This blog will look at Google Shopping Feed attributes & requirements, if you don’t already have a Google Shopping feed, we can help you get started with our Google Shopping Feed Management.
There are many different attributes and requirements that are available to you in your Google Shopping Feed. Ultimately, the goal of your Google Shopping Feed is to make your Shopping ads as relevant to a potential customer as possible. This helps you to be shown when consumers are searching but also to help give customers a better picture when making a buying decision. Below, we identify what these Google Shopping Feed Requirements are, the benefits and why you might need them.
Google Shopping Feed Attributes
| Attribute | Required | Target Country | Why do it |
| Product ID | Yes | Globally | The ID must be unique to each product and would ideally be your product’s SKU. This allows you and Google to identify each product in Google Merchant Center. This should be different for every product and variant. |
| Product Title | Yes | Globally | Your product title can let consumers know about your product’s specifications i.e the brand, size and colour. Being as descriptive as possible allows you to appear for all relevant searches. Whether or not you show for a search will be down to what’s included in your product title. |
| Product Description | Yes | Globally | Just like your product title, the product description gives you the opportunity to let potential customers know about a product’s features & attributes. It’s important to be detailed to match the way that shoppers search; your ad has a better chance of being shown if you match a searchers desired product attribute. |
| Link | Yes | Globally | You need to include the product’s specific landing page so that you accurately match a user’s expectations when clicking on your ad. Directing to an individual product landing page is also beneficial by reducing the steps to a sale on your site. |
| Image Link | Yes | Globally | You need to provide a link to your product image so that you can visually display the product to shoppers. While you can be as descriptive as possible, nothing will help a shopper understand your product more than an image. Make sure the product is clearly and accurately represented so consumers can make a confident purchase decision. |
| Additional Image Link | Optional | Globally | It’s not always necessary to include additional images for a product. But, this attribute can be particularly useful when you can’t accurately display your product from one angle. It can also come in handy if you want to show your product in use as well as just displayed. |
| Availability | Yes | Globally | This attribute allows you to identify whether a product is in stock, out of stock or available to pre-order. This is necessary so that Google knows which products it can advertise; you wouldn’t want to pay for customers to visit your website and find their desired product out of stock. |
| Availability Date | Optional | Globally | If you’ve set your product’s availability to pre-order, this attribute gives you the ability to set a date to show users when a product will be shipped. This is useful for setting delivery expectations for customers but is not required. |
| Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) | Optional | Globally | Including the cost of your goods in your Google Shopping feed is useful for understanding the gross profit you’ve made through your advertising. If you choose to report conversions with cart data, and you include COGS in your Google Shopping feed, you can remove the product & labour costs from your reported revenue in Google Ads. |
| Expiration Date | Optional | Globally | If you’re only advertising a product for a certain period, this attribute allows you to set a date for when the ads should stop showing. |
| Price | Yes | Globally | Price is a requirement of Shopping Ads and helps filter the people searching for your products. If your product is too expensive for a shopper, they’re unlikely to click on your ad. If your price is competitive against other merchants, they will be more likely to continue to your website. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad; pre-qualifying with your price means you’re only paying for relevant traffic. |
| Sale Price | Optional | Globally | Adding sale price to your Google Shopping feed allows you to show consumers your particular discounted price as the current price before they visit your site. In certain situations it allows you to advertise your lower prices alongside a product’s usual price to show a customer’s savings. |
| Sale Price Effective Date | Optional | Globally | Including this attribute in your Google Shopping feed allows you to set a start and end date on your sale price. If you have a pre-planned sale, this is effective for ensuring the correct price is being displayed to consumers. |
| Unit Pricing Base Measure | Optional (Required if using Unit Pricing Measure) | Globally | This attribute indicates the measure of which the price of a product is based. For example, if the price in your Google Shopping feed is $40, and this attribute is set to 200ml, this would set the benchmark for the price per quantity of product as $40/200ml. The attribute is used when you have products of varying quantities and need to set a price that adjusts based on this ratio. |
| Unit Pricing Measure | Optional | Globally | When you have products of varying quantities and prices that change based upon the quantities, this is where you set the quantity of your particular product. For example if your price is set to $40, your unit pricing base measure is set to 200ml, and this attribute is set to 20ml, your ad’s displayed price would become $4. |
| Installment | Optional | Brazil, Mexico, US, UK, Germany, France, and Ireland. | If you have a monthly installment payment plan available for a particular product, this attribute allows you to display that in your shopping ads. This can obviously help sell your higher price items and help stay pricing misgivings consumers may have. This attribute requires you to enter the number of months and cost per month to show to consumers. (In Brazil and Mexico installments can be displayed alongside the upfront price, outside of these countries, this is the only displayed price and is only available for mobile phones and tablets). |
| Subscription Cost | Optional | Globally (Except US & Latin America) | This attribute allows you to advertise a monthly or annual subscription plan that may be included with a mobile phone or tablet. This would be useful for communication businesses that sell service contracts. You must still include the upfront costs in the price attribute. The sub attributes that must be included if you want to include a subscription cost in your Google Shopping feed are whether it’s a monthly or yearly period, how long the subscription period would last (i.e 6 months) and how much the user would need to pay per period. |
| Loyalty Points | Optional | Japan | If you have a loyalty points program, this allows you to show customers the number of points they would gain by purchasing that particular product. This could be something that helps a customer choose your product over your competitor’s product. |
| Google Product Category | Optional | Globally | This attribute allows you to override Google’s automatic categorisation of your products. Having an accurate product category helps Google understand your product and when to show it. For example, if you have a keyboard categorised as a musical instrument, Google would know not to show your ad for searches relating to computer keyboards. Being able to alter the product category in your Google Shopping feed, and select from the list of Google category options, is useful if Google has miscategorised your product. |
| Product Type | Optional | Globally | Unlike your Google Product Category you do not have to select from a list of Google categories; you can set this value to be whatever makes sense for your products and business. You will be able to identify by Product Type in Google Ads and can as such use this to set different bids and budgets for different product types. This is useful when you have priority categories which you may want to attribute more budget to. |
| Brand | Yes (for most products) | Globally | If your products have an associated brand you must include this attribute in your Google Shopping feed. The benefit in doing so is that consumers will often include brand in their searches so by including it in your feed and ads your ad is more relevant and more likely to show. This is not required for products without a recognised brand such as books, movies, music and custom made products. |
| GTIN | Yes (for most products) | Globally | A Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) is required for any product that has one. A GTIN is a global product identifier and assists Google in properly categorising your product. If someone searched for your specific brand, model and product the GTIN helps Google show the exact product and not just a similar one. |
| MPN | Not unless there is no associated GTIN | Globally | Like the GTIN, MPNs are used to uniquely identify a specific product. Once again it assists Google in showing the correct product ad for a specific search term. |
| Identifier Exists | Optional | Globally | This attribute helps you identify when a product does not have one of the assigned identifying attributes of Brand, GTIN or MPN. If you have a product which does not require these identifiers, you can set this attribute to ‘No’. This will stop those products from becoming disapproved in Google Merchant Center. This attribute should only be set to ‘No’ for products that have no assigned brand, GTIN and MPN. |
| Condition | Not unless your product is ‘used’ | Globally | If your product is second hand, used or refurbished, this attribute allows you to identify in your Shopping Ad what condition the product is in. This value can be set to new, used or refurbished. |
| Adult | Yes (for adult products) | Globally | For products with adult content such as nudity or sexually suggestive content, this attribute must be marked with ‘yes’. This is to ensure that your products only target an adult audience. |
| Multipack | Yes (if multipack product) | Australia, Brazil, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US | A multipack is merchant defined. If you’ve decided to sell multiples of a defined product this attribute allows you to identify in your Shopping ad how many products are in your multipack. Note that if you’re selling a manufacturer created multipack as a single product you do not need to enter a value for this attribute. |
| Is Bundle | Yes (if product is in a bundle) | Australia, Brazil, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US | This attribute allows you to identify in your Shopping ad that your product is a bundle. This is a collection of products with a definitive main product. This helps give shoppers clarity on what they’re purchasing and will prove to be more relevant to a shopper searching for a bundle of products. |
| Energy Efficiency Class | Optional | EU & Switzerland | If you are targeting the EU and Switzerland, it is highly recommended that you include Energy Efficiency Class for eligible products. This gives customers an understanding of the energy efficiency of electronic products by displaying the energy class. Once again, including this attribute will provide a fuller more relevant picture to shoppers and either encourage relevant traffic or discourage irrelevant traffic. |
| Age Group | Yes (for apparel) | Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US | For age based variants of a product it’s important to include the age group attribute so that your ads are as detailed and granular as possible, matching to relevant searches. There’s no sense in offering your age group specific products to the wrong demographics. The available options are newborn, infant, toddler, kids, adult. |
| Colour | Yes (for apparel) | Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US | Providing the colour of the product in your Google Shopping feed and ads helps consumers identify their desired products and will match to specific search terms that include colour. Again, although optional when advertising outside of the countries to the left, it is recommended to include this attribute so that your ads are as detailed and granular as possible. |
| Gender | Yes (for apparel) | Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US | This attribute is to identify to shoppers the gender for which your product is intended. Once again, this is to ensure your ad is targeting a relevant audience by identifying whether your product is designed for male, female or is unisex. You are only required to identify the gender of the product for apparel when advertising in the countries on the left. |
| Material | Optional (Required if using to identify variants) | Globally | This particular attribute is useful when you have multiple products, with shared attributes, that are identified by the material they’re made from. Completing this attribute is another way of providing the most relevant ad possible to shoppers. |
| Pattern | Optional (Required if using to identify variants) | Globally | Similar to material, use this attribute to identify variants that change based upon their pattern. Once again helping to paint a fuller picture for the consumer. |
| Size | Yes (for apparel and all products available in different sizes) | Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US | Identify the size of your product with this attribute. Any of your products that are available in different sizes must be separately identified by their size. Size pre qualifies customers looking for a particular size of product, saving you money on irrelevant clicks. |
| Size Type | Optional | Globally | This attribute allows you to define the cut or shape of apparel only. The options for this value are regular, petite, oversize and maternity. Add this to your Google Shopping feed if you need to express to reach particular shoppers who are looking for those specific cuts of clothing. |
| Size System | Optional | Globally | You can use this attribute to identify the country from which your sizing is based. For example, if you have shoes that are a size 10 in Australia but size 11 in the United States, simply adding ‘US’ into this attribute helps shoppers, and Google, understand what sizing your product uses. |
| Item Group ID | Optional (Required if using to identify variants) | Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the US | If you have a group of products that come in different variations, be it colour, size, material, pattern or age group, you can use this attribute to group them. Each individual product will require a separate product ID but can share an Item Group ID, where the values in the variant attributes mentioned alter based on a product’s individual specifications. You can use the parent product’s ID for this value but remember you only need to use this attribute if your products are variants. |
| Ads Redirect | Optional | Globally | This attribute helps you to track visits to your site through your shopping ads without impeding the landing page experience. Here, you can submit additional parameters on your ad URL to allow for parallel tracking. This is helpful in that there is no additional load time necessary as the tracking happens parallel to the customer visiting your site |
| Custom Label | Optional | Globally | You can use up to 5 Custom Labels to group products for bidding, budget or promotional purposes. This is helpful if you want to distinguish a certain group of products as clearance or high priority products in your advertising strategy. |
| Promotion ID | Optional | Australia, France, Germany, India, the UK and the US | You would use the Promotion ID attribute if you were setting up a promotion in Google Merchant Center. A shared promotion ID is required on all products within a certain promotion to help Google distinguish which products to display your promotion on. This would show on those specific Google Shopping Ads to let consumers know what deals are available. |
| Excluded (And Included) Destination | Optional | Globally | This attribute allows you to distinguish which ad types you don’t want (or want) a certain product to show for. Here, you can exclude Shopping Ads or Display Ads if you don’t want your products shown in that format. When advertising in the US and France you can also exclude your products from showing in Shopping Actions. |
| Shipping | Yes | Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, and the US | Only use this attribute if you need to override your shipping information set up in Google Merchant Center for a certain product. This value should be the total cost of shipping, handling & delivery the customer might expect when purchasing this particular product. This is helpful if your product is bulky or fragile and needs different shipping considerations to your blanket Merchant Center shipping rules. |
| Shipping Label | Optional | Globally | When setting up your Google Merchant Center shipping rules, you may need to label your products so you can identify different shipping prices. This attribute allows you to do that so you can ensure that ‘bulky’ or ‘fragile’ etc. items are correctly labelled for accurate shipping rules. |
| Shipping Weight, Length, Height, Width | Optional | Globally | These attributes allow you to assign dimensions to your products if your Merchant Center shipping rules are dimension based. If you have different shipping costs for products of different weight or size, you can set up rules reflecting those costs by using these attributes. |
| Transit Time Label | Optional | Globally | If your products take different times to arrive to customers based upon their location or the product type, you can identify this in your Shopping ad. You can set this up via your shipping rules in Google Merchant Center and use this attribute to identify product groups that have different transit times. |
| Max (and Min) Handling Time | Optional | Globally | These attribute helps you identify to a customer how long they can expect their product to be shipped. Enter these values as the max or min number of days between when an order is placed and when it is dispatched. This adds more information to your Shopping Ad to give a customer the clearest idea of what they can expect before clicking on your ad and purchasing. |
| Tax | Yes | US | Only applicable when advertising in the US and Canada, this attribute allows you to override your Tax settings identified in Google Merchant Center for individual products. All other countries you should include your Tax (GST & VAT etc.) in your product’s price. This is helpful if certain products fall outside of your tax rules. |
| Tax Category | Optional | US | If you have product categories with different tax rates, you can identify them with this label. Then, you can set your tax rules in Google Merchant Center based upon these labels. |
How We Can Help
If you need help creating a Google Shopping feed and pulling through this data from your website, Dynamic Creative can help. Our software connects to your website via API integration and automatically creates a highly relevant Google Shopping Feed from your product data. If you already have a feed but are lacking some of these attributes, we can create a Merchant Center supplemental feed which you can add to Google Merchant Center to plug your feed gaps and make sure your Google Shopping Ads are as relevant as they can be.
- Google Shopping Feed Management Services – We help our customers get their products into Google
- Google Shopping Ads Management Services – We help our customers sell products in Google
- Google Search Ads Services – We help our customers reach people that are searching for the products and services they sell
We also have some e-commerce platform specific services.
- BigCommerce Google Shopping
- Google Shopping Ads for Shopify
- Google Shopping For Magento
- WooCommerce Google Shopping
What To Learn More About Google?
Here are some blogs that will help you to further your knowledge.
- Google Ads Quiz – Should You Be Running Your Own Google Ads?
- Attribution Models In Google Ads (What & How)
- Cost Of Google Ads, Practical Ways To Save Money
- Dynamic Remarketing – Its Now Free With Smart Shopping
- Advertise My Brand, Should I? Yes, Absolutely Yes!
- Dynamic Search Ads (What And How To Actually Set Them Up)
- Set Up Google Shopping Ads For Shopify – How to Do It Successfully
Download The Ultimate Guide To Google Shopping. Its Free and Printable!
https://dynamiccreative.com/ultimate-guide-to-google-shopping/
