How To Set Up Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

Unlike traditional text ads, Product Listing Ads (PLAs) show users a product image, title, price, store name, and more, making them highly visual and informative. These paid advertisements help you showcase your products across Google Search, Google Shopping, Google Images, and Google Search Partner websites, increasing your brand’s visibility and traffic.

Backed by a data-driven approach and strengthened further with effective Product Feed Optimization product listing ads generate higher click-through rates, improve product relevance, and enable targeted reach, ensuring your products appear to the right customers at the right time.

But with such fierce competition out there, how do you plan to set yourself apart? How do you set up product listing ads for success? And most importantly, how do you protect your account from suspensions and product disapprovals? 

This guide has all the answers. You will learn:

• How do product listing ads work? 
• How to submit product feeds to Google Merchant Center? 
• How to set up a standard shopping campaign and a performance max campaign? 
• Optimization tips and fixes for product disapprovals. 

So, are you ready? Let’s begin! 

Understanding Product Listing Ads

Product Listing Ads, also known as Google Shopping Ads enable e-commerce merchants to showcase their products in Google’s search results. These ads contain product titles, descriptions, images, prices, and some Google Shopping ad extensions such as special offers, shipping labels, sale prices, and return policies, etc.

In addition to Google’s search results, these ads also appear in the 

• Shopping tab, 
• Images tab, 
• Google Maps
• Google Display Network which includes YouTube, Gmail, and third-party websites (when selected) that have partnered with Google.

NOTE: Product Listing Ads, paid ads, and sponsored ads are the same and work on a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model, which means you pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Looking for a cost-effective way to promote your products? You can use the free product listings feature within Google Shopping. These ads appear in Google’s search results just below the paid ads and they are absolutely free.

Product Listing Ads Example

Now, let’s look at a visual example of how product listing ads are displayed on Google.

This is an example of how PLAs appear in Google search results. 

I looked up “body lotion” on Google. Google’s search results displayed various products related to body lotion. These ads showcase various body lotion options with details such as product titles, images, prices, reviews, and so on. 

Here’s how product listing ads appear on the Shopping tab:

And on the Images tab:

Scroll down a bit, and you will also see free product listings under the ‘Popular products’ section. 

As mentioned earlier, free product listings allow you to promote your products for free. On top of that, the product feed is the same for paid and organic ads. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about creating a separate feed. 

Product Listing Ads Vs. Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping ads and product listing ads are the same and are used interchangeably. But understanding the nuances help merchants further optimize their ad campaigns.

• Google initially launched a paid ads program named Product Listing Ads in 2012.
• Later, in October 2014, Google rebranded Product Listing Ads to Google Shopping Ads.
• PLAs are paid ads that appear in Google Shopping and search results. Whereas, Google Shopping is the broader platform that aggregates paid ads along with free product listings.

How Product Listing Ads Work?

As an advertiser, you should be aware of how product listing ads operate to maximize conversions of your Google Shopping ads. 

Here’s what you must know:

1. When a buyer comes to Google and performs a search for a product, let’s consider the same example of body lotion. In this case, the buyer enters ‘body lotion’ in the search bar. Here, the term ‘body lotion’ is referred to as a ‘search term.’ 
2. After the user enters the search term and presses Enter, Google scans for the relevant information pertaining to the search term ‘body lotion’ in the product feed present in Google Merchant Center. 
3. Upon scanning, Google matches the search term ‘body lotion’ in the product feed. When Google finds all the relevant products related to the search term, it displays them on the search results page. The same way it appeared for the body lotion products. 

In this process, we can clearly see that PLAs are driven by the product feed, which is the foundation for running successful Google Shopping ad campaigns.

Now, let’s take a step back and understand what actually happens before the user presses ‘Enter’ on their Google search. 

Here’s what a merchant does:

1. Creates Product Data Feed: A product feed is a structured file (commonly in XML or CSV format) with detailed product information. This information includes product titles, descriptions, images, prices, availability, and unique product identifiers (such as GTINs).​ Merchants can use product feed management tools to create the feed. They can also create product feeds manually without any tools. If so, they must follow Google’s product feed specifications.
2. Submits Feed to Google Merchant Center: The next step is to upload the product feed to your Google Merchant Center account. Merchants can choose from various options to upload their feed: manual, sheets, Content API (automatic), and the cloud. 

3. Links Merchant Center to Google Ads: Merchants must ensure the Google Merchant Center account is linked to the Google Ads account.

4. Creates a Shopping Campaign: In Google Ads, the merchant initiates a new Shopping campaign. They can then organize products, set bids, and launch their ads.

This is the process that goes in the backend to trigger a product listing or Google Shopping ad. 

With this knowledge, let’s understand how to set up Product Listing Ads.

Prerequisites to Set Up PLAs

To successfully set up product listing ads, merchants must have a few resources and tools. Let’s look at them:

• Google Merchant Center account: Merchants must set up a Google Merchant Center account
• Google Ads: Have a Google Ads Account.
• Link both the accounts: GMC and Google Ads.
• Product feed data: Merchants must have a product feed (a structured file) if they’re uploading to GMC.

NOTE: A merchant with a product or two can upload them manually, one after the other. 

• Google Ads budget: PLAs are paid ads. Hence, merchants/advertisers must set a budget to bid when creating Google Shopping ad campaigns. 
• E-commerce Website: It is mandatory for an e-commerce merchant to have a website in order to run Google Shopping Ads.

With that, let’s set up product listing ads. 

How To Set Up Google Product Listing Ads?

The first and foremost step in setting up PLAs is creating a product feed. Let’s start with this. 

Please note that we have divided this section into two parts to facilitate understanding of the process. The first part involves submitting a feed to the Google Merchant Center, and the second is setting up campaigns in the Google Ads Account.

PART 1: Submitting Feed to Google Merchant Center

STEP 1: Create Product Feed

As discussed earlier, you can create product feeds manually or use feed management tools to automate the feed creation and optimization process. 

We assume you’re ready with the feed tool or a product feed file to upload to the Google Merchant Center. If yes, let’s move on to the next steps in the process.

Important: When creating a product feed, ensure you are optimizing titles, descriptions, category, product type, and other important attributes to successfully run ad campaigns without any suspensions or disapprovals.

For your reference, we are sharing a sample of the product feed. You can download it here!

STEP 2: Submit Feed to Google Merchant Center

Go to Google merchant center account >> click products >> Click ‘Add Products’

You can add products manually, one by one, or choose a product source. 

For now, we are going with ‘Product source.’

Upon clicking ‘product source,’ you will see the following screen.

As you can see, there are three methods highlighted in boxes. These are the main and popular methods merchants use to submit the feed. They are:

METHOD 1

Add Products from a file: In this method, you can submit the feed to GMC in the following ways:

• Adding a link to the file (product feed) or
• Adding a file through SFTP or Cloud or 
• Uploading a file from your computer.

METHOD 2:

Use Google Sheets: This method involves creating a spreadsheet using the Google template or uploading an existing sheet.

You can access the template to create your product feed if you choose a new spreadsheet. Please ensure you follow the instructions provided in the template.

NOTE: You will see the following message if you uploaded a file or spreadsheet that doesn’t match the Google requirements.

You will see the following message if you upload the correct file or sheet that follows Google’s requirements.

You can also view details pertaining to this source by clicking on the ‘Data Source setup’ tab. You can view/edit the following details.

Let’s move on to the third method.

METHOD 3:

Content API: Content API is an automatic method to submit a product feed to the Google Merchant Center. 

NOTE: In the case of Content API, you must choose only one data source, and if you wish to add more products in the future, you must use the same Content API data source.What this means is, you can push products from various product feed management tools, but the datasource through which these products are pushed is only one.

If you’re a Shopify merchant, you can use an AI-powered advanced tool like AdNabu that automatically submits feeds to your GMC account. 

Before submitting the feed through the content API method, let’s learn a little about AdNabu.

AdNabu

AdNabu is a product feed management tool with cutting-edge features such as an AI-powered feed optimization tool built with the GPT-4o mini model. It carries a ‘Built For Shopify’ badge, proving its excellence in Shopify feed management. 

Its key features in feed management include:

• AI-powered feed optimization: The advanced AI GPT-4o mini language model allows you to edit product attributes and receive suggestions for product titles and product highlights.
• Instant Shopify Sync: Instantly sync any changes to your product feed to Google Shopping Ads.
• Keyword Suggestions: AdNabu also enables you to get highly relevant keywords for your products from Keyword planner, boosting your listings.

AdNabu has more in store for Shopify merchants, including Shopify headless store support, a multi-language and multi-currency feed, and more. 

Pricing: The app offers a freemium plan and a 14-day free trial.

NOTE: Before installing AdNabu, ensure you have active products and disable the password if you have one on the website. You must remove password to make your website accessible to public.

• After installation, AdNabu immediately syncs active products in your Shopify store.
• Merchants are required to click the UPDATE FEED button, to push the product data to their GMC account connected with the app for approval.
• Please note that Google might take 48 hours to get products approved.
• Every 24 hours, the product gets updated automatically by the app.
• The app will update the feed in their GMC under the following path: Settings–> Data Sources–> Content API
• Since the products are updated using the Content API method, if there is existing data with the same ItemIDs (Shopify_Country_ProductID_VariantID), then the app will override them. Please note if the ItemIDs are different, then duplicate products will exist in your GMC account.
• In the future, if you add more products to your Shopify store, the products will be pushed to your GMC account.

As you can see, when you use the content API method, the feed submission is simple, and you don’t have to worry about errors or product disapprovals.

NOTE: Connecting your Google Merchant Center account during onboarding is made optional in AdNabu.

Let’s move on to the next chapter – the ad creation on Google Ads.

The next key step is to create a Shopping campaign using Google Ads. We assume that your GMC account and Google Ads account are connected. If not, create a Google Ads account and link both accounts. 

With that, let’s begin creating a Google Shopping ads campaign.

PART 2: Setting up Google Shopping Ad Campaigns

STEP 1: Log in to your Google Ads account. Click the “Create” button on the left-hand menu.

STEP 2: Choose your campaign objective. For now, we are going with ‘Sales.’

STEP 3: Create a goal or choose from one of the conversion goals.

STEP 4: When creating a shopping ads campaign, you can either create a standard shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign. If you wish to go for PMax, you can choose the Performance Max campaign directly. We shall look at both of them; for now, let’s go with the standard shopping campaign.

What is the difference between the Standard Shopping Campaign and the Performance Max Campaign? Performance Max and standard shopping campaigns are part of Google Shopping ads that let merchants like you advertise their products. These campaign types differ significantly in terms of ad placement and level of automation. For example, the PMax campaign relies heavily on Google AI to automate the process and Machine Learning algorithms to optimize campaigns. On the other hand, a standard shopping campaign gives you more control over targeting, bidding, and ad placements. To understand more about PMax, explore PMax ad examples.

Creating a Standard Shopping Ad campaign

STEP 1: Return to the campaign type selection screen and choose ‘shopping.’

STEP 2: Select a Google Merchant Center account and enter a campaign name.

STEP 3: Select your bidding strategies. Under the standard Shopping campaign, you can choose manual CPC, maximize clicks (automated strategy), and Target ROAS (Uses Google AI).

STEP 4: In the next step, confirm if you wish to display your ads on Google partner sites, select the target country, select the start and end dates for the campaign, and select the ad group. Lastly, click on ‘Create campaign.’

You can view/edit your campaign details.

Creating a Performance Max Campaign 

STEP 1: Go back to choosing the campaign type page and select ‘performance max.’

STEP 2: Ensure you select your Google Merchant Center account and give a name to your campaign.

STEP 3: Select your bidding type, either conversions or conversion value. You can also set a certain amount you plan to invest per action, known as the Target Cost Per Action (TCPA).

Ideally, you can set TCPA at 10 to 20% higher than CPA.

STEP 4: In the following steps, add details such as the country you’re targeting and the languages. 

STEP 5: Remember, we are creating a performance max campaign using AI to drive maximum sales. Hence, this campaign requires you to provide as much information as possible to appear for relevant searches and improve conversions.

The following steps include adding PMax audience signals (optional) that help Google AI generate assets for your campaign.

What are Performance Max Audience Signals? Audience signals simply mean suggestions provided to Google AI. This means adding audience suggestions to your campaign to guide Google AI in optimizing campaigns that suit your advertising goals.

STEP 6: After adding signals, Google analyzes the information and auto-generates some information. 

Look at the image below. I provided search themes such as “t-shirts for women,” “woolen t-shirts,” and so on. On the PMax Assets page, Google automatically generated the products I am selling.

As you can see, you can edit the products and some descriptions about your products, and click on ‘Generate Assets.’

STEP 7: Confirm the bidding amount and all the details required to launch your PMax campaign.

After filling in the details, you can launch a Performance Max campaign. 

Your campaigns will appear in search results after 24 to 48 hours. This process also includes Google reviewing your products, product feed, and campaigns, and ensuring compliance with its policies. If Google finds any discrepancies, it might lead to a misrepresentation error. Worry not, you can fix them and continue advertising your products.

With that, we have set up Product Listing Ads. Remember, we discussed about the Google shopping feed optimization during the set up process? You can otpimize your feed when creating it or wait for a few weeks after launching your ads and then strat optimizing based on the performance metrics.

Let’s look at how you can optimize Google Shopping Feed and Google Shopping ad campaigns for the best results.

Google Shopping Ads & Product Feed Optimization Tips

In this section, let’s explore various tips to optimize ads and shopping feed optimization techniques. 

Campaign-Level Optimization

Let’s explore various optimization tips for shopping ad campaigns.

Do not over-optimize campaigns

Allow 7 to 14 days for the campaign changes to reflect the desired results. Do not optimize campaigns more than once every 5 to 7 days.

The reason behind this technique is that Google algorithms take time to become smarter and produce the results you desire. 

Segment products based on different factors. 

You can segment the product likewise:

• High-performing and low-performing products 
• Best-sellers vs products on discounts, etc

Based on these segments, create a performance max or standard shopping campaign.

Separate Old and New customers

Separating old and new customers allows you to tailor campaigns specific to each group’s unique behaviors and needs.

You can choose performance max campaign to target ‘only new customers.’ You can do so by going to the settings of the performance max campaign >> customer acquisition >> check the box that says ‘only bid for new customers.’

Try Different Asset Groups for PMax

Another tip is to try out different asset groups for your performance max campaign. Remember, in the performance max campaign setup, we provided a few audience signals, our store URL, descriptions, etc. 

So, for one group, you can try having images without audience signals, and for the second group, keep audience signals and let go of images. You can remove both of these for the other group. 

By doing this, you are allowing AI to test and see what works for your campaign. You might notice that the group with the audience signals is working better than the other without it.

That being said, follow this approach only if your daily budget is higher, such as $150 and above. If you’re on a low budget, such as $25/day, stay with one type of asset group.

Mobile Optimization

Optimizing your store for mobile use is crucial as more shoppers turn toward online shopping.

• Your website and landing pages must be mobile-friendly with faster loading times.​
• Use images that display well on smaller screens without losing clarity.​
• Streamline the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment rates on mobile. 

Add Negative Keywords

Negative keywords help filter out irrelevant traffic, ensuring your ads appear for the most relevant searches.​ 

Here’s what you can do:

• Consistently analyze search term reports to identify and add negative keywords.​
• Exclude similar but irrelevant terms to your products to avoid wasted ad spend.​
• You can add negative keywords to your Google Ads account. Here’s how: Click the “Campaigns” icon >> Click “Audiences, keywords, and content” >> Click ” keywords” >> Click the negative keywords tab. click on the “+” icon to add negative keywords.
• Ensure you add negative keywords to your PMax campaign.

Avoid Manual Bidding

The next tip is to avoid manual bidding. You want to take advantage of Google’s huge database to bring you great results. Instead of manually setting bids, you can use Google AI in the PMax campaign to set them. 

Google Ads experts say “A performance max campaign that depends on Google’s AI performs 13 times better than ad campaigns that use manual bidding strategies like Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks.”

Remove Underperforming Products

Excluding products from showing up in ads is easy, and you might want to do this for the following scenarios:

• One is removing the unprofitable products.
• You might want to exclude unseasonal products for a while, for example pausing the ads for products like sweaters during summer.
• Exclude products that are out-of-stock.

How do you exclude them?

If you use a tool like AdNabu you can exclude products within a few clicks. AdNabu offers e-commerce merchants with blocklist and opt-out features; both these features help you in excluding products from promoting on certain channels and other factors.

Blocklist: Allows you to keep products completely out of the Google Merchant Center feed. This feature is suitable to remove underperforming products or seasonal items.

Opt-out Feature: Merchants can make use of this feature to exclude products from showing up in certain channels but wish to retain them in product feeds.

Optimize Product Feed

Optimizing product feed includes titles, descriptions, and other key product attributes. Let’s look at all of them. 

Product Title:

• The product title is the most important attribute of your feed. Google only scans the first 150 characters of the title, so make sure you add the keywords in the first part of the title. 
• When crafting product titles, understand how users are searching for your product.
  • Do people search for the Brand first? 
  • Do they search models or part numbers?
  • Do they search by product type or category? 
• Additionally, check your search terms report to identify high-converting terms you can embed in your titles.
• Go through this article on product title optimization. 

GTIN & MPN

• GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) and MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) act as product identifiers, and you can get them from your supplier, manufacturer, or barcode lookup. 
• Google also recommends that you have a GTIN to improve efficiency. 
• You can also get GTIN on the following website: https://www.gs1.org/services/verified-by-gs1.

Images

• High-quality images are mandatory to convert your potential customers.
• Ensure to use well-lit and high-quality product photos in your feed.
• Upload photos that have a transparent or white background.
• Make use of lifestyle images to show your product in a real-life setting.

Product Description

• Add primary and secondary keywords in your description naturally.  
• Use all the 5000 characters to detail your product, USPs, and more.
• Do not use promotional texts such as on sale, discounts, etc. 

Product Category

• Pick the most suitable category for your product. The right category helps you appear in the right searches.
• Ensure to review Google’s product taxonomy.
• If you don’t include the category, Google will auto-apply the product to the category it believes is the best.

Custom labels

• Although adding custom labels does not impact the quality of your Google Shopping feed, it helps you have a good account structure.
• On the other hand, ensure you use a limited number of custom labels to prevent your feed from loading, which can make data management difficult.

Remember that pricing is also a critical factor in attracting price-sensitive customers to your product offerings. Ensure your prices are competitive, and do not hesitate to set your prices higher if you offer a premium value.

How to Track Product Listing Ads?

Monitoring the performance of your ads is non-negotiable to continuously optimize and maintain up-to-date product feeds.

Therefore, how do you track the performance of Product Listing Ads? You can use:

• Google Merchant Center
• Google Ads (Product groups page, products page, predefined reports, and auction insights reports)
• Google Analytics and more

Let’s look at them one by one:

Google Merchant Center

You can track your product performance in your GMC account by viewing the performance reporting section. 

Here’s how to navigate to the report:

In your GMC account, go to Analytics >> Products. The product performance is displayed on the right side of the screen.

Source – Semrush

Here are the metrics available to track products on your GMC account:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Click-through rate
• Purchases
• Purchase rate.

Although these metrics show surface-level data, you can log in to your Google Ads account for an in-depth performance overview.

Google Ads

You can monitor the performance of your campaign in a few key places in Google Ads. They are:

Product groups page

On this page, you can track how your product groups are performing. 

You can track the following metrics: 

• Maximum cost-per-click
• Impression share
• Click share
• Custom parameters and many more.

Here’s how to access the product groups page:

• In your Google Ads account >> click Campaigns dropdown>> click Campaigns >> choose the campaign >> click an ad group >> and click Product groups.

Products page

The Products page gives you a performance overview of individual products in your campaign. This feature is only available for shopping ads.

Metrics you can track on the products page are:

•  Avg cost-per-click
•  Effective maximum cost-per-click
•  Conversion metrics
•  Impressions
•  Clicks and more

How do you access the products page?

Click on products in the left-hand side menu of your Google Ads account. On the right-hand side, scroll down to locate the table:

Source – Google Ads help

Predefined reports page

Allows you to access customized performance reporting in detail by any dimension. These dimensions include:

• Category
• Item ID
• Channel
• Brand
• Click share
• Absolute top impression share and more.

How do you access the predefined reports page?

• Click the Campaigns >> go to the Insights and reports >> Click Report editor.
• Click “View all” in the Predefined reports card >> You will see a Shopping section, then choose the attribute you want to use to sort your performance data: category, product type, item ID, brand, Merchant Center ID, or store ID.

Auction insights report

This auction insights report lets you compare your performance with advertisers participating in the same auctions.

Metrics you can track:

• Impression share
• Overlap rate
• Position above rate

Here’s how to access the auction insights report:

• Depending on what information you want to check in the report, go to the Campaigns>> Ad groups or Search keywords page.
• Select a specific campaign >> ad group, or keyword by checking the box next to each item.
• Click Auction Insights.

Bid Simulators

Now, this is interesting. Have you always wondered if you’re setting the right bids for your ad campaigns? And how does it affect the performance of your campaigns? 

You can learn all these things using a tool called Bid Simulator. 

A Bid simulator is a tool for understanding how bids impact traffic and conversions. It helps you gauge performance for an individual or product group with subdivisions.

How do you access it?

This feature becomes available when Google has enough data for your product. To get it, you must:

• Run shopping ads for a product group in a certain number of auctions. Or
• Have enough impressions to generate a potential performance with a different bid amount.

Please note that Google doesn’t mention the number of auctions or impressions one must have to access the bid simulator.

Google Analytics

If you want to track the performance of your shopping ads on Google Analytics, you must link your Google Ads account to Google Analytics. 

Link Google Ads and Google Analytics Accounts

• In Admin, under Product links, click Google Ads links > Click Link > Click Choose Google Ads accounts > then select the Google Ads accounts you want to link > Click Confirm > Click Next.

NOTE: To link to Google Ads, you must be an Editor or above at the property level. If you don’t see the Google Ads account you want to link, you may not have the required permissions.

Access Google Ads Reports in Google Analytics

To access Google Ads reports within Google Analytics 4 (GA4), 

• Navigate to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.
• Click on the dropdown in the “Session Campaign” column.
• Search for campaign names or IDs that match your Shopping ads (often include terms like Shopping, Performance Max, or Smart Shopping).
• You can also filter by “Session Medium” or “Session Source / Medium” — look for entries like:
  • ‘Google / cpc’ → includes all Google paid traffic
  • Then refine using campaign names

You can also track key events in Google Ads campaigns by visiting Advertising > Planning > Google Ads. You can input the Google Ads campaign ID to view performance data for a specific campaign.

Utilize UTM Parameters for Product Listing Ads

For PLAs, adding UTM parameters helps differentiate traffic sources:​

• Append UTM parameters to the ‘link’ attribute in your product feed. 

For example: 

Add ‘?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=free_listings.​’ at the end of your URL. 

UTM parameters help you identify the source, medium, campaign, term, and content that redirect potential customers to your site. These parameters come in handy when running multiple ads.

Important: Through our research, we found advertisers prefer performance data captured in Google Merchant Center and Google Ads rather than Google Analytics. This is due to issues like data inaccuracy in Google Analytics. Therefore, you can limit tracking data from your Google Ads and GMC accounts.

Product Disapprovals & Troubleshooting Tips

If you face product disapproval from Google, know that it is common among merchants, especially beginners. Your immediate step must be fixing them because disapproved products can impact visibility and prevent your ads from running. 

Common issues merchants face, and the fixes include:

1. Missing or Invalid Product Identifiers (GTIN, MPN, Brand)

Issue: Google mandates unique product identifiers for branded products. Missing or inaccurate GTIN, MPN, or Brand can lead to disapproval.

Fix: –

• Fetch GTINs directly from manufacturers or verify them using the GS1 database.
• For custom or handmade products that do not have GTIN or MPN, set identifier_exists to FALSE in your product feed

2. Pricing and Availability Mismatch

Issue: Your products might be disapproved if Google finds discrepancies in the product feed and landing page regarding price or stock status.

Fix:

• Implement structured data markup on product pages to reflect accurate pricing and availability.
• Enable Automatic Item Updates in Google Merchant Center to allow real-time synchronization.
• Ensure there’s no mismatch in currency formats in your feed and website. 

3. Violation of Shopping Ad Policies

Issue: Non-compliance with Google’s advertising policies, including prohibited content or misleading information, can lead to account warnings or suspensions

Fix:

• Avoid promotional text (e.g., “Free shipping,” “50% Off”) in product titles or descriptions.
• Ensure your website includes clear refund and return policies, privacy policies, and terms of service.
• Do not promote prohibited items or make misleading claims. 
• Review Google’s Shopping ads policies.

4. Landing Page Problems

Issue: Broken, inaccessible, or slow-loading landing pages and a mismatch in the information provided in ads and on the landing page can lead to product disapproval.

Fix: 

• Use Google PageSpeed Insights to assess and improve page performance.
• Ensure the information is the same and up-to-date on Google Shopping ads and on your landing page.

Tip: Check the Diagnostics tab in GMC to review specific errors and warnings. Go to Merchant Center > Products > Diagnostics. Review Item-level issues, Account-level issues, and Feed-level warnings, and fix them.

Conclusion

Product Listing Ads are a must-have for any online retailer looking to stand out in a crowded marketplace. With their visually rich format and high purchase intent, PLAs offer a powerful way to drive qualified traffic and boost sales. 

However, keep in mind that it is essential to continuously test, analyze, and refine your campaigns. Whether it’s optimizing product titles, adjusting bids, or experimenting with custom labels, ongoing improvements can make a significant difference. 

FAQs

What is a product listing ad?

Product listing ads, also known as Google Shopping ads, is a paid ads program. These ads contain product titles, images, prices, shipping details, etc. They are displayed across Google search results, Shopping, Images, YouTube, and other Google partner websites.

What is the difference between PLA and PCA ads?

Product Listing Ads and Product Contextual Ads are both paid ads. However, they differ in placement and target audience. PLAs are shown in response to specific product-related search queries, while PCAs are displayed based on the context of the webpage content the user is viewing.

For example, if a user is browsing a page about laptops, a PCA ad might show a specific laptop model or related accessories.

What is a listing ad?

A listing ad is a visual type of paid ad that displays products, services, and others. These ads are displayed on search results, online marketplaces, and other platforms.

What are the Google Shopping ads requirements?

Certain standards and requirements must be met to run Google Shopping ads. These include having an active GMC account, a Google Ads account, and a product feed. Additionally, merchants must meet product feed specifications to run ads successfully. 

Do I need a website to use Google Shopping Ads?

Yes, a merchant must have an e-commerce website, a shopping cart, and secure checkout options to be eligible to run Google Shopping ads.

How are PLAs different from text ads?

Product Listing Ads are a visual ad format that features product-related ads with details such as product title, image, price, and so on. Text ads, on the other hand, depend only on textual ad formats like search ads.

How does Google determine which products to show?

Unlike search ads that rely on keywords, Google shopping ads are triggered based on the information in the product feed. When a user performs a search on Google, the search engine scans the product feed in GMC and displays all the relevant products pertaining to the user’s search query.

What is the cost of running Google Shopping Ads?

Average CPC varies, but it typically ranges between $0.50 to $1.00 across industries.

Can I track the performance of my Shopping Ads?

Yes, you can track the performance of Google Shopping ads in your GMC account, Google Ads account and Google Analytics. However, based on our research, you can limit the tracking to Google Merchant Center and Google Ads alone. Both these platforms provide adequate and valuable performance data.

Check Out Other Articles:

• What Is E-commerce Feed Management?
• Google Shopping Product Feed Audit Checklist
• What Is Product Data Enrichment
• Product Information Management for E-Commerce
• Data Feed Optimization
• AI Feed Optimization