MarketingBeginnerPreview
Google Shopping & Merchant Center
A practical, feed-first course on running profitable Google Shopping campaigns. You will set up Merchant Center, fix feed errors, structure campaigns, and optimize bids against real competitor prices.
Store owners, marketing assistants, and new PPC managers who need to launch and improve Google Shopping for a product catalog.
Course content
Workbook & downloads
Put the course into practice — a printable workbook plus editable templates you can fill in and reuse.
Preview the workbook
This workbook turns the course into action on your own store. You will configure Merchant Center, audit and rewrite your feed, structure live campaigns, and run a weekly optimization routine. Work through each section with a real catalog open in another tab; the templates at the end are built to be filled in directly.
Merchant Center Foundations
Stand up a verified Merchant Center account with correct business, tax, and shipping settings.
Checklist: Account Setup Verification
Confirm each item is complete before submitting any feed. An unchecked box here will disapprove products later.
- Merchant Center account created with the correct country of sale and currency
- Website URL claimed and verified using the exact www or non-www form your feed will use
- Display name set to the brand customers recognize, not a legal entity name
- Customer service contact (phone or email) added to business information
- Google Ads account linked and auto-tagging enabled
- At least one shipping service created covering every region you sell to
- Tax configured correctly for your country (US settings vs price-inclusive elsewhere)
Worksheet: Store Configuration Record
Fill in your actual account values so you have one source of truth and can spot mismatches between Merchant Center, Google Ads, and your store.
- Legal business name
- Display name shown in ads
- Verified domain (exact form, e.g. https://www.store.com)
- Country of sale
- Store currency
- Verification method used
- Shipping service name and rate model
- Free-shipping threshold (if any)
- Tax handling (US settings / price-inclusive / excludes tax)
Exercise: Price Consistency Spot Check
Pick three products and trace the price from your store to the feed to confirm Google will see the same number a shopper does.
- For each product, write the price shown on the live landing page including any on-page structured-data price.
- Write the price your feed source submits for the same product.
- After applying your tax and shipping rules, do the two prices reconcile? If not, name the exact setting causing the gap.
Building a Winning Product Feed
Audit required attributes, rewrite titles, and clear disapprovals.
Checklist: Required Attribute Audit
Open your feed and confirm every product carries each required and high-value attribute. Tick only when it is true for the whole catalog.
- Every product has a unique, stable id
- Titles are present and under 150 characters
- Descriptions are present and specific, not placeholder text
- link points to the verified domain and loads without redirect chains
- image_link meets size rules with no watermark or promotional text
- availability matches live stock for every product
- price and currency match the landing page
- brand is set on all branded products
- gtin is present where it exists, or identifier_exists is set to no
- google_product_category is assigned for accurate categorization
Exercise: Title Rewrite Drill
Rewrite the titles of your five highest-margin products using the front-loading and attribute-stacking method from the course.
- Write the exact noun a shopper would type for each product (e.g. running shoes, not footwear).
- Draft a new title placing brand and the highest-intent attributes before character 70.
- Strip any promotional words (sale, best, free, amazing) and confirm the title honestly matches the landing page.
- Count the visible characters and confirm the key terms survive the roughly 70-character cutoff.
Worksheet: Disapproval Triage Log
Pull the Needs attention and Diagnostics lists and record the top issues by affected item count, fixing disapprovals before warnings.
- Issue name as shown in Merchant Center
- Severity (error / warning / notification)
- Number of products affected
- Likely root cause (price mismatch, image, GTIN, availability, landing page)
- Fix to apply
- Owner
- Status (open / fixed / verified)
Launching Shopping Campaigns
Choose a campaign type, structure by margin, and verify value-based conversion tracking.
Worksheet: Campaign Type Decision
Decide deliberately between Standard Shopping and Performance Max for each product set so the two never quietly overlap.
- Product set or category
- Conversion history available (yes / no / limited)
- Chosen campaign type (Standard Shopping / Performance Max)
- Reason for the choice
- Feed label or listing group controlling which products it targets
- Audience signals to add (PMax only)
Exercise: Margin-Based Structure Plan
Design a starting campaign structure using three to five segments driven by margin and price, not revenue.
- Assign each product a margin band (high / mid / low) and record it as custom_label_0.
- Assign a price band (e.g. under-25, 25-100, over-100) as custom_label_1.
- Decide a starting bid or Target ROAS per margin band and justify each from break-even math.
- Confirm no single group is so small it cannot collect roughly 30 conversions per month.
Checklist: Conversion Tracking and Launch Readiness
Do not launch until every box is true. Value tracking errors silently break all automated bidding.
- Purchase conversion action set to use a dynamic value from the cart total
- Currency on the conversion matches the store currency
- Conversion verified firing on a real test order with Google Tag Assistant
- Counting setting chosen (every conversion for purchases)
- Break-even ROAS calculated per margin band
- Starting daily budget sized from CPC and target daily clicks
- Budget set to hold steady for the first two weeks of learning
Bidding and Price Positioning
Select a bid strategy, act on competitive price signals, and run the weekly routine.
Worksheet: Bidding Strategy Transition Plan
Map your staged move from manual or click-based bidding to value-based automation as data accumulates.
- Current conversions in the last 30 days
- Current strategy in use
- Trigger to move to Maximize Conversion Value (e.g. ~15 conversions)
- Observed actual ROAS to anchor the first Target ROAS
- First Target ROAS value to set
- Plan if volume drops sharply after setting the target
Exercise: Price Positioning Analysis
Use the price competitiveness and best sellers reports to find overpriced winners and model a profitable price move.
- List the five products sitting furthest above the price benchmark.
- For one overpriced product with impressions but few clicks, propose a price cut that closes most of the gap.
- Model whether the expected lift in conversion rate raises total profit despite lower per-unit margin.
- Note any best sellers across Google that you do not yet stock as a range opportunity.
Checklist: Weekly Optimization Routine
Run this same checklist every week per account and log each change with a date and reason.
- Cleared any new Merchant Center disapprovals
- Reviewed the search terms report and added relevant negative keywords
- Checked product-level ROAS and paused or relabeled persistent losers
- Scanned price competitiveness for newly overpriced items
- Adjusted Target ROAS only where a clear trend persisted for a week or more
- Recorded every change in the change log with date and reason
Your Action Plan
- Create and verify Merchant Center with correct business, currency, shipping, and tax settings.
- Submit your product feed and clear every disapproval before spending a cent.
- Rewrite titles for your top 20 percent of products by margin using the front-loading method.
- Tag the catalog with custom_label_0 (margin band) and custom_label_1 (price band).
- Set up purchase conversion tracking that passes a dynamic order value and currency, then verify it on a test order.
- Calculate break-even ROAS per margin band so no target is set below profitability.
- Launch a Standard Shopping campaign first to gather product and search-term data.
- After 15 or more conversions, move to Maximize Conversion Value, then add a realistic Target ROAS.
- Use the price competitiveness and best sellers reports to reposition overpriced winners.
- Run the weekly optimization routine and log every change with a date and reason.
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