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Google Shopping and Performance Max Tutorial for Shopify: Merchant Center, Free Listings, Your First Campaign and the Settings to Turn Off

Vincent Fredet·Founder of Scale Ova
Updated on ·19 min read
Google Shopping and Performance Max Tutorial for Shopify: Merchant Center, Free Listings, Your First Campaign and the Settings to Turn Off

This tutorial assumes your store is live, with no password, and with shipping and payments set up. If not, start by setting up shipping and payments.

On Meta or TikTok, you go after people who weren't thinking about your product. On Google, it's the other way around: they're already looking for it. They type "fig scented candle" or "adjustable laptop stand," and Google shows them products, with photo, price and store name. Showing up in those results means meeting someone who's ready to buy.

The catch is that the whole setup nudges you to let Google's AI make the calls. The Shopify app offers Performance Max first, and Performance Max turns on settings by default that rewrite your text, swap your landing pages and make videos for you. This tutorial takes the route that shows you where every dollar goes.

The Google and Shopify screens and rules quoted here were checked against their help pages on September 23, 2026.

Is Google Shopping right for your product?

Search Google for the words your customer would use to find your product. If Shopping ads show up, with products like yours, the demand exists: Google is a good channel. If nothing shows up, or only very different products, your product has to create its own demand, and Meta or TikTok will fit better. Choosing your channel based on your product walks through that logic.

On Google, your customer compares. Your price, photo and title sit right next to your competitors'. Look at the prices shown: if yours is much higher and neither the photo nor the title explains why, work on your offer first.

Step 1: get your store ready before Google sees it

Google reviews your whole store, not just your products. According to Shopify's help center, the Google & YouTube channel requires:

  • a store with no password and an active payment provider;
  • a refund policy and terms of service linked from your footer menu;
  • a page with your contact information that customers can see: at least an email address, a phone number, a mailing address or a contact form;
  • shipping rates for the country you sell to. Only the rates in your general shipping profile sync: a custom profile causes errors in Merchant Center.

Merchant Center adds its own guidelines: a return policy stated even if you don't accept returns, at least one conventional payment method, terms of sale shown before purchase, and a checkout that works all the way through. To avoid the most dreaded suspension, for "misrepresentation," its help center also recommends an About us page that explains what your business does.

Step 2: connect Shopify to Google Merchant Center

  1. In the Shopify App Store, install the Google & YouTube app. It's free; your ads are billed by Google.
  2. Connect your Google account, then create or link your Google Merchant Center account. Your store's domain is claimed automatically. If you link an account that already had a product feed, the app overwrites it to avoid conflicts.
  3. Verify your identity with the 6-digit code you get by text message.
  4. Under Countries and languages, pick what syncs from Shopify Markets.
  5. Import your shipping rates from Shopify automatically.
  6. Fill in what Google requires on your products: the Google product category, and the GTIN if your product has one. Without a GTIN, add an MPN (manufacturer part number) and a brand. Shopify's help center also notes that product options, including variants, must be in English to sync.

Google then reviews your products: three to five business days for Shopping ads, sometimes a few weeks for free listings. The app sums up where they stand.

The Google & YouTube app in Shopify: Google Merchant Center active, 24 products with 19 approved, 2 limited, 3 not approved and 0 under review, and a Fix your disapproved products card with a Fix issues in Merchant Center button
The app's summary: 19 approved products, and 3 disapproved ones to fix before you pay for a single click.
  • Approved: the product can show on Google.
  • Limited: it shows, but not everywhere or without all its information, for example in one country and not another.
  • Not approved: it doesn't show anywhere. The reason is in Merchant Center's Needs attention tab. Fix it in Shopify and the app syncs again.

A case from r/shopify: a UK merchant who sells online only saw almost their whole catalog turn "limited" without changing a thing. Google support had them uncheck free local listings in Merchant Center's Shopify data source, and the products were back to green within 24 hours. If you don't have a physical store, check that box.

Step 3: show up on Google Shopping for free

Yes, Google Shopping can be free. With the Google & YouTube app, your products are automatically opted in to free listings: once approved, they can show up at no cost per click on the Shopping tab, Google Search, Google Images and YouTube. That's traffic from people looking for your product: keep it on even if you're not planning to advertise. Paid ads take the top spots and also appear at the top of search results.

Selling in the EU? A CSS stands between Google and you. In the European Union, Shopping ads and free listings go through a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS). Google Shopping is one, and you can use others alongside it from Merchant Center. Google states that a merchant never bids against itself, however many CSSs represent it. This setup came out of the Google Shopping case: in 2017, the European Commission fined Google for favoring its own comparison shopping service, and the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld the €2.4 billion fine on September 10, 2024. If you only sell in the US, this doesn't apply to you.

Step 4: a product feed Google understands

On Google Shopping, you don't pick keywords: Google reads your product listings to decide when to show them. Your feed is your campaign.

Element What works
Title The words your customer types: product type, key feature, size, color. 150 characters max, the essentials first. "Fig Scented Candle, Soy Wax, 40-Hour Burn" rather than "Aurora Candle"
Image The product alone and sharp, on a white or transparent background, or in use. No promotional text, watermarks, logos or borders
Price Identical to your product page, to the cent
Availability Up to date: an out-of-stock product listed as available causes problems
Shipping The same rates and times as your store
Identifiers The GTIN if there is one, otherwise the MPN and brand

Your Shopify titles are often written for the brand. For Google, they need to describe the product. The app lets you set title and description preferences for Google without touching your store, and offers Product Studio to edit a photo. Keep in mind that Google may show AI-optimized titles in your Shopping ads even when you turn text customization off: a clear title from the start limits the rewrites.

Step 5: avoid a "misrepresentation" suspension

It's every new store's nightmare. Google treats misrepresentation as an egregious violation: it can suspend your account upon detection, without prior warning, and your products disappear from both ads and free listings. For most other issues, Google sends a warning first, with 7 or 28 days to fix things.

On r/shopify, the stories sound alike:

  • In a thread about a home decor store stuck for three months, a very active commenter points out that a product problem would get the product disapproved, not the whole account: look at your policies and contact details.
  • In the same thread, another merchant says everything was fine with free listings, and the suspension hit when they launched paid ads, which trigger a deeper review.
  • A third checked every box on the official list. They were missing an FAQ page and a display of accepted payment methods, which a Google contractor had listed for them.

What protects your store:

  • an About us page that says who you are, where you ship from and what you sell;
  • your own identity, not photos and copy lifted from a supplier or another store;
  • promises you keep: real delivery times, no fake compare-at prices, no made-up reviews;
  • the same information everywhere: identical prices, availability and shipping in your store and in Merchant Center;
  • an FAQ page and your payment methods on display: they cost nothing, and they reassure your customers as much as Google.

If Google disapproves your products or suspends your account, fix everything on your store first. Only then request a review from Merchant Center: for disapproved products, Products > Needs attention, then Request review. Merchants describe a waiting period before you can ask again: don't waste the first one.

Step 6: your first paid campaign, in Standard Shopping

The Google & YouTube app offers to launch a Performance Max campaign. It's Google's version of Meta's Advantage+ or TikTok's Smart+: you hand over your feed and a budget, and Google's AI decides where to show your ads. And "where" means everywhere: the Shopping tab, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Discover and Maps.

For a first campaign, pick a Standard Shopping campaign, created directly in Google Ads:

Standard Shopping Performance Max
Where your products show Shopping tab, Google Search, Google Images, plus search partners if you leave them on Every Google channel, YouTube and Display included
What you pay for Clicks only Clicks, plus impressions for YouTube videos
What you control Bidding, max cost per click, networks, negative keywords Budget, goal, negative keywords; Google decides the rest
Bidding with no sales history Maximize clicks, which doesn't need conversions Maximize conversion value

On r/PPC, advertisers say the same thing. An auto parts seller had set up a "feed-only" Performance Max campaign, with no creative and auto-created assets turned off: it still spent on Display. Another advertiser's reply: feed-only Performance Max isn't a thing anymore, Google serves on every network. In another thread, a similar campaign got about 60% of its clicks from YouTube. And one of the forum's most active commenters sums it up: Standard Shopping is great for starting out, or when you have few conversions.

To create the campaign:

  1. In Google Ads, click the + button, then New campaign.
  2. Choose the Sales objective, then the Shopping campaign type. Google offers to switch you to Performance Max: continue with the Shopping campaign.
  3. Select your Merchant Center account (it can't be changed later) and name the campaign.
  4. On the Budget and bidding optimization page, choose Maximize clicks, check the CPC bid limit and enter your cap (the math comes right after). Daily budget: $5. Leave customer acquisition at its default, bidding the same for new and existing customers, and don't touch campaign priority.
  5. On the Campaign settings page, set the location to your country. Open More settings, then Networks: keep Google Search Network and uncheck Google search partners. If you only sell online, leave local inventory ads turned off.
  6. Ad group: just one, with all your products, or only the ones with similar margins. The ad group bid only applies to Manual CPC: skip it.
  7. Check the summary, then click Publish campaign.

If Maximize clicks doesn't show up during setup, create the strategy under Tools > Budgets and bidding > Bid strategies, then apply it to your campaign.

Why uncheck search partners? They're third-party search sites. You don't get to choose which ones, and your small budget works harder on Google itself. You can test them later, in a separate campaign.

A Shopping campaign's settings in Google Ads: Google Search Network checked, Google search partners unchecked, Maximize clicks bidding with a $0.30 CPC bid limit and a $5.00 daily budget
The settings to double-check once the campaign is live: Search Network only, Maximize clicks capped at $0.30, $5 a day.

How much should you budget for Google Shopping?

Google doesn't list a minimum budget. For a Performance Max campaign, Merchant Center tells beginners to start small, with $15 a day as its example. The real math starts from your margin.

Your max cost per click. Take the example from your first Meta campaign: a product that sells for $31 and leaves you about $18 of margin before ads. If one visit in 60 ends in a purchase (a starting assumption, to replace with your real rate as soon as you have it), a click is worth at most $18 ÷ 60 = $0.30. That's your CPC bid limit. The break-even ROAS calculator works out your margin with all your costs.

Your daily budget. At that rate, you need about 180 clicks to see your first three sales, or $54 at your cap. Spread over two weeks, that's under $4 a day: set $5.

What you'll actually pay. The daily budget is an average. Google can spend up to twice that amount on a given day, but never more than 30.4 times it over the month: at $5 a day, your monthly max is $152.

If the campaign barely spends, Google says it itself: a limit that's too low keeps it from finding clicks. That isn't a glitch, it's information. On those searches, a click costs more than your margin allows. Rather than raising the cap at random, grow your margin per order with the average order value levers, or push a product with a better margin.

Then let the campaign run for two weeks without changes. Google advises giving Maximize clicks a few days or weeks before judging it.

Step 7: if you go with Performance Max, turn these off

If you launch from the app, here's the path: in Google & YouTube, the Performance Max card sends you to Merchant Center, which only asks for a daily budget and a name. Bidding is set to Maximize conversion value. Ads can take up to 48 hours to start, and Google recommends waiting at least 14 days before changing settings. For everything else, open the campaign in Google Ads, go to Settings, then Asset optimization. That's where the default-on settings get turned off.

1. Text customization, formerly "automatically created assets." On by default, it writes headlines and descriptions from your landing page, your domain and your ads. Uncheck it under Text.

2. Final URL, meaning Final URL expansion. On by default, it can send your customer to a different page on your site than the one you picked, with a headline and description generated for that page. Uncheck it in the same place.

3. Video enhancement. Uncheck it under Video. And if you don't upload any video, Performance Max makes some from your text, images or Merchant Center feed: upload your own, even a simple one.

The Asset optimization section of a Performance Max campaign in Google Ads: Text customization and Final URL unchecked under Text, Enhancement unchecked under Video
Asset optimization: the three default-on boxes, unchecked before saving.

4. Negative keywords and brand exclusions. Add the searches you don't want to pay for. In Performance Max, negative keywords only apply to Search and Shopping inventory.

5. Recommendations. Don't apply them in bulk, and don't turn on auto-apply. On r/PPC, an advertiser lowered their target ROAS as Google suggested: spend went up 60% and ROAS dropped 30%. The most upvoted reply: "if I had a dime for every time one of these posts started with following one of Google's recommendations."

Two limits to know. Some other AI enhancements to your ads can't be switched off in the interface: Google's help center points you to support. And to see where your money goes, open Campaigns > Insights and reports > Channel performance: it breaks spend down across Shopping, Search, YouTube and Display, and flags feed or Merchant Center account issues. Finally, don't put the same products in a Performance Max campaign and a Standard Shopping campaign: advertisers on r/PPC advise against it, since both campaigns fight over the same searches.

Step 8: read your results and exclude bad searches

After a week, open Campaigns > Insights and reports > Search terms. That's the upside of Standard Shopping: you see every search that triggered clicks, and what it cost you.

The Google Ads search terms report for the last 7 days: five searches with their clicks, cost and conversions, with how to make a candle and free candle checked to be added as negative keywords
One week of the campaign: two searches with no intent to buy, checked to be excluded.

Read the example, with the $31 candle and $18 of margin:

  • Cost: 117 clicks for $29.32, or $0.25 on average, under the $0.30 cap.
  • Profitability: 2 sales at $31, so $62 in revenue. ROAS: 62 ÷ 29.32 = 2.11, above this product's 1.72 minimum. The campaign makes a little money: 2 × $18 of margin, minus $29.32, leaves $6.68.
  • Searches to exclude: "how to make a candle" and "free candle" cost $7.70, more than a quarter of the budget, for people who weren't looking to buy a candle. Check them, then Add as negative keyword. Without them, the week would have cost $21.62 for the same two sales, leaving $14.38 of margin.
  • The search to keep: "natural soy candle," 19 clicks and no sales. It's too early to tell, and the intent is right. Look at it again next week.

The rule: exclude a search for its intent, not for its results over a handful of clicks.

The other numbers tell you where to look:

  • Few impressions: check Merchant Center first (disapproved or limited products) before raising the budget.
  • Impressions but few clicks: your title, photo or price is losing to the competitors shown next to you.
  • Clicks but no sales: compare with visits in Shopify, then look at your product page, your shipping costs and your checkout.

The full diagnosis is in reading your campaign numbers.

When should you change bidding? For a Shopping campaign, Target ROAS needs at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days. Until then, keep Maximize clicks and your cap. After that, you can switch to Target ROAS, set at your minimum ROAS, then raise your budget in steps.

Costly mistakes

  • Paying before your store is compliant and your feed is clean.
  • Forgetting free listings, which cost nothing.
  • Launching the app's Performance Max with its default settings.
  • Leaving Google search partners checked on a small budget.
  • Putting the same products in a Performance Max campaign and a Standard Shopping campaign.
  • Never opening the search terms report.
  • Applying Google's recommendations without redoing your margin math.
  • Judging before two weeks, or on a handful of clicks.

No store yet? You can generate one with Scale Ova from your product, look at it and edit it for free, and only pay when you publish it to Shopify.

FAQ

How do I get my Shopify products on Google Shopping?
Install the Google & YouTube app, connect your Google account, create or link your Merchant Center account, then fill in the Google category and identifiers for your products. The app syncs your catalog. Once approved, your products can show up for free.
Is Google Shopping free?
Free listings cost nothing, and the Shopify app opts you in automatically. Shopping ads and Performance Max are paid: per click, and per impression for Performance Max's YouTube videos.
How long does it take to show up on Google Shopping?
Google reviews your products in three to five business days for Shopping ads, and sometimes a few weeks for free listings. A Performance Max campaign created from Merchant Center can take up to 48 hours to start.
Why was my Merchant Center account suspended?
Most often for "misrepresentation": missing contact details, an unclear return policy, shipping not shown, no About us page, or prices and availability that differ between your store and your feed. Google can suspend without warning. Fix everything on your store before you request a review.
What's the minimum budget for Google Shopping?
Google doesn't list one. Work out your max cost per click from your margin instead: with $18 of margin and one sale per 60 visits, $0.30. At $5 a day, you get enough clicks in two weeks for your first sales, and you won't go over $152 for the month.
Performance Max or Standard Shopping for beginners?
Standard Shopping. You only pay for clicks, you see the searches and you exclude the bad ones. Performance Max also runs on YouTube and Display, where a small budget gets spread thin. Save it for later, once you have steady sales.
How do I turn off automatically created assets in Performance Max?
They're now called "text customization." In the campaign settings, under Asset optimization, uncheck Text customization and Final URL under Text, then Enhancement under Video. Upload your own video, or Google will generate one.
What is a CSS for Google Shopping?
A Comparison Shopping Service that places your Shopping ads and free listings. In the European Union, going through a CSS is mandatory. Google Shopping is one, and you can use several without bidding against yourself. It doesn't apply if you only sell in the US.
Is a "limited" product in Merchant Center a problem?
No. The product shows, but not everywhere or without all its information. Open the details in Merchant Center: a country, a shipping detail or an identifier is often missing.

Sources

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