So Where Google Free Listing Ads Shows? & Best Feed Input methods

Bill Ready (President, Commerce) says the shift for Google Shopping won’t help with product shortages and more systemic issues with supply and demand. But it could mean smaller businesses with inventory that wasn’t available before could soon show up in search results, and it might be a lifeline for small businesses suffering to stay afloat while shelter-in-place orders remain in effect.

So Where Google Free Listing Ads Shows?

In light of these challenges, google advancing plans to make it free for merchants to sell on Google. Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings, helping merchants better connect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google. With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship but are less discoverable online.

Create a feed

In order to upload your product data in Google Merchant Center, you will first need to create a feed to which you can submit your data. This step is required for any new feed, and once a feed is registered, you can update the existing feed without having to register it again.

Primary feeds

A primary feed is the required data source that Merchant Center uses to display your products on Google. If the product data in your primary feed already meets our product data specification and policies, creating and submitting a primary feed is the only feed action you will need to take. Product data that does not meet the Merchant Center requirements can be adapted by using the advanced feed features, including supplemental feeds. In addition, you can use supplemental feeds to enhance or override your product data to improve the performance of your ads.

Use primary feeds to add or remove product data, set language and country targeting, and set feed rules for your product data. Primary feeds are the only feed type that can add or remove products.

Note: If you are submitting separate primary feeds for shopping ads and local inventory ads, make sure that you are not submitting the same products in both feeds.

Google recommends submitting all of your products in a single feed for both programs. For newly created feeds, all applicable feed destinations can be selected during feed creation. For existing feeds you want to opt into local inventory ads as an additional destination, you can do so via primary feed settings. If you need to exclude products from either shopping ads or local inventory ads, you may use the excluded_destination attribute. Learn more about excluded_destination

If you have a legacy product feed created before October 3rd, 2019, this does not apply to you and you can continue to submit offers eligible for Shopping ads and local inventory ads in separate feeds.

Create a primary feed

Primary feeds are the required data sources that you must create to advertise your products with Google through feeds. To get started, go to the "Feeds" section under the "Products" section in Merchant Center. Click the plus button in the primary feed section to create a new primary feed. Follow the prompts and provide the following pieces of information about your data:

• Country of sale: The country of sale is where your products from this feed are sold. The product data uploaded to a selected country must meet the requirements for the country for which you submit, including the feed specifications and policies. After creating your feed you can add additional countries of sale under the Feed settings tab.
• Language: The language in which your product data is written. If you select a country with multiple supported languages (such as Belgium, Canada, or Switzerland), you will be presented with a list of the supported languages of that country.
• Destination: Choose one or many feed destinations in Merchant Center to allow you to determine which Google programs can use the items in your data feed. Learn more about Merchant Center Destinations
• Primary feed name: Enter a descriptive name that helps you identify the primary feed. The feed name doesn’t need to match the name of the file you’re submitting.
• Input method: Select the one that fits your needs best:
  • Google Sheets: You can upload your data using a generated Google Sheets template, or with an existing Google Sheet with your product data. Learn more about Google Sheets
  • Scheduled fetch: Google can fetch your feed directly from your server.
  • Upload: Upload files directly to Merchant Center via SFTP, FTP, Google Cloud Storage, or manually.
  • Website crawl: If there are no feeds currently in your account, and you have the appropriate structured data on your website, Google can crawl your website to retrieve your product data. Learn more
• Filename: Depending on what input method you select, you may be prompted to enter the name of the file you'll be submitting. This name should exactly match the name of the file you created and include a valid extension.

After you have provided the information and clicked Continue, you can view and manage your newly created primary feed in the "Feeds" section of your Merchant Center account.

To manually fetch or upload a feed, click on the 3-dot icon in the processing tab of your feed and select your upload preference from the dropdown.

Raheel