How to Set Up Google Shopping: A UK Step-by-Step Guide

To set up Google Shopping, you create a Google Merchant Center account, verify your website, and add your business details, delivery costs and returns policy. Then you upload a product feed (a structured list of your products with prices, images and identifiers) and wait for Google to approve it. After that, you link Merchant Center to your Google Ads account, set up conversion tracking, and create a Shopping campaign that uses your approved products.

For a small online shop, the whole process usually takes a few days. Most of that time goes on getting the feed right and waiting for product reviews. Building the campaign is the quick part. The feed and the account setup are where most people go wrong, so that is where this guide spends most of its time.

What your website needs before you start

Google checks your website as well as your products. Many new shops get their Merchant Center account suspended for "misrepresentation" within days. Usually nothing dishonest is going on. The website is simply missing information Google expects a trustworthy shop to show.

Before you open Merchant Center, make sure your site has the following:

• A secure checkout. The whole site should run on HTTPS, and customers must be able to buy without problems.
• Clear contact details. At least two ways to reach you, such as email, phone or a physical address, on an easy-to-find contact page.
• A returns and refunds policy. Explain how returns work, the timescales and who pays for return postage.
• Delivery information. Your delivery costs and typical delivery times.
• Terms and conditions and a privacy policy. Link both from your footer.
• Accurate product pages. Each advertised product needs its own page showing the price in pounds, stock status and an "add to basket" option.
• Prices that include VAT. UK consumer prices must include VAT and match the price in your feed.

If any of these are missing, fix them first. It is much easier than getting a suspended account reinstated.

Step 1: Create and configure your Merchant Center account

Google Merchant Center is where your product data lives. Google Ads pulls your products from it to build your Shopping ads. It is free to use.

Sign up and add your business information

Sign in to Merchant Center with a company Google account that several people can access, not a personal Gmail address belonging to one person. You will be asked for your business name, address, website, customer service contact details and where you sell (online, in a shop, or both).

Make sure these details match your website. If your site says one thing and Merchant Center says another, you are inviting a review.

Verify and claim your website

Google needs proof that you own the website. You can verify it in several ways:

• Through Google Search Console, if the site is already verified there with the same account
• By adding an HTML tag to your site's header
• Through Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager, if installed and you have the right access
• Through your ecommerce platform's Google integration, which often handles this automatically

Once verified, you also claim the site. This links it to your Merchant Center account so nobody else can list products from your domain.

Set up delivery and returns

In the shipping and returns settings, tell Google what delivery costs and how long it takes. You can use flat rates, free delivery over a certain order value, or rates based on weight or price. Keep it matched to what customers see at checkout.

Add your returns policy too, including the return window and whether returns are free. Google can show some of this in your listings, and shoppers notice it.

You do not need to set up tax for the UK. The tax settings are for the United States, where prices are shown without sales tax. UK prices simply include VAT.

Step 2: Build your product feed

The product feed is the heart of Google Shopping. It tells Google what you sell, what it costs, what it looks like and whether it is in stock. Because Shopping campaigns do not use keywords the way search ads do, Google uses this information to decide which searches your products appear for.

Choose how to get your products in

The right method depends on your platform and how many products you have.

The attributes that matter most

Every product in the feed has attributes (fields). Some are required, some only for certain products, and some are optional but worth filling in. Focus on these first.

Attribute	What it is	Tips
id	Your unique product reference	Keep it stable. Changing IDs resets the history Google has built up.
title	The product name shown in the ad	Most important words first: brand, product type, key features such as size or colour.
description	A plain description of the product	Describe the product. Leave out promotional claims and delivery offers.
link	The product page address	Must go straight to the correct product, not a category page.
image_link	The main product image	Clear and high quality, with no watermarks, text overlays or borders.
price	The price including VAT, in GBP	Must match the product page exactly. Use sale_price for discounts.
availability	In stock, out of stock, preorder or backorder	Keep it current. Advertising sold-out items wastes money.
brand	The manufacturer or your own brand	Required for most new products.
gtin	The barcode number (EAN in the UK)	Supply it wherever one exists. It helps Google match your product to searches.
item_group_id	Groups variants of the same product	Essential if you sell sizes or colours of one item.
product_type	Your own category structure	Very useful later for organising campaigns and bids.
custom_label_0 to 4	Your own labels	Use them for margin, bestsellers or seasonality.

Writing titles that work

The title is the most important field you control. Google uses it to decide which searches your product matches, and shoppers read it when choosing what to click.

A weak title looks like this: "The Harbour". It may be the name you gave the product, but nobody searches for it.

A stronger version: "Soy Wax Scented Candle, Sea Salt and Driftwood, 200g Glass Jar". It says what the product is, what makes it different and the size, in words people actually type.

• Put the product type and key attributes near the start, because longer titles get cut off
• Include brand, colour, size, material or model number where relevant
• Avoid capitals for emphasis, promotional wording like "best price" and symbols
• Make each variant's title specific, for example including its size or colour

Images

Your main image should show the product clearly on a plain, light background, filling most of the frame, with no logos, "sale" badges or text. Add lifestyle shots and other angles using the additional image attribute.

GTINs and products without barcodes

Branded products made by someone else almost certainly have GTINs, and you should include them. Missing GTINs are one of the most common causes of warnings and limited performance.

If you make your own products and have never registered barcodes, set identifier_exists to "no" for those items. Do not invent barcode numbers, because Google checks them.

Variants

Each size or colour should be its own item in the feed with its own ID, price and availability, all sharing the same item_group_id. Ideally the link opens the page with that variant already selected, so the price and stock match the ad.

Step 3: Get your products approved

Once your feed is in Merchant Center, Google reviews each product. This usually takes a few working days for a new account. The products section shows how many items are approved, pending, limited or disapproved.

Check the diagnostics carefully. Google lists each issue, how many products it affects and what to do. The most common problems for new shops are:

• Price mismatch. The feed price differs from the product page, often because of a sale or VAT display.
• Availability mismatch. The feed says in stock but the page says sold out, or vice versa.
• Missing or incorrect identifiers. No GTIN where one exists, or an invalid one.
• Image problems. Watermarks, overlays, placeholders or images that are too small.
• Policy issues. Some categories are restricted or not allowed, such as certain health products and weapons.
• Misrepresentation. An account-level problem, usually caused by missing contact details or an unclear returns policy.

If products are approved but you still cannot find them, that is a different problem. Our guide on why you might not see your product in Google Shopping covers the usual causes.

Fix issues at the source, on your website or in your platform, rather than patching them in Merchant Center. Otherwise the same errors come back at the next feed update.

Keep automatic item updates switched on

This setting lets Google update price and availability based on what it finds on your product pages. It is not a substitute for an accurate feed, but it is a sensible safety net against short-term mismatches.

Step 4: Turn on free listings

Google shows products in unpaid listings on the Shopping tab and elsewhere, alongside paid ads. They cost nothing and use the same feed, so make sure your products are enabled for them in Merchant Center. They are also a useful way to check your feed works while you set up everything else.

Step 5: Set up conversion tracking

Before you spend money on ads, you need to know which clicks turn into sales. Without conversion tracking, you cannot tell which products make money, and Google's automated bidding has nothing to learn from.

1. Install the Google tag across your site (many platforms do this through their Google integration)
2. Create a purchase conversion action in Google Ads
3. Pass the actual order value, in GBP, from your order confirmation page
4. Turn on enhanced conversions if you can, for more accurate measurement
5. Place a test order and check it appears in Google Ads (it can take a few hours)

Some businesses import conversions from Google Analytics 4 instead. That can work, but the native Google Ads tag is usually the more reliable basis for bidding. Whichever you use, make sure purchases are not counted twice.

Tracking add-to-basket and checkout starts as secondary actions also helps you spot problems, such as plenty of basket additions and very few purchases. Do not bid on them.

Step 6: Link Merchant Center to Google Ads

If you do not have a Google Ads account yet, create one with the same business Google account. When signup pushes you towards a quick "Smart" campaign, switch to expert mode so you keep full control.

1. In Merchant Center, go to the settings for linked apps and services
2. Find Google Ads and enter your ten-digit Google Ads customer ID
3. Send the link request
4. In Google Ads, open the linked accounts section and approve the Merchant Center request

Once linked, your approved products are available to Shopping and Performance Max campaigns in that account.

Step 7: Choose your campaign type

You can run Shopping ads through Standard Shopping or Performance Max. Both use your feed, but they work very differently.

	Standard Shopping	Performance Max
Where ads show	Shopping results on Google Search and the Shopping tab (plus search partners if you choose)	Shopping, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover and Maps
Control	High. You choose bids by product group and can add negative keywords.	Lower. Google decides placements, bids and audiences.
Search term visibility	Full search terms report	Limited insight into search terms
What you need	A feed and a budget	A feed, a budget, and ideally images, videos and text assets
Bidding	Manual or automated	Automated only, based on conversions or conversion value
Best suited to	New accounts, tight budgets, anyone who wants to see what is happening	Accounts with solid conversion tracking and enough sales data

For most small shops starting out, we suggest Standard Shopping first. You see which search terms trigger your ads, can stop spending on irrelevant searches, and learn which products perform. Performance Max relies on conversion data, and a brand-new account has none.

That is not a hard rule, and many accounts end up running both. The key is to make a deliberate choice rather than accepting whatever Google recommends during setup.

Step 8: Build your first Standard Shopping campaign

1. Create a new campaign with "Sales" as the objective (or no goal, for full control)
2. Select "Shopping" as the campaign type
3. Choose your linked Merchant Center account and set the country of sale to the United Kingdom
4. Choose Standard Shopping rather than Performance Max
5. Name it clearly, for example "Shopping, All Products, UK"
6. Set your bidding strategy and daily budget (see below)
7. Leave campaign priority at low if this is your only Shopping campaign
8. Decide on search partners (many advertisers switch them off at the start)
9. Target the UK, using the option for people in or regularly in your targeted locations
10. Create a single product ad group and set a starting bid for "All products"

Bidding for a new campaign

A new account has no conversion history, so strategies like Target ROAS have nothing to work from. Sensible starting points are:

• Manual CPC. You set the maximum you will pay per click. Slower to manage, but complete control.
• Maximise clicks with a maximum bid limit. Google gets as many clicks as possible within budget, and the cap stops it overpaying.

Once you have a steady flow of tracked sales, you can move to Maximise conversion value and then Target ROAS. Make that switch based on data, not a date in the diary.

To set a starting bid, work backwards from your margin. If a product earns you £20 profit and roughly one in fifty visitors buys, you can afford up to about 40p per click before losing money on it. That example is purely illustrative, so use your own margins and conversion rate.

Product groups

At first, all your products sit in one "All products" group with a single bid. As you learn more, split it by brand, category, product type, custom label or item ID, and set different bids for each. This is why product_type and custom labels matter: if you have labelled products by margin, you can bid more on those that make you the most money.

Negative keywords

Shopping campaigns do not target keywords, but negative keywords stop your ads showing for searches you do not want. Start with an obvious list before launch, such as "free", "second hand", "how to make" or brands you do not stock, then add more each week from the search terms report.

Setting a budget

Your budget needs to buy a meaningful number of clicks each day, otherwise you will wait months for enough data to make decisions. The right figure depends on your prices, margins and competition. Our guide on how much a small business should spend on Google Ads explains how to work out a starting budget.

A worked example

Here is a hypothetical example to show how this fits together. It is not a real client.

Imagine a small UK shop selling handmade candles, with about sixty products on Shopify.

• Before Merchant Center: the owner adds a phone number and email to the contact page, writes a proper returns policy and publishes delivery costs.
• Merchant Center: she creates the account with the business login, verifies the site through Shopify, sets flat-rate delivery with free delivery over a set order value, and adds a 30-day returns window to match her policy.
• Feed: she connects the Google app and rewrites titles like "The Harbour" into descriptive titles with scent, wax type and size. Her own-brand candles have no barcodes, so identifier_exists is set to "no" and the brand is her shop name.
• Custom labels: best-selling scents are tagged "bestseller" and gift sets "gifting", ready for separate bids later.
• Approval: a few products show price mismatches because a sale was running. She fixes the sale price in Shopify and they are approved on the next update.
• Tracking and linking: purchase tracking with order value goes in through the Google tag, tested with a real order, then Merchant Center is linked to Google Ads.
• Campaign: one Standard Shopping campaign, UK only, search partners off, Manual CPC based on her margins, with negatives including "wholesale", "wax melts" (which she does not sell) and "candle making".

After a couple of weeks she has real search terms to review and can see which scents get clicks and which sell. Only then does she split product groups and adjust bids.

Your first 30 days: what to check

Launching the campaign is the start, not the finish.

Weekly

• Search terms report. Add negatives for irrelevant searches. This is where most early waste is found.
• Merchant Center diagnostics. New disapprovals can appear at any time, especially after price changes or new products.
• Spend by product. Look for items taking lots of clicks and making no sales.
• Conversion tracking. Check sales in Google Ads roughly match your platform's orders from paid Google traffic.

After two to four weeks

• Give your best sellers and highest-margin products their own product groups and bids
• Lower bids or exclude products that consistently spend without selling
• Rewrite titles for products with plenty of impressions but few clicks
• Check price competitiveness in Merchant Center against others selling the same products
• Consider whether you have enough conversion data to test a smarter bidding strategy

Common setup mistakes to avoid

Should you set it up yourself or use an agency?

You can set up Google Shopping yourself. If you have a small catalogue, a mainstream platform and time to learn, doing it yourself is a reasonable choice.

Where people tend to struggle is the ongoing work: fixing feed errors, dealing with suspensions, structuring product groups, reading search terms and deciding when to change bidding strategy. Experience saves money here, because every week of wasted clicks is budget you do not get back.

If you are considering help, look at how agencies charge. Some take a percentage of ad spend, so their fee rises as you spend more. At DPOM we work on a fixed monthly fee, and our Google Ads management starts from £145 a month. You can see what is included on our Google Ads pricing page. We are a Google Partner with 15 years' experience, we work mainly with small businesses, and meetings are held over video call.

If you have already set up Shopping and it is not doing what you hoped, our free Google Ads audit is a simple way to get a second opinion on your account and feed.