Google Shopping campaigns

Google Shopping campaigns display your products as Shopping ads on Google Search and the Shopping tab. Vendably builds and manages these campaigns from within your Google Ads account, using the product data you have already connected in DataHub.

What you need before creating a Shopping campaign

Three things must be in place before Vendably can create a Shopping campaign:

1. A connected Google Ads account. See connecting Google Ads if you have not done this yet.
2. A connected product source in DataHub. See connecting a product source for setup instructions.
3. A Google Merchant Center account that Vendably can link to your Google Ads account.

How Vendably connects your feed to Google

Once your product source is connected, Vendably distributes your product feed from DataHub to Google Merchant Center automatically. It then creates the Merchant Center to Google Ads product link on your behalf. This link is idempotent: if it already exists, Vendably leaves it in place rather than creating a duplicate. Your Shopping campaign reads products directly from that Merchant Center account.

You do not need to export a feed file manually or configure the Merchant Center link yourself.

Creating a Shopping campaign

1. Go to Ads in the main navigation and open Campaigns.
2. Click Create campaign and choose Shopping as the campaign type.
3. Select the Merchant Center account to pull products from.
4. Select the product source you want this campaign to use.
5. Set your bidding strategy (for example, Target ROAS or manual CPC) and your daily budget.
6. Review the campaign settings and click Create.

Vendably submits the campaign to Google Ads and begins syncing your feed. Performance data is fetched daily and displayed in the campaign dashboard.

CSS advantage

Vendably operates as a Google-approved Comparison Shopping Service (CSS). Shopping campaigns running through a CSS typically see click costs up to 20% lower than campaigns running through Google Shopping directly, because Google applies a different auction treatment to CSS traffic. See CSS vs paid Shopping for a full explanation, and Google Shopping feed setup for guidance on optimising your feed before launch.

What Vendably manages automatically

After a Shopping campaign is live, Vendably handles the following without manual intervention:

• Daily feed sync from your product source to Google Merchant Center.
• Re-creating or refreshing the Merchant Center to Google Ads product link if it lapses.
• Fetching campaign and product-level performance data daily.

Troubleshooting

Products not appearing in the campaign: check your feed health score in DataHub. Missing GTINs, incomplete titles, or absent images are the most common causes of product disapprovals in Merchant Center.

Merchant Center link not found: confirm that the Google account connected to Vendably has admin access to the Merchant Center account. Vendably needs that permission to create the product link.

Campaign spending zero: confirm that your product feed has approved products in Merchant Center. A campaign with no approved products cannot serve.