> Quick answer: Set up Google Merchant Center, upload a product feed with required attributes and clean images, link to your Google Ads account, then launch a Standard Shopping or Performance Max campaign. Product image quality is the single biggest lever you control.
What Are Google Shopping Ads?
Google Shopping ads put your product photo, title, and price directly on the search results page. Shoppers see exactly what they're buying before they click.
How Shopping ads differ from text ads
Text ads show headlines and descriptions. Shopping ads show product images, prices, and store names. Shoppers self-qualify before clicking. That tends to mean higher purchase intent and better conversion rates.
Where Shopping ads appear
Shopping ads run on Google Search, the Shopping tab, search partner websites, and YouTube. Per Google's Ads Help Center, Performance Max campaigns extend reach automatically across all of these placements.
Why product images and feeds power Shopping ads
Google pulls everything directly from your product feed. No feed, no ads. The image is the first thing a shopper sees, so quality matters as much as the data behind it.
Step 1: Set Up a Google Merchant Center Account
Create a free account at merchants.google.com. This is where all your product data lives before it reaches Google Ads.
Domain verification and claiming
Verify and claim your store domain inside Merchant Center. Google offers four methods: HTML meta tag, HTML file upload, Google Tag Manager, or Google Analytics. You can only claim one domain per account.
Configuring tax and shipping rules
Set up tax and shipping settings before submitting products. Missing or incomplete rules delay product approval and can pause your campaigns.
Understanding your product feed requirements
Your feed is a structured file describing every product you sell. Get this right first. Every downstream step depends on it.
Step 2: Create and Upload Your Product Feed
Your feed must include seven required attributes. Missing any single one causes product disapprovals.
Required product attributes
Google requires: `id`, `title`, `description`, `link`, `image_link`, `price`, and `availability`. Each value must be accurate. Google crawls your URLs to verify the data.
Image specifications and best practices
Main product images need a minimum of 100 x 100 px. Apparel products require at least 250 x 250 px. Google recommends 800 x 800 px or higher for all categories. Supported formats include JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and TIFF.
A white or neutral background is strongly recommended. The product should fill 75 to 90 percent of the image frame. You can include up to 10 additional images per product.
File format selection
Use XML for large catalogs. CSV or TSV work well for smaller ones. All three are accepted by Merchant Center.
Common image approval issues to avoid
Do not add promotional text, watermarks, or logos to your main product image. Per Google's Ads Help Center, image overlays trigger automatic disapproval and block your products from Shopping results entirely. Keep main images clean. Use separate assets for banners and display ads.
Step 3: Link Merchant Center to Google Ads
Open Merchant Center, go to Settings, then Linked accounts. Enter your 10-digit Google Ads customer ID and send the link request.
Account linking requirements
You need admin access to both accounts. The link cannot be changed after a campaign is created, so confirm your Google Ads ID before you submit.
Approval and authorization process
Approve the link from inside Google Ads under Tools, then Linked accounts. Google processes it quickly. Once approved, your products are available for campaign building.
Step 4: Create Your Shopping Campaign
In Google Ads, click New campaign and choose a goal like Sales or Leads. Select Shopping as the campaign type.
Choose campaign type: Standard Shopping vs. Performance Max
Standard Shopping gives you manual control over bids, product groups, and negative keywords. It is the better choice if you want budget transparency and targeted control.
Performance Max automates placement across all Google channels using machine learning. It requires a conversion goal and works best once you have established conversion data.
Per Google's Ads Help Center, automated bidding strategies for Shopping campaigns include Maximize Clicks, Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Maximize Conversion Value.
Set daily budget and bidding strategy
Start with a daily budget you are comfortable spending. Maximize Clicks is a safe starting point for new campaigns. Move to Target ROAS once you have enough conversion history. Your bidding strategy determines which products consume budget first. Lower bids push products into less visible placements.
Configure targeting, networks, and extensions
Standard Shopping lets you choose which search networks display your ads. Add negative keywords at the campaign or ad group level to protect budget from irrelevant queries.
Optimize Your Shopping Ads with Product Images
Your product image does most of the selling. A clean, high-resolution photo on a white background consistently outperforms a cluttered one.
How Coinis Image Ads simplifies product image generation
Coinis Image Ads generates product-ready visuals from a product URL. Paste your URL and cutting-edge AI models produce clean, high-resolution images built to meet Google Merchant Center image requirements.
No photographer. No studio. Production-ready images from a URL.
Using Smart Resize for ad variations across placements
Shopping, Display, and YouTube each have different dimension requirements. Coinis Revise Smart Resize adapts any image to every required size in one step. No manual cropping and no distortion.
Building a Creative Library for consistent asset management
Every image you generate in Coinis saves automatically to your Creative Library. Organize assets by campaign, product line, or season. Pull them instantly when you need to refresh a feed or test a new variant.
Or let Coinis do it.
From a product URL to a live Meta campaign. AI-generated creatives. On-brand copy. Direct publish to Facebook and Instagram. Real performance reporting. All in one platform.
Start free. Upgrade when you're ready.
15 AI tokens a month. No credit card.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Google Merchant Center account to run Shopping ads?
Yes. Google Merchant Center stores your product feed and is required before you can create any Shopping campaign. You must verify your domain and upload a product feed before linking to Google Ads.
What image size does Google Shopping require?
Google requires a minimum of 100 x 100 px for most products and 250 x 250 px for apparel. Google recommends 800 x 800 px or higher. Supported formats include JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and TIFF. No promotional text, watermarks, or logos are allowed on main product images.
What is the difference between Standard Shopping and Performance Max?
Standard Shopping gives you manual control over bids, product groups, and negative keywords. Performance Max automates ad placement across all Google channels using machine learning and requires a conversion goal. Standard Shopping is better for budget transparency. Performance Max is better once you have strong conversion data.
Can Coinis publish ads directly to Google?
Not yet. Coinis currently publishes directly to Facebook and Instagram. Google Ads support is on the roadmap. In the meantime, Coinis helps you generate and resize product images that meet Google Merchant Center requirements, so you can upload them to your Shopping campaigns today.