. You cannot submit color for one variant and size for the other. 

• For better consistency while optimizing your Google Shopping feed, use the parent SKU as the item group ID for all variants belonging to a product.  
• When adding an item group ID, make sure that it is stable and that you don’t change it frequently. 
• Lastly, do review if accidentally there are any mixes between product IDs and item group IDs. If yes, then resolve those errors as they can result in GMC errors which can hamper the performance of your listings.   

16.  Don’t Use The Ads Redirect Attribute

When it comes to optimizing your feed for better tracking of campaign performance, most merchants make a common mistake. They end up using the [ads_redirect] attribute in their Google Shopping feed. However, Google itself doesn’t recommend its usage, as it can lead to slow loading times and poor user experiences for customers. 

Instead, you should use Google Ads tracking templates. A tracking template helps you add tracking information and parameters to your final URLs. 

These templates can be created and configured at different levels, which include: 

1. Account 
2. Campaign 
3. Ad group 
4. Ad 
5. Keyword 

Note: Whenever you add templates at more than one level, Google will pick the most specific one. Moreover, in all such cases, the priority is always given to keyword-level tracking templates.

When creating tracking templates, always ensure that you use HTTPS for security. Also, you should employ ValueTrack parameters such as {campaignid}, {adgroupid}, {keyword}, {device}, etc., to capture all (even granular) insights.

Additionally, your final tracking URLs generated with the help of tracking templates should never exceed 2,048 characters. So, ideally, a well-structured URL should appear something like this: 

{lpurl}?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign={campaignid}&utm_content={creative}&utm_term={keyword}&device={device}&network={network}

17. Organize Products with Custom Labels

Custom labels allow you to set up specific filters for products that you advertise via PMax or Shopping campaigns. Using these labels, you can segment products to enhance reporting, optimize bidding, and improve overall campaign structure.

While optimizing your feed, we recommend defining clear and consistent rules for your labels. For example, you can label groups of products by seasonality, price ranges, margin, or popularity (bestsellers, clearance items, etc.).  Based on these labels, you can later create campaign product groups and easily adjust their bids.

So, for example, if you are running a Shopping campaign, you can use custom labels to group high-margin items in one group. Then, you can easily set more aggressive bids for that particular product group. At the same time, you also place low-margin or clearance products in a separate group and lower their bids. With these strategic adjustments, you maximize your RoAS and align your bid strategy with the performance of items. 

In addition to the point shared above, some other best practices you should follow while submitting custom labels:  

1. You can create and submit five custom labels (custom_label_0 through custom_label_4) at max. Thus, use each one wisely. 
2. Submit only one value for each custom label. 
3. Use these labels only for PMax or Shopping campaigns. 
4. If required, use Google Merchant Center feed rules to assign labels automatically based on existing product attributes such as price, margin, or seasonality.

18. Localize Language and Currency Per Target Country

If you sell internationally, then ensure that the product data in your feed is customized to meet the requirements of a target country. 

Now, generally, this can be managed in different ways, such as: 

1. By uploading a new translated feed that includes data in the target country’s local language and supported currency. 
2. Submitting a new feed with the target country’s supported currency and a Merchant Center-supported language. 
3. By uploading a new feed in a Merchant Center-supported language, with item prices in your preferred currency, and then later using Google’s currency conversion feature. 

We recommend that you submit new primary feeds for each target country. This helps prevent mistakes that may occur due to Google’s currency conversion feature, allows you to market items in a target country’s preferred language and currency that local shoppers prefer.

While creating and registering a new primary feed in the target country’s local language and supported currency, ensure that: 

• You also translate all the landing pages and the entire checkout flow. 
• All the product content in your feed is translated accurately and is consistent with your website, its structured data, etc. Mismatches will trigger policy violations. 
• You showcase shipping information for the target country in the same currency as used for all items in your feed
• Product prices are consistent across your feed and all other touchpoints that Google’s systems or customers may visit.
• Product IDs of all items are the same as your original primary feed for the home country. 
• All the cost information should also be consistent across all touchpoints and be displayed in the target country’s currency. 

Note: Read more in detail about the requirements and guidelines for selling in different countries on these Google pages: 1. Supported languages and countries 2. Show products in multiple target countries

With these guidelines, your feeds will stay optimized, compliant, and ready to deliver the best performance in every target country.

19. Ensure Consistent Information Across Feed, Website, Structured Data, and All Sources

Whenever shoppers see a particular listing and click on it, they expect to see similar details on your website too. Any discrepancies between the two sources can hamper your brand image and make them lose trust in your store. 

Thus, always ensure that your feed information is in sync with your website, structured data, OpenGraph tags, checkout pages, and any other source a customer or Google’s systems can access. 

Even a minor mismatch can lead to item disapprovals or even GMC account suspensions. 

Moreover, it is due to this reason that Google recommends that you keep the schedule of feed updates aligned with how often and when you update your store. Depending on your setup, you can achieve this in the following ways: 

• Use the Content API (API data feeds), as it helps instant product data sync from your store to GMC.
• Configure the frequency of scheduled fetches according to the schedule you follow for updating product data on your store. This will ensure that all changes to your store are synced immediately to GMC. 
• Manually submit data as soon as possible whenever product information changes on your store. 

20. Keep Experimenting with Optional Attributes 

We also recommend you to run experiments with different optional attributes in your feed. These attributes never seem critical, but can help you add a lot of value to your feed and a customer’s buying journey. 

For example, you can try adding different attributes such as color, material, etc., to the titles of your apparel products. Based on these updates, you can allow your campaigns to perform for 1-2 months. Once that period ends, you can analyze campaign performance and check if there is an uplift in performance. 

Color, material, pattern, etc., are just examples. Google allows you to add a plethora of optional attributes to your feeds, using which you can enrich your feed in different ways. You can test out different types of additional images, product highlights, and check if they improve campaign performance metrics.

Thus, keep experimenting and keep improving. 

21. Control Where Your Products Appear with Destinations

Google allows you to decide where your products appear and which ads they appear in using the included_destination and excluded_destination attributes. With these attributes, you get the flexibility to expand or restrict the visibility of items in your feed across Shopping ads, Display ads, Local Inventory ads, Free listings, or even YouTube Shopping features. 

So, for example, if your catalog contains some high-margin items, you can include them in dynamic remarketing ads, free local listings, etc. By increasing the number of ad channels and networks they appear across, you would maximize their reach and potential conversions. 

On the other hand, let’s suppose you have some items for clearance and you aren’t willing to spend your ad budget on them. For such cases, use the excluded_destination attribute to prevent these items from appearing across Shopping ads, Display ads, etc. This way, they will not be eligible for paid placements, but still appear as free listings, which will help you clear your inventory. 

Pro tip: Read more about the included destination and excluded destination attributes on the shared Merchant Center help center pages. These articles will help you understand what values they support, when to use them, and many other details.

22. Ensure Product Data is Compliant with Shopping Ads Policies

Google has stringent requirements that all merchants should meet in order to advertise on its platform. This also includes certain product data quality guidelines that your Google Shopping feed should always abide by. 

Non-compliance can result in either one or multiple issues that can include: 

• Item warnings or disapprovals
• Temporary or permanent suspension of Merchant Center or any other related account, such as Google Ads. 
• Restricted visibility of listings

To prevent any of these issues, ensure that your Google Shopping feed always abides by these GMC policies and requirements: 

1. Policies

• Shopping ads policies
• Free listings policies
• Demand Gen product ads format requirements
• Promotions policies
• Local inventory ads and free local product listings policies
• Google Customer Reviews Policies
• Product Ratings policies
• Vehicle ads policies (Beta)
• YouTube Shopping ads and App ads requirements
• Personalized advertising

2. Requirements 

• Supported languages and currencies
• About landing page requirements
• Building trust with your customers
• About beta countries for Shopping ads and free listings
• About compatible or refurbished third-party products
• Understanding Merchant Center country restrictions
• How Google uses key events data
• How Google uses Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) data
• Checkout requirements and best practices

Note: Some requirements and policies shared above may not be directly related to creating and managing your Google Shopping product feed. However, Google’s policy landscape is vast and, as merchants and product experts say, “interconnected”.  Therefore, any rule may apply to your product data depending on its contents. Ultimately, Google’s policy team has final discretion on enforcement, and their interpretation cannot be predicted. Thus, follow all policies sincerely.  And, if you are ever in doubt about any Merchant Center or Google Shopping feed concern, you can always ask product experts on the Google Ads Support Community.

23. Prioritize High-Value Products in Your Feed

Not all items in your Shopping feed will contribute equally to your advertising and business goals. That’s why Google recommends that you always prioritize certain high-value products and their data first. 

Using the performance data of individual products, you can identify which items are bringing in the most clicks, conversions, etc. Once identified, ensure that the data of such items is rich and detailed. 

For such products, it’s best to:

1. Revisit all required attributes and analyze if there is scope for improvement.
2. Submit all relevant and useful applicable optional attributes. 

By doing this, you will ensure that high-value items in your feed are better optimized for optimal visibility and deliver better results. 

Note: Don’t misinterpret the best practice shared above. In all cases, your attempt should be to submit rich, accurate, complete, and detailed data. However, if you have limited resources, you should prioritize your most valuable products first. Later, you can follow the same optimization techniques for your entire catalog.

24. Use a Feed Management Software 

Manually managing and optimizing your entire Google Shopping feed can get cumbersome. There are multiple attributes to handle, different values to add, and constant updates to maintain. Any errors can disrupt your advertising operations for a significant duration of time. 

That’s why we recommend using a data feed solution. Such solutions help you manage and optimize feeds as per specific channel requirements. Moreover, they automate product data submission to Merchant Center, minimize errors, and save you time by handling complex attributes.  

One great solution to try is AdNabu. It is a feed management software designed for Shopify merchants. It proudly carries the ‘Built for Shopify’ badge, which highlights its fast performance and compliance with Shopify’s performance and speed guidelines. 

Using the app, you can:

1. AI-optimize your feed: Our app allows merchants to optimize Shopify products for Google Shopping (and other channels) with the powerful GPT-4o mini model.
2. Bulk edit Google Shopping fields: You can bulk edit 70+ Google Shopping attributes in just a few seconds with ease.
3. Create Multilingual and Multicurrency Google Shopping Feeds: AdNabu also supports the creation of multicurrency and multilingual feeds by offering integrations with popular translation and currency conversion apps.
4. Instant Shopify Sync: This feature enables instant product updates to GMC from Shopify. Using it, you can ensure that your feed data and website data are always in sync. This helps to avoid some common GMC errors, like price and availability mismatches, expiring items, etc. 
5. Creation of Google Merchant Center Feed rules: Within the app, you can also create feed rules to add either pre-defined values or custom text to product titles and descriptions. This can be helpful to enrich both attributes with extra information that helps Google match your products to a variety of relevant search queries. 

And this is not all. There are many other advanced features in AdNabu, using which you can optimize your Google Shopping feeds and maximize campaign performance. 

Additionally, the app starts for free up to 100 products, where you get support for Shopify Markets and product taxonomy. This makes it accessible for both Shopify and Shopify Plus stores. 

25. Revisit your Feed Regularly 

You cannot optimize your Google Shopping feed once and then forget about it. This is because: 

1. Google’s product data specifications and requirements evolve and change regularly. For example, Google recently announced that, starting July 1, 2025, merchants will no longer need to submit US sales tax. As a result, they have begun to remove the tax attribute and settings from the GMC landscape. 

2. Prices, availability, and all other details of your items will keep changing dynamically. 

That’s why you must keep revisiting your feed if you manage it manually, or even check if a third-party tool is syncing updates properly. This will help prevent mismatches, item or account-level issues, and keep your feed and account healthy. 

Why Google Shopping Feed Optimization is Important 

Benefits of optimizing your Google Shopping feeds include:  

1. Lower CPC: When you enrich your feeds, you typically improve the relevance of all listings. Higher ad relevance generally reduces your cost per click. This is because Google can better match your items to a user’s search query. Therefore, with feed optimization, you ensure that you spend less for each click. 
2. Better Visibility: With feed optimization, you can improve the chances of your products appearing for a wide range of queries across multiple Google surfaces. This can improve your brand visibility significantly. 
3. Higher Click-Through Rates and Conversion Rates: Rich listings with optimized titles, descriptions, etc., often get more clicks and convert better. This is because shoppers see all the important details upfront, which helps build trust and prompts them to visit your landing pages.
4. Seamless Product Approval on GMC: You can easily prevent feed and account errors by optimizing your feed according to Google’s product data specifications and policies. This helps to get your products approved faster and avoid delays in launching your ads. 
5. Better Campaign Structure: You can better structure your campaigns by employing attributes like custom labels during feed optimization. You can easily segment products based on their margins, performance, and other factors, adjust bids, and optimize campaign performance.  

What Attributes to Optimize (Required and Recommended Attributes)

You should also understand which Google Shopping feed attributes matter the most and should definitely be optimized. 

Google categorizes attributes as per importance and requirement into two types: required and optional attributes. 

Required Attributes

These are mandatory fields, and you should add them for all items. Only then will Google consider your products eligible for marketing across its surfaces. 

Note: You should note that certain attributes are required and non-negotiable if your product belongs to a certain category. For example, if you sell adult products, then the adult [adult] attribute is required. However, in the list below, we will not be discussing such attributes that are applicable to certain product categories or use cases.  We will cover attributes that are either a must-have for all or at least most product categories.

Required attributes include: 

1. ID [id]
2. Title [title]
3. Description [description]
4. Link [link]
5. Image Link [image_link]
6. Availability [availability]
7. Price [price]
8. Brand [brand]

Optional Attributes

These are not mandatorily required, but they can help you enrich your product data and improve the performance of your listings. 

The actual list of optional attributes is quite extensive. However, some of those fields include: 

1. Additional image link [additional_image_link]
2. GTIN [gtin]
3. MPN [mpn]
4. Google product category [google_product_category]
5. Google product type [google_product_type]
6. Mobile link [mobile_link]

Note: The list of optional attributes shared above isn’t exhaustive. There are many other fields, and to check those fields and understand what both required and optional attributes mean, check this Google page.

Which Google Shopping Feed Attributes to Optimize? 

Both required and optional should be catered to and optimized as per your specific needs. 

Required attributes are mandatory for marketing your items across Google’s surfaces. So, titles, descriptions, etc., will have to be added and optimized in your feed anyhow—either directly or using tools like Shopify metaobject fields. 

However, with optional attributes, there is no one-size-fits-all answer as to which attributes should be prioritized during feed optimization. There are several attributes, such as GTINs, MPNs, etc., that are strongly recommended to be submitted for all eligible items. So, during optimization, ensure that you add accurate and valid values for them in your feed. 

Whereas, there are some fields like shipping, condition, which are not mandatory and can be used only for some specific use cases. For example, if you have already defined account-level shipping settings in GMC, then you don’t need to use the shipping attribute for an item in your feed. That’s because those settings will apply to all items. However, if for a specific item you need to override those account settings, then you must use the shipping attribute. 

So, in a nutshell, focus on adding and optimizing those optional attributes that make your feeds richer with value. That’s because richer feeds: 

• Allow Google to get a better idea of your products and match them to relevant search queries.
• Provide accurate item details to customers that help improve engagement on listings and boost conversion rates. 

Conclusion and Key Takeaways 

Google Shopping feed optimization is essential to ensure optimal visibility and performance of all items that you promote. Without it, even your best-selling items can fail to reach the right audience and deliver sales.

Some important takeaways from this blog include: 

1. Always review and optimize the values submitted for required attributes such as titles, descriptions, etc., first. If Google’s systems find issues with these fields, your products will be disapproved altogether. 
2. Enrich your feed with optional attributes like GTINs, MPNs, custom labels, etc., to improve relevance and engagement of your listings. 
3. Always ensure that your feed data is consistent with your website information and all other relevant sources (eg. structured data.) This will help prevent mismatches, ensure swift product approval on GMC, and also maintain compliance with Google’s policies. 
4. If required, you can use a feed management software for optimizing your Google Shopping feed. One great tool to consider is AdNabu, which is built specifically for Shopify stores. It helps to AI optimize all Google Merchant Center attributes and sync your Shopify to GMC instantly. 
5. Google Shopping product feed optimization is an on-going process. Thus, regularly review your feed data and keep updating and optimizing it as per Google’s evolving product data specifications and your real-time inventory details. 

Over to you!

FAQs

1. What is a Google Shopping feed?

A Google Shopping feed is a structured file that contains all your product data, such as titles, descriptions, images, prices, and availability. This feed is uploaded to Google Merchant Center, where Google uses the information to display your products in Shopping ads and free listings.

2. How to optimize Google Shopping feed?

To optimize your Google Shopping feed, start by reviewing and optimizing all required attributes such as titles, descriptions, availability, etc. Once done, make your listings more detailed and valuable with essential optional attributes like GTINs (if available), product categories, etc. Also, ensure that all the information in your feed is aligned with your website pages and other touchpoints that Google or a customer may view. 

For long-term success, repeat this process on a regular basis. 

3. What are the most common mistakes merchants make with feeds?

Merchants often submit incomplete or inaccurate product data, like missing titles, poor descriptions, or incorrect prices. Some use low-quality images and even end up using incorrect GTINs or MPNs. These mistakes reduce visibility and cause disapprovals.

4. How often should I update or audit my feed for the best results?

Update your feed at least daily if you have a catalog full of fast-moving items and their data changes often. For smaller or slower-moving catalogs, a weekly audit can work. In case you only have a handful of SKUs, then even a monthly audit will work. 

5. Is there a way to measure the direct impact of feed optimization on ROAS?

Yes. You can compare campaign metrics before and after optimization, such as impressions, CTR, conversions, and RoAS. You can also analyze product-level reports in Merchant Center and see if optimized items generate more sales at lower costs.

Check Out These Related Articles:

• Product Type in Google Shopping Feed Explained
• 17 Tips to Optimize Your Google Shopping Campaigns
• Google Shopping Product Feed Audit Checklist
• Top 10 Google Shopping Optimization Software