Using Shopify with Google Shopping

Linking Shopify to Google Shopping

If you own a Shopify store, it’s possible for you to also advertise your products on Google Shopping. Before you start selling your products in this way, you’ll need to follow some steps to connect the two platforms.

Should I use Google Ads in Shopify?

In short, yes.

Google Ads can be a useful tool to promote your products and increase traffic to your website. Using Google Ads can help you target the most interested shoppers who are searching for your products, and will increase the visibility of both your brand and products.

If you're a Shopify user, Bidnamic Discovery Pages can help boost conversions and reduce bounce rates

How to link Shopify to Google Shopping

1. From your Shopify admin page, navigate to settings and then apps and sales channels
2. Click on customise your store
3. Continue to the Shopify App Store and login if applicable
4. Click on connect Google account, and then select your Google account, or create a new one. Shopify will need to have access to your Google account information for this process
5. Select your Merchant Center account, or create one if you haven’t already
6. Complete the verification process that confirms you’re the owner of the Merchant Center account
7. Next to target market, click select and choose where you’d like to sell your products. From there, pick your target market and language. The currency settings of your Shopify store will affect the countries and regions you can choose from
8. If you’ve decided to go with paid marketing on Google, click select next to shipping settings and select either automatic or manual configuration of shipping rates.

Once you’ve completed these steps, products that are available in your Shopify store will automatically begin to sync with Google. When eligible, these products synced to the Merchant Center can appear on relevant Google surfaces for free.

How to get Shopify products on Google Shopping

To push your products from Shopify to Google Shopping, you’ll need to give Merchant Center your product information.

If you haven’t already done this, you’ll need to have a Google Ads account that’s linked to your Merchant Center account. You can then register a new feed.

To get your Shopify products on Google Shopping manually, follow these steps:

1. From the Shopify admin panel, click products
2. Select all products
3. Choose which products you want to add to the Merchant Center
4. Select export once you have all of your desired products
5. You’ll need to export this as either .XML or into .TXT for it to be compatible with Merchant Center
6. Upload the file to Google Merchant Center.

How to verify and claim a Shopify website in Google Merchant Center

See our step-by-step guide on how to claim a URL in Shopify.

What if your Google Shopping products aren't approved?

When selling products on Google, there are policies and terms and conditions you must follow. Violating these could lead to your products not displaying, and both your Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts could be suspended.

If your products aren’t being approved then you may have violated Google’s policies.

Depending on the violation, Google may notify you at least seven days before suspension. This will give you information on how to fix the issue. In more severe cases, Google may suspend your account with no warning. 

It’s possible to submit an appeal to Google if you feel there’s been an error and that you haven’t violated any policies.

Using Shopify with Google Shopping in multiple countries

For those wanting to sell to other countries, you’ll need to create a separate product feed in the Merchant Center for each country. This can either be done manually or via a third-party Shopify app.

You’ll need to ensure that the language indicated in your feed is available on your website: for example, if you wanted to start selling in Italy you’d need to have an Italian language version of your website. The currency shown on your product pages also needs to match the currency in your product feed in the Merchant Center. 

Depending on the target country, you might want to alter information in your product data feed so that it better matches shopper behaviour. This gives your ads a better chance of converting.

To make sure you’re on the right track, take a look at Google’s guidelines on product feed specifications and currency requirements.

How to bulk edit Google Shopping fields in Shopify

If you find yourself needing to edit Google fields for multiple products, Shopify’s bulk editing feature makes it possible - here’s how you can do it:

1. Go to the admin page of your Shopify account and click products on the sidebar
2. Click on the sales channels heading and select Google from the drop-down menu
3. Select from approved products, pending products, or not approved products
4. Place a tick in the box next to each product you’d like to edit
5. Click on edit products to be taken to the bulk editor.

Ensure you click save after making your changes.

Adding structured data to Shopify for Merchant Center

Structured data is a type of markup language that helps search engines to understand the content on a website. It provides detailed information about the website and its products, as well as things such as pricing, availability, ratings, and reviews.

Adding structured data allows Google to create rich snippets on SERPs, and it can be used to automate product feeds for Google Shopping ads.

Google recommends the use of the JSON-LD format when inputting structured data. Before doing this, however, make sure you’ve closely examined Google’s guidelines and that you appropriately define the types and properties for the different pages on your website.

How to implement structured data

You have a few options when it comes to how you implement your structured data:

You can use the Smart SEO Shopify app. This app automatically provides search engines with structured data in JSON-LD format. This automates the process, making it simpler to add structured data to your Shopify store.

Working with a certified Shopify expert is another option, which may be helpful for businesses lacking experience or knowledge of structured data.

Your third option is to implement the data manually. This is only recommended if you have experience with JSON-LD, Shopify Liquid, HTML, and schema.org. There’s a possibility of introducing errors to your website’s HTML, so this may be a risky option for those with no experience in the subject.