Setup and Configuration

Connect the following accounts to use Google for WooCommerce:

Required Google account permissions

In order to create and manage your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts through this extension, you will need to grant certain Google account permissions. Failure to grant all requested authentication scopes will prevent you from using the extension.

Claim your Google Ads account. If you connect to a newly created Google Ads account, please claim the account to grant you access to Google Ads and set up conversion measurement. You’ll be asked to set up billing when you claim your account. This step is optional and you only need to complete it if you want to create Google Ads campaigns.

When connecting your Google Account to Google for WooCommerce, you will be prompted to grant the following authentication scopes: 

• Manage your Ads campaigns. This allows the extension to create and manage your Google Ads account on your behalf. If you do not grant this access, you will not be able to create new Google Ads accounts or make changes to existing accounts via the extension.
• Manage your product listings and accounts for Google Shopping. This allows the extension to create a Google Merchant Center account, manage an existing Google Merchant Center Account, and sync your WooCommerce products to Google. This is an essential step for successfully completing onboarding. If you do not grant this access, you will not be able to use Google for WooCommerce. 
• Manage your new site verification with Google. This allows the extension to verify and claim your store’s website (or, in other words, prove to Google that you are the owner/admin of this website) in order to set up your Merchant Center account. This is an essential step for setting up your Merchant Center account through the Google for WooCommerce extension. If you do not grant this access, you will not be able to use Google for WooCommerce. Learn more about verifying and claiming your store’s website.

Please note that those permissions are unchecked by default. Clicking Continue without checking these prompts can lead to extension errors. Merchants on versions 1.6 or higher will be required to allow these permissions in order to use the extension and will be continuously prompted to do so in order to complete onboarding. 

If you are facing issues and suspect that you may not have granted all necessary permissions, perform the following steps to ensure the correct authentication scopes have been granted.

1. Revoke previous access permissions to your Google account in order to reconnect. From your Google Account’s security settings, navigate to Manage third-party access and remove access for WooCommerce. 
2. Reconnect your Google Account to Google for WooCommerce, ensuring that all necessary authentication scopes are granted. From your site’s WP Admin dashboard, navigate to Marketing > Google for WooCommerce and reconnect your Google account. Ensure that all requested scopes are granted by checking the boxes. 
3. Reconnect your Google Merchant Center and Ads accounts. Once all the necessary scopes have been granted, reconnect your Merchant Center and Ads accounts and continue setup as prompted. 

Learn more about Google’s granular account permission changes for third-party applications.

Once you create or link your Google Merchant Center account, you will also need to claim and verify your website. If you are new to Merchant Center, and there are no existing claims to your website, claiming and verification will happen automatically when you create your new Merchant Center account.

• Reclaiming a URL. If your URL is currently claimed by another Merchant Center account, you can attempt to reclaim it. Reclaiming a URL will cause any existing product listings or ads to stop running and the other verified account will be notified that they have lost their claim.
• URLs with existing product feed. If your URL has an existing product feed in Google Merchant Center, your product feed and all existing settings might be overwritten by completing the Google for WooCommerce setup.
• The Merchant Center account must belong to a Google account that has been verified via URL; only one Merchant Center account can claim a URL.
• By default, claiming also claims any sub-URLs. For example, if https://www.example.com is claimed, https://www.example.com/store is not claimable by another account.
• While it is possible to overwrite a URL claim, this can only be done with a Merchant Center sub-account (an account that was created within the Google for WooCommerce extension). Existing independent accounts do not have permission to overwrite existing URL claims.

Learn more about verifying and claiming website URLs.

Select your site language and determine your target locations. Provide your shipping and tax rate information and complete your feed setup to list eligible products on the Google Shopping tab for free. If you have any existing settings in Google Merchant Center, they will be overwritten by any new configurations you enter here in WooCommerce.

Select your site language and where you will sell your products.

• Language: Your product listings will only be displayed in your site language.
• Location: Select your target country or countries. Your eligible and approved products will be shown in all supported countries. Your store should already have the appropriate shipping and tax rates (if required) for potential customers in your selected location(s). Learn about supported countries and currencies.

Add your contact phone number and store address, which Google will use to verify your business. This information will not be displayed to customers. Next, review your pre-launch checklist and ensure that your website meets all of the Merchant Center requirements listed.

Provide your shipping information. This will be shown to potential customers on Google and may help them with their purchasing decisions.

• Shipping rates: choose from the following three options.
  • Recommended: Automatically sync my store’s shipping settings to Google.
    
    Choosing this option allows Google for WooCommerce to automatically synchronize the core shipping settings defined in your WooCommerce store with the Merchant Center. This means that any changes you make to your WooCommerce shipping settings will be automatically submitted to the Merchant Center. Flat-rate advanced costs are not supported.
    
    Currently, the extension only supports regional shipping syncing in Australia, Japan, and the United States. If regional shipping rates are defined for states/provinces or zip/postal codes of these countries in your store’s shipping zones settings, Google for WooCommerce will synchronize them with the Merchant Center. The shipping rates for all other countries are submitted at the country-wide level.
  
  The extension also does not currently support dynamically calculated carrier-based shipping.
  
  • As this happens asynchronously, it may take a while for changes to appear in your Merchant Center account. Make sure that WordPress CRON and ActionScheduler are set up properly on your store to ensure that the automatic sync works as expected.
    
    If there are duplicate shipping methods for the same region, Google for WooCommerce will choose the most expensive method (or the one with a higher value) for the minimum order amount condition.
    
    As a general rule, always check your shipping settings in Google Merchant Center after you complete the setup to confirm they are as expected.
  • My shipping settings are simple. I can manually estimate flat shipping rates.
    
    You will need to enter estimated shipping rates for all countries specified in your target audience to be able to proceed to the next step.
    
  • My shipping settings are complex. I will enter my shipping rates and times manually in Google Merchant Center.
• Shipping time:
  
  If you have chosen to enter your shipping settings manually in Google Merchant Center, you will also need to set the shipping time information there.
  
  Otherwise, if you choose to automatically sync your shipping rates (or enter an estimated flat shipping rate), you must also enter an estimated shipping time in days. This will apply to all your shipping settings. You can then modify this value manually for each of your shipping rate settings via the Google Merchant Center.
  
  You must enter a shipping time for all of the countries defined in your target audience in the previous step. If you don’t enter an estimated shipping time for all countries, you will not be able to progress to the next step; the Save changes button will remain disabled.
  
  You can edit the estimated shipping time for the chosen countries or add/remove estimated times for other countries by clicking the Edit button next to each input.

If you don’t see your Google Merchant Center account, please navigate to example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=connection-test-admin-page (replacing example.com with your domain) and check if your Google account is connected.