Google Shopping Ads Management: Standard Shopping and Merchant Center Feeds

Google Shopping ads in Türkiye: the Shopping tab

Following an investigation by the Turkish Competition Authority, Google stopped showing Shopping ads in search results in Türkiye on 10 August 2020. The campaigns themselves did not shut down: Shopping ads targeting Türkiye now run on Google's Shopping tab. Users who switch to this tab are already comparing products and prices, so our ad shows up at the same decision moment as listings from the big marketplaces and price comparison sites.

For domestic sales in Türkiye, we therefore plan Standard Shopping around the Shopping tab. Because impressions come only from this tab, volume stays more limited than in markets where ads also run in search results; we set budget and target ROAS accordingly and cover generic product queries together with Search campaigns and Demand Gen. For brands selling abroad, the same feed opens up an additional market.

Standard Shopping vs Performance Max: when we choose Shopping

In Türkiye, when users switch to the Shopping tab, they see price and image side by side. In Europe, the Gulf or the US, the same ads also appear in the most visible area of search results, so users have compared prices before they even visit the site. In both kinds of market, we choose Standard Shopping over Performance Max in these cases:

• When product-level bid and budget control is needed, for example when margins vary widely by product.
• When entering a new country and we want to see which products get clicks in that market.
• When we want full visibility of the search terms report and the ability to add negative keywords.
• When we want to build different query tiers for the same product using campaign priority (high, medium, low).

Product feed optimization in Merchant Center comes before bids

We cannot write headlines for Shopping ads; Google takes the product title from the feed. That is why most of the optimization happens in Merchant Center. If the brand also sells abroad, the correct language, currency, shipping and returns information must be defined separately for each country. Missing GTINs or inconsistent prices are the most common reasons products are disapproved.

With custom labels added to the feed, we group products by margin, season and stock status. That lets us bid higher on high-margin products and remove products running low on stock from the campaign. We read post-purchase return rates together with GA4 and order data; for a product with high returns, we cut its budget even if its ROAS looks good on paper.

• Title order: brand, product type, key attribute, then size or color
• Language and currency through a separate feed or supplemental feed per country
• Margin and season groups in custom labels
• A weekly diagnostics report to check disapproved products

Shopping Campaigns: when do we recommend it?

How we manage Shopping Campaigns

1. Surface and market planWe build the plan for Türkiye around the Shopping tab, and for markets abroad around search results country by country.
2. Feed cleanupWe fix titles, GTINs, product types and country-specific shipping details and clear up disapproved products.
3. Product groupsWe set up margin and season groups with custom labels and tie bids to these groups.
4. Query tiersUsing campaign priority and negative lists, we route generic and branded queries to separate campaigns.
5. Product-level readoutEvery week we weed out products that spend without selling and increase budget for the winners.

Shopping Campaigns: metrics and requirements

The Brand Move Google Ads Team

To learn more about Shopping Campaigns or other Google Ads ad formats, contact The Brand Move Google Ads team today.

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