This article covers setting up a Google Shopping feed specifically: connecting your Google Merchant Center account and configuring a DataHub destination to export your product catalogue to Google. For connecting a store or file feed as a product source in DataHub, see Connecting a product source instead.
Once your Google Shopping feed is set up, Vendably exports your optimised product data to Merchant Center on a schedule so your Shopping listings stay current.
What you need before you start
- An active product source connected in DataHub with at least one completed import.
- A Google Merchant Center account. If you do not have one, create one at merchants.google.com.
- A Google account with access to that Merchant Center account. You will authorise Vendably with this Google account during setup.
It also helps to have a good feed health score before connecting. Products with missing or inaccurate data are more likely to be disapproved by Google Merchant Center. Fixing data quality issues in DataHub before submitting your feed reduces the time to first approved product.
How the Google Merchant Center connection works
Vendably connects to Google Merchant Center via OAuth. When you authorise Vendably, it gains read and write access to your Merchant Center product data. Your Google credentials are stored against your user account, not your merchant, so one Google authorisation can be used across multiple Vendably merchant accounts if needed.
Open the Google Shopping destination wizard from your DataHub destinations page, under DataHub in the main navigation (Destinations, in the Distribute group). Distribution destinations live under DataHub rather than Channels: DataHub owns where your product data is sent, while Channels manages the campaigns that run on it. The wizard walks you through authorising with Google and selecting the Merchant Center account you want to use. Vendably then configures the feed export with the correct field mapping for Google Shopping's requirements.
What Vendably sends to Google Merchant Center
Vendably exports your product data in Google's required format, applying any Rules Engine transformations and Content overlays before the feed is generated. The feed includes standard Google Shopping fields:
- Title and description (optimised by the Rules Engine or Content generation)
- Price and sale price
- Availability and condition
- Image URL (served from Vendably's CDN at a stable URL)
- GTIN, MPN, and brand where present
- Google product category and product type
Vendably validates each product against Google's requirements before export and flags products that do not meet them so you can fix them before they reach Merchant Center.
CSS and Google Shopping
If you are on Vendably's CSS programme, your Shopping ads run under Vendably's CSS domain rather than directly through Google's CSS. This lowers your Shopping cost per click by up to 20% at no extra charge. See CSS versus paid Shopping for how CSS and your Shopping feed work together.
After your Google Shopping feed is live
Once Merchant Center receives your feed, Google reviews each product for policy compliance. Approved products become eligible to appear in Shopping results. Disapprovals appear in your Merchant Center account with the reason; common causes are missing GTINs, inaccurate pricing (price in the feed does not match your website), and policy violations.
Check your feed health score and import logs in DataHub if you see a high disapproval rate. Vendably's Intelligence capability also surfaces feed-related gap detections in your Intelligence dashboard.