Creating a product feed and uploading it to Google Merchant Center is a critical step in launching your Google Shopping campaigns. In this blog, you’ll learn how to:
- Create a Google Merchant Center account.
- Provide business information, verify and claim your website.
- Collect product data and choose the right feed format (like tab-delimited spreadsheet or XML).
- Choose the best method to upload multiple products at a time using Google Sheets, files, or API integrations.
- Set up a schedule, run diagnostics, and ensure product approval.
Let’s walk through everything you need to create a high-quality product feed, methods to submit product feed to GMC and get your products live on Google.
Table of Contents
What is Google Shopping Feed?
A Google Shopping feed is a structured data file that contains your product information, such as product titles, descriptions, price, availability, ID, condition, brand and more. It acts as the backbone of your Google Shopping campaigns. To display ads, you must submit the feed to Google Merchant Center.
Here’s an example of a Google Shopping feed:
This example is about a merchant selling athletic merchandise. As you can see, the feed contains important information like ID, title, price, image_link and more.
Similar to this, you just create a product feed of your own store that contains information about all your products. After creating one, you will use it to upload to GMC.
Note: Creating a product feed file is one of the methods to upload your feed to GMC. In the following sections, we will discuss manual methods, APIs, scheduled fetch and more. Click here to jump to the section.
Google Shopping Feed Types
There are various types of Google Shopping feeds, but the primary/main feed type is the Google Merchant Center feed, and throughout the blog, we refer to the Google Shopping feed.
Google Merchant Center Feed/Google Shopping Feed.
It is the main feed that contains information about all your products. It should contain all the required attributes like ID, title, description, and so on.
We shall look into these Google Shopping feed attributes in the following sections. Click here to jump to product feed specifications.
Supplemental Feed
Merchants use supplemental feed to enrich or correct data in the main feed without replacing it. You can include only attributes that you wish to add/update to the existing feed. For example, you can add additional information like sale_price, product_type, etc.
Dynamic Remarketing Feed
This type of feed helps you to retarget customers who have already interacted with your website/products or abandoned your cart. This feed contains additional fields to the main Google Shopping feed.
Local Inventory Ads Feed
This feed is for merchants who sell products through their physical stores. With this feed, merchants can run local inventory ads and promote their products online, encourage customers to pay a visit to their store or offer an ‘order online and pickup in store’ option.
This feed also has required attributes like store code and optional attributes. Merchants are required to prepare a local inventory ads feed and submit it to GMC.
Google Promotions Feed
This feed lets you run multiple Google promotions at a time, by combining offers, deals on multiple products and preparing a special feed to upload to GMC. This way, merchants can apply various offers to different products.
Product Ratings Feed
This feed contains review counts, average rating, review snippets for each of your products and enables you to display star ratings, review counts in your Google Shopping ads.
Manufacturer Center Feed
The Manufacturer Center feed is a list of product information provided by manufacturers to Google.
Google Shopping Product Feed Specifications
To advertise your products on Google Shopping, you must adhere to Google Shopping feed specifications. These specifications consist of a set of Google Shopping feed attributes, along with certain formatting rules, that you should include in your Google Shopping feed. If you’re using Shopify Metaobjects to store structured product details, ensure that this data is also mapped correctly to the respective Google attributes.
These fields are mandatory, and in any case, if you do not meet this criterion, your products can be disapproved, resulting in Google not displaying your ads.
There are several product attributes to include in your product feed, but they can be categorised into required, recommended, and optional.
The attributes that fall under required attributes are the ones you must include in your feed. Including recommended and optional attributes is a good practice in displaying some additional information to your potential customers, but you can skip them.
Tip: Google highly recommends that you add optional and recommended attributes.
Required Attributes
| Attribute | Description | Requirements from Google | Example |
| ID | Unique identifier for the product (SKU or internal ID). | Required. Use a unique value (≤50 chars) for each item. | A2B4 |
| Title | Product name shown to customers. Use structured_title when you use AI to generate titles. | Required. Plain text, max 150 chars. | Men’s Pique Polo Shirt |
| Description | Product description Use structured_description when you use AI to generate titles. | Required. Avoid promotional text. | 100% cotton polo, breathable, regular fit. |
| Link | Landing page URL for the product. | Required. Must point to the exact product page and match the offer (price, availability). | https://example.com/polo-shirt |
| Image_link | Main product image URL. | Required. High-quality image as per Google image guidelines. | https://example.com/images/polo.jpg |
| Price | Price + currency. | Required. Numeric + ISO 4217 currency. | 15.00 USD |
| Availability | Whether the product can be bought now (in stock, out of stock, or preorder). | Required. Provide an availability date (up to 1 year) if it is a preorder. | in stock |
| Condition | Condition of the product (new, refurbished, used). | Required | New |
| Brand | Product brand name. | Required for most new products (exceptions: movies, books, musical recordings). | Acme Apparel |
| GTIN | Global Trade Item Number (UPC, EAN, ISBN). | Required when the product has a manufacturer-assigned GTIN. | 012345678905 |
| MPN | Manufacturer Part Number. | Required only if the product does not have a manufacturer-assigned GTIN. | G12345 |
| Identifier_exists | Indicates whether the GTIN/MPN/brand exists for the product. | Optional but important. | no |
Note: Requirements vary by product category and target country. Check the product data specification for category-specific rules. Read this guide to learn more about Google Shopping feed requirements.
Recommended Attributes
| Attribute | Description | Requirements from Google | Example |
| Google_product_category | Google’s taxonomy category for the product. | Recommended. Use the closest Google category. | Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Shirts |
| Product_type | Merchant’s own category/taxonomy. | Recommended. Helps campaign segmentation and reporting. | Men > Clothing > Cotton Polo Shirts |
| Additional_image_link | Extra image URLs for the product. | Recommended. Submit multiple images to increase conversion. | https://example.com/images/polo-side.jpg |
| Sale_price & Sale_price_effective_date | Discounted price and its validity window. | Recommended if running promotions. Must match the landing page. | sale_price: 12.00 USD; sale_price_effective_date: 2025-09-01/2025-09-07 |
| Shipping | Shipping cost and service for the item. | Recommended; required in certain countries for Shopping ads/free listings. Use when you need to override account shipping settings. | {country: US, service: Standard, price:5.00 USD} |
| Tax | Tax settings for the item. | Required in some countries / deprecated for others. (Note: Google removed the US sales tax requirement starting July 1, 2025 — check local requirements.) | {country: US, rate:8.25} |
| GTIN, MPN, Brand (if available) | Providing all the available product identifiers improves eligibility and visibility. | Recommended whenever available — helps with matching and prevents disapprovals. | 012345678905 |
| Shipping_weight / Shipping_length / Shipping_width / Shipping_height | Shipping dimensions and weight. | Recommended for accurate shipping cost display and eligibility. | shipping_weight: 0.5 kg |
| Availability_date | Date when the product will be available (for preorder). | Recommended when using preorder. | 2025-11-01 |
Optional Attributes
| Attribute | Description | Requirements from Google | Example |
| Color | Product color for apparel & variants. | Optional. | navy blue |
| Size | Product size (S, M, L, numeric). | Optional but recommended for clothing/footwear. | M |
| Material | Primary material of the item. | Optional. | 100% cotton |
| Pattern | Pattern or print | Optional. | striped |
| Age_group | Target age group (newborn, infant, toddler, kids, adult). | Optional; used for filtering. | adult |
| Gender | Intended gender (male, female, unisex). | Optional; useful for apparel. | male |
| Multipack | Number of identical products in a multipack. | Optional except where required for multipacks in specific countries. | 6 |
| Bundle | Indicates the product is a bundle of multiple different products. | Optional. | yes |
| Custom_label_0–Custom_label_4 | Merchant-defined labels for campaign/grouping. | Optional. Useful for bidding/segmentation in Google Ads. | custom_label_0: summer_sale |
| Ads_redirect / Mobile_link | Mobile-optimized landing page or redirect settings. | Optional. | https://m.example.com/polo |
| Product_detail, Product_highlight | Structured details like specs, ingredients, or highlight bullets. | Optional. | product_detail: Material: 100% cotton |
How to Set Up a Google Merchant Center Account?
When you sign up for a Google Merchant Center account, it lets you upload and manage product data so that your products display across Google Search, Maps, YouTube and more.
Here’s how to set up an account in GMC:
To create your GMC account, you need to have access to a Google account. Note that you can use a single Google Account to sign up for one GMC account; you cannot create more than one GMC account using only one Gmail address.
Tip: You can create a new email address to create another GMC account.
Step 1: Visit the following link, https://merchants.google.com/ and create an account using your Google Account credentials.
Step 2: Once you sign in, you will see a few questions pertaining to your business, like website URL, store name, and registered business address. Fill them and click on ‘Continue. ‘
Step 3: After providing all the details, Google asks you to verify your email address associated with your website URL.
Note: If you do not verify your email address, you won’t be able to control how your products appear across Google.
Step 4: Next up, add all the countries you wish to target through Google Shopping ads. After adding countries, you will see options to upload your Google Shopping feed.
These options include:
- Connect to Shopify
- Add products from a file
- Use Google Sheets
- Add Products one by one
- Add Products using API
We shall discuss each of these methods in depth in the following section.
Before we jump into these methods, you should have a product feed. As discussed earlier, Google Shopping has product feed specifications, such as a character limit for product title, description, and values for product identifiers like GTIN, MPN, etc. Ensure you follow them to avoid disapproval.
Feed Rules in GMC
Feed rules (now referred to as attribute rules) are a set of logic-based rules that merchants use to update, enrich, or correct products after uploading the feed.
For example, after uploading the feed, if you notice there were incorrect or inconsistencies in your product details, you can go to feed rules to correct them.
In simple terms, you can make changes to your feed and sync them automatically without having to change your source file.
How Does it Work?
Once you have completed the process of uploading the feed to GMC, it begins processing the data. As part of this ingestion process, GMC applies the attribute rules for the selected data source.
These rules work by transforming your feed data before Google runs diagnostics or checks for policy violations and eligibility.
The attribute rule follows a structure like “If condition(s), then set or modify an attribute’s value.”
For example:
- If the brand is “Nike”, then prepend “Nike” to the product title.
- If a sale price exists, then set custom_label_0 to “OnSale.”
Remember, before finalizing a rule, you can test it in draft mode, where you’ll see a preview of how it affects your product listings. This lets you validate changes without immediately altering your live product data.
Once you apply the rule, it remains active and will automatically run every time your product feed is refreshed or resubmitted, ensuring consistent and up-to-date data compliance moving forward.
How to Access Attribute Rules in GMC?
Step 1: Go to your GMC account >> Products >> Click on the value under the column ‘Data Source’ >> switch to the ‘Attribute rules’ tab.
Step 2: Start adding attribute rules.
Note: For detailed information on setting up rules, refer to this article on how to create attribute rules in GMC.
Methods to Upload Product Feed to Google Merchant Center
1. Connect to Shopify
The ‘Connect to Shopify’ option is built exclusively for Shopify merchants.
When merchants select this option, their Shopify products are added automatically to Google through the Google & YouTube app.
Step 1: Select the ‘Connect to Shopify’ option and click ‘Continue.’ You will be taken to the Shopify app store page, where you are required to install the ‘Google & YouTube app.’
Step 2: Click ‘Install’ and you will be taken to your Shopify admin.’ Connect your Google account.
Step 3: After connecting your Google account and providing the required permissions to the app. The next step is to connect your GMC account.
Step 4: As you can see in the image shared below, the next step is where Google wants to check if your store meets their requirements.
This process involves:
- Your store must be accessible to the public; you are required to remove the password (if there is one).
- You need to verify contact details and payment method.
- Add return/refund policy, configure shipping and tax settings.
- Your products must meet Google’s feed specification.
Once the store eligibility checks are completed, feed sync takes place.
- The Google & YouTube app automatically syncs your Shopify product feed to your GMC account.
- Set your target country and location, and set up automatic sync, so any changes made in Shopify will reflect in GMC.
- With this, your Shopify products are sent to GMC successfully. Don’t forget to check for the approval status of your products in GMC and address any errors/warnings promptly to run Google Shopping ads seamlessly.
2. Add Products from a File
To choose this method, you need a file that has information about your products, which is referred to as a product feed file.
You can create a product feed through Excel or Google Sheets. Google also provides you with a detailed help article on creating this feed. Additionally, we have curated a detailed guide on tips and best practices to follow when creating a Google Shopping feed that is proven to minimise errors.
Once you have created the file, it is time to upload it to GMC.
You can upload a file in three different ways:
- Enter the link to your file: When you create a product feed in Excel, Google Sheets, or another format, you can generate a link and upload it to the text box shown in the image below. When you use this method, all the changes are automatically updated once every 24 hours.
For detailed information on how to use a file to fill in feed information, here’s a blog.
- Add a file using SFTP or Google Cloud Storage: You can upload a file to your cloud storage or via SFTP, and then add it to GMC. Note that the file size should be under 4 GB of storage.
- Upload a file from your computer: Use this option to upload a file stored on your computer. Use this method if you have a small number of SKUs, as this method doesn’t automatically update changes to your GMC account.
Note: Supported file formats include Tab-delimited (.txt), Extensible Markup Language (.xml), and Tab-separated (.tsv). And the file size can go up to 4 GB.
3. Use Google Sheets
Another option for uploading your feed to Google Merchant Center is to use an existing Google Sheets document or create a new one.
To create a new Google Sheet to fill in your product information, you can use the template provided by Google.
You can access it by clicking on the ‘Use template’ link, as shown in the image below. Just click on “Use template” to download the file to your system. Ensure you delete rows 2 to 5, as they contain instructions and examples to help you understand how to fill in your product details in the sheet.
You might ask, what’s the difference between the options ‘Add products from a file’ and ‘Use Google Sheets. ’
Well, here it goes:
In the first option, you can also upload files in formats such as CSV, TSV, XML, Excel, or Google Sheets, among others. However, you need to host them either on your website or via FTP/SFTP. Or you can upload a file stored on your computer.
However, this file comes with certain limitations. This file should be uploaded every time you make changes. Which heavily relies on manual intervention.
On the other hand, the Google Sheets option requires you to follow a specific format to fill in product details and upload them to your GMC account, as specified by Google.
Doing so, the changes you make automatically sync every 24 hours; you don’t have to manually upload them every single time you make changes. Additionally, you do not have to host the file.
Google Sheets is ideal for a merchant with small to medium-sized stores. Here’s more detailed info on this:
Choose ‘Use Google Sheets’ if:
- You have a small to medium product feed.
- Your product list or data doesn’t change too often, or you can update it manually via a spreadsheet.
- You don’t want to deal with hosting a feed file, SFTP, or export pipelines.
Choose ‘Add products from a file’ if:
- You have a large catalogue or complex attribute requirements.
- You need frequent or automated updates (via URL fetch, SFTP, or hosting).
- You may need a custom format or a larger size that more than a Google Sheet could handle.
4. Add Products One by One
With this option, you can manually enter details of your products one after the other in a form within your GMC account.
This method is ideal when you have a smaller number of products to upload to GMC, as it requires manually adding details for each product, which can be tedious and time-consuming for merchants with a larger number of products.
Also note that this process doesn’t support automatic updates or scheduled fetches, so you will have to make changes manually directly on GMC.
5. Add Products Using API
Merchant API
The Merchant API method lets you interact directly with Google Merchant Center. What does this mean? You can programmatically manage everything inside your Google Merchant Center account. You can add new products, update only a few fields of an existing product, and update inventory levels in real-time, through API calls.
Instead of using files, the method manages your product data using code, which involves uploading new products, updating or removing them, etc.
To access the Merchant API, you need the following:
- A fully set up, verified GMC account.
- In the Google Cloud Project, you can create one through the Google Cloud Console.
- API authentication setup to make secure API calls.
- Decide how to interact with the Merchant API: Direct API calls or Client libraries.
This method requires advanced technical skills and understanding of working with API; we recommend that you or your development teams go through this official article from Google to understand the end-to-end process of connecting to the Merchant API.
Once configured, come back to GMC and enter your Data source name to proceed further.
Note: When using the Merchant API method, you/developer are required to structure product data correctly in the API payload, include required attributes, and format the fields as per Google Shopping feed specifications. Which means you build the product feed from scratch through API instead of using a file or Google Sheets.
Note: Based on our research, sources confirm that you can get the Data Source name through the API itself after you successfully establish the Merchant API connection.
Content API for Shopping
Similar to the Merchant API method, the Content API is a programmatic interface provided by Google to send product data to your Google Merchant Center account directly.
How does it differ from the Merchant API method?
Content API for Shopping allows merchants to upload product feed and make changes. It doesn’t support multiple data sources, and it has limited features when compared to the Merchant API.
Merchant API allows you to manage product feeds and inventory, with extended features on price rules and diagnostics.
Although the Merchant API requires a highly complex setup, it provides full Google Merchant Center ecosystem control.
What are the differences in setup?
As mentioned earlier, Content API for Shopping is simpler to set up when compared to the Merchant API method.
For Content API, you don’t need to create data sources or follow a more structured and modular process; Content API is more like a ‘submit and forget’ pipeline.
For further information, refer to Google’s official documentation on using the Content API for Shopping.
6. Third-Party Apps (Using AdNabu for Shopify Merchants)
Suppose you want to choose the no-code path in setting up your Google Shopping feed through API. It is possible through third-party apps.
If you’re a Shopify merchant who wants to manage product feeds seamlessly without any complex setup and automate the process of feed creation, optimization, and more. You can use tools like AdNabu, Feedonomics, GoDataFeed, and more. You can access them via the Shopify app store.
For demonstration purposes, we will show you how you can use AdNabu, a built for Shopify app, to set up your Google Shopping feed.
Go to your Shopify app store >> Install Nabu for Google Shopping app >> After the onboarding process, you will see that products are synced from Shopify to AdNabu automatically.
You can quickly get started with AdNabu using the following steps:
- Add your Google Merchant Center account
- Select a target country and fill in your contact details
- Adnabu provides you with three automatic actions, which automatically set up your GMC with data from your Shopify account. These actions include claiming your domain in GMC and copying the tax and shipping settings in GMC.
Once done, click on ‘Complete setup.’ That’s all. You have successfully set up the Google Shopping feed in GMC.
Once AdNabu is installed and properly set up, merchants don’t need to manually sync products every time a change is made in Shopify—product updates like price, inventory, and descriptions are synced automatically to Google Merchant Center.
However, merchants must handle the initial setup process:
Which includes:
- Verifying store details in GMC
- Configuring market settings, and
- Generating the product feed.
- Reviewing which products are included,
- Monitoring for any feed errors or disapprovals, and choosing a manual sync via the “Update Feed” button when making major catalog changes.
Google Shopping Feed Errors
Google Shopping feed errors mainly originate when your shopping feed fails to meet Google Shopping feed specifications. These errors can be classified into three types:
- Critical red errors: These types of errors are considered serious, and you must address them immediately. Otherwise, you won’t be able to run ads until the issues are fixed.
- Yellow warnings: These errors indicate a warning for one or more products in your feed. Although you might be able to continue running ads, resolving them is critical to avoid further escalation.
- Blue informational updates: These are not generally referred to as errors, but resolving them is also critical to improve your feed quality.
Specific types of errors you might encounter in your GMC account include:
- Invalid checkout URLs
- Invalid GTIN
- Invalid MPN
- Mismatched brand
- Image not processed and more
To resolve these errors/issues, it’s essential to troubleshoot your Google Shopping feed. For that, you can use the Diagnostics tab in your Google Merchant Center account.
If you’re managing a large catalogue, you can download your Google Shopping feed directly from your Google Merchant Center account. This allows you to perform a product feed audit, which enables you to identify errors and resolve them through a systematic approach.
Note: After uploading your feed, it’s crucial to check whether your listings are Google Shopping feed-approved.
Products that are disapproved due to policy violations or data issues won’t appear in ads or free listings, which can directly affect your visibility and performance.
Google Shopping Feed Optimization Tips
Product feed optimization involves providing additional information, enhancing the existing data to improve your potential customers’ shopping experience, and bringing in more relevant audience and converting them to customers.
One important area of Google Shopping feed enhancement is enriching your product attributes, especially titles, descriptions, and images. For example:
- Ensure you limit the product title to 70 characters. Use keywords and specifics to accurately describe your product. Add details such as brand, product color, size, material, and more to provide your potential customers with additional information at a glance.
- Create valuable product descriptions that include your product’s features, benefits, use cases, and unique selling points. Ensure your descriptions fall between 160 and 500 characters.
- Double-check your landing page URL and ensure it is functioning.
- Follow Google Shopping’s image guidelines and provide high-quality product images.
- Another key factor is proper categorization. Google uses product classification to better match your listings with search intent. By using the correct Google Shopping feed taxonomy, you help Google understand your product better, which leads to better placements and lower CPCs.
- Finally, not all products are ideal for every campaign. You can exclude certain products from your Shopping feed using supplemental feeds, custom labels, or feed rules useful for controlling ad spend, removing low-margin items, or hiding out-of-stock products.
For more such insightful tips, we have come up with a blog on 25 tips to optimize the Shopping feed. Go ahead and give it a read to boost your products’ performance and improve visibility.
Automation & Scheduling
Google Shopping feed automation is a process of automatically creating, updating, optimizing, and managing product feeds in the Google Merchant Center. Automation methods include:
- Scheduled fetch (through hosted files)
- Merchant API
- Content API
- Platform integration, and
- Product feed management tools.
Google Shopping feed automation involves automating inventory levels, prices, adding/removing products, attribute mapping, and feed upload scheduling. Based on your product turnover and campaign needs, it’s important to consider how often you should send feed to keep your listings accurate and eligible.
Note: If you’re targeting international markets, you may also need to translate the Google Shopping feed and create a multi-language Google Shopping feed to meet regional language and content requirements.
Conclusion
Setting up your Google Shopping feed correctly is the foundation of a successful Shopping campaign. Whether you’re using manual uploads, Google Sheets, or APIs, each method comes with its own benefits, and understanding these options helps you scale smarter.
Key Takeaways:
- Start by creating a Google Merchant Center account, verifying your website, and providing accurate business information.
- Choose the right feed format: tab-delimited spreadsheet, XML, or automated API connection, based on your store size and update frequency.
- Map your product categories correctly using both Google’s taxonomy and your own product types to improve visibility.
- Use the most efficient upload method: Google Sheets for small to medium stores, file upload or scheduled fetch for flexible batch updates, or Content API or Merchant API for large or complex catalogues.
- Set up automatic feed updates (daily, hourly, or event-based) to avoid disapprovals due to outdated inventory or pricing.
- Run diagnostics regularly to resolve errors, disapprovals, and feed mismatches quickly.
- Filter and optimize product data before uploading — cleaner, enriched data performs better in both free listings and paid ads.
Well, what’s next?
Check the Google Shopping feed approval status and get ready to launch your first Google Shopping ads campaign.
FAQs
How to set up a Google Shopping feed?
Google offers you various ways to upload your feed to GMC. They include adding products manually one by one directly in GMC, adding through hosted files, Google Sheets, through Shopify integration, Merchant API/Content API, or through feed management tools.
What are the required attributes for setting up a Google Shopping feed?
ID, product title, description, link, image_link, price, availability, condition, and brand are required attributes. Although adding GTIN is optional, it is highly recommended by Google to improve your product visibility.
How do I upload my product feed to Google Merchant Center?
After creating your product feed, go to your GMC account and select the “add products” option under the products section. You will find different methods to upload your feed; choose your desired option and upload your feed. For detailed information, refer to the blog.
Why was my Google Shopping feed disapproved, and how can I fix it?
Your feed could have been disapproved for many reasons. To fix it, you should first understand the cause, go to the Diagnostics section in your GMC account, and find out the reason for disapproval. It could be related to GTIN, missing details, an invalid image, and so on. Based on the reason, you will be able to resolve and reupload the feed again.
How often should I update my product feed in Google Merchant Center?
Sources confirm that it is mandatory to update your feed once a month. However, it is highly recommended to update changes regularly, for example, every 24 hours, to reflect real-time changes.
Can I use a plugin or app to automate my Google Shopping feed setup?
Yes, if you’re a Shopify merchant, you can use feed management tools like Adnabu, DataFeedWatch, and Feedonomics to automate the process of creating, optimizing, and managing product feeds.
