How to Set up Google Product Ads in 60 Seconds

By Tinuiti Team

Mar 02 2012

A while back we described the differences between each of Google’s product listing programs, of which there are many different programs as there are apples in a 4 apple tree.

And having been asked how exactly one gets to participate in them, particularly Google PLA’s (product listing ads) and PE’s (product extensions), we’ve decided to describe how to get set up:

Step 1 – Link Your Merchant Center and Adwords Accounts together

1. In your Merchant Center account, click Settings, then AdWords

2. Enter your AdWords Customer ID and click Add

Step 2 – Start a New Campaign

In Adwords, create a new campaign where you’d like to create product listing ads. Make sure that the campaign includes “Google search” under Network settings.

Step 3 – Enable It

Under Ad extensions > Products, select a linked Google Merchant Center account to associate with your campaign.

That’s it!

Google’s support page goes over the process in a bit more detail, but essentially the above steps are all you need to do to get started.

Data Feed Changes

Now that 60 seconds has passed and you’re ready to go, the following columns can be added to help further manage the process within your Google Merchant Center Data feed

Those are:

adwords_grouping – used to group products in any way you want in order to manage bids, e.g. by brands, categories, etc. Works for both CPA and CPC Google programs.
adwords_labels – similar to adwords_grouping, but it only works with the CPC programs and can hold multiple value separated by commas
adwords_publish – a simple True or False here lets Google determine if you want the product published on Product Ads or not
adwords_redirect – users that click on your ads will go to this URL instead of the “normal” URL in your feed which allows you to track Product Ads traffic separately

For more details along with examples visit Google’ support page: http://support.google.com/merchants/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=188479