Issues with Google Shopping Ads
- Issues with Google Shopping – Policy Account Suspensions
- Advertised products are prohibited or restricted by Google Policies
- Product image contains promotional text
- Language and currency requirements are not met
- Issues with a link to the landing page
- Problems with landing page content
- Issues with Google Shopping – Data Quality Account Suspensions
- Product feed data is not complete or incorrect
- Landing page quality
What are the issues with Google Shopping Ads? Find out in order to save time and effectively use the budget!
Today we’ve prepared a list of the most common issues with Google Shopping. You can treat them as a checklist while creating a Shopping Ads campaign to be sure you comply with important requirements. This way you can save time and effectively use your budget. Ready? Let’s go!
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Issues with Google Shopping – Policy Account Suspensions
Advertised products are prohibited or restricted by Google Policies – there are certain products that are not allowed to be advertised or the possibility to advertise them is restricted to some extent. These are (among others) healthcare and medicine related products, adult-adult oriented content, alcoholic beverages or political content.
Product image contains promotional text – it’s one of Google’s requirements related to the image of an advertised product. The photo must be clean, without company logos and free of any promotional wording like “free shipping” or “special discount”, etc.
Language and currency requirements are not met – both product feed in Merchant Center and the landing page content have to be in language and currency supported in the country of sale. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the official language and currency of the country. English is supported in many countries.
Both product feed in Merchant Center and the landing page content have to be in language and currency supported in the country of sale
Issues with a link to the landing page
- Store website isn’t verified and claimed – this needs to be done even before uploading any product data to Merchant Center. The positive result of website verification means that Google has acknowledged a person as an authorized owner of a website URL. Claiming means connecting this previously verified URL with the Merchant Center account.
- Link to the landing page is broken – what shoppers expect after clicking the ad is a matching landing page. Since Google cares about the pleasant experience of customers, the ad will be disapproved if the link to the landing page doesn’t work.
- Incorrect link to a landing page – in addition to the above point, remember that it’s not enough to include the link to the store’s home page. The link must lead specifically to the advertised product
- Unsecured website – since the online shop is usually involved in processing personal information from clients, it’s expected to use a secure processing server (SSL-protected). It means that the website’s URL should start with https:// and not just http://.
Problems with landing page content
- Information differs between product data (end effectively the shopping ad) and the store’s website – this point refers mainly to price. Misleading information is a quick way to have the ads disapproved. It is important to keep the product data feed up to date.
- No possibility of online purchase – all customers need to be able to finalize the purchase via the store’s What’s more, the buy button should be easy to find and the procedure should be straightforward.
- Missing refund policy – a customer needs to know the rules with regards to refund policy on the shop’s website. Even if return or refund (or both) are not possible, it also has to be mentioned.
Issues with Google Shopping – Data Quality Account Suspensions
Product feed data is not complete or incorrect – we have mentioned this in many articles on the blog already, but it really is one of the fundaments of successful Google Shopping Ads. The price, availability and condition of the product have to be up to date. The product has to have a unique identifier associated with it and the tax and shipping information has to be filed in. There are also some other specific mandatory requirements for certain products so be sure to check them once completing the product feed.
Landing page quality – even if the Shopping Ad is perfect and makes the customer click on it, the effort is futile when the quality of the landing page leaves a lot to be desired. The advertised product should have a corresponding image on the landing page and a matching description. Duplicate listings can’t happen and each product needs to have a dedicated product page. All those aspects keep the attention of customers, which means Google Shopping Ads budget is well spent.
Not only the Shopping Ads should be well prepared, but also the landing page
A Google Merchant Center account allows every user to constantly monitor issues with their products and landing page. Message center and diagnostics report are sources of all necessary notifications, so make sure to check them regularly! See below our short video guide and some related posts which should help you resolve other issues as well!
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