Google Listings & Ads

About Google Listings & Ads

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Google Listings & Ads makes it easy to connect your WooCommerce store to Google Merchant Center so you can showcase your products to shoppers across Google Search, Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and the Display Network to drive traffic and sales for your store, for free or with ads.

Once your accounts are synced, and you meet the eligibility requirements, you can list eligible products on the Google Shopping tab for free and create ad campaigns to reach more shoppers and grow your business.

Connect your store with Google Merchant Center

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Integrate with Google Merchant Center to upload your store and product data to Google. Your products will sync automatically to make relevant information available for free listings, Google Ads, and other Google services. You can create a new Merchant Center account or link an existing account to connect your store and list products across Google.

Reach online shoppers with free listings

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Showcase eligible products to shoppers looking for what you offer and drive traffic to your store with Google’s free listings on the Shopping tab. Your products can also appear on Google Search, Google Images, and Gmail if you’re selling in the United States.

Boost store traffic and sales with Google Ads

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Grow your business with Performance Max campaigns. Create a campaign to promote your products across Google Search, Maps, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, the Display Network and Discover feed. You can connect your Google Ads account, choose a budget, and launch your campaign straight from your WooCommerce dashboard.

Get started

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Installation

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1. Download Google Listings & Ads from the WooCommerce Marketplace
2. Navigate to your site’s admin dashboard
3. Locate Plugins in the sidebar menu
4. Scroll to Google Listings & Ads
5. Begin setup by clicking the Get started link

Setup and configuration

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1. Sync your store with Google and configure your free product listings

1.1 Set up your accounts: Connect your WordPress.com account, Google account, and Google Merchant Center accounts.

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.

1.1.1 Claim and verify your website: 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. Learn more about verifying and claiming website URLs on GL&A.

1.2 Choose your audience: Select your site language and determine your target locations.

1.3 Configure your product listings: 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.

1.4 Confirm your store requirements: 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.

2. Launch your paid Performance Max campaign

Google Performance Max campaigns

Create Performance Max campaigns to promote your products across Google Search, Maps, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, the Display Network and Discover feed and help grow your business.

You can connect your Google Ads account, choose a budget, and launch your campaign straight from your WooCommerce dashboard. You can also track performance, review campaign analytics and access automated reports so you can easily track performance all in one place.

Once you launch your Performance Max campaign, Google’s machine learning will optimize your ads so they appear at the right time and place to boost store traffic and sales. You can edit or pause your campaign at any time but we recommend you allow at least 15 days for your campaign to optimize before making any changes.

Helpful articles:

• About Performance Max campaigns
• Optimize Performance Max campaigns

Getting started with campaign analytics

Once your free listings and Performance Max Campaigns are set up, you will be able to track your performance straight from your WooCommerce dashboard. You can view your reports yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily. The following metrics will be visible within your reports:

Similar in Marketing

Get in front of shoppers and drive traffic to your store so you can grow your business with Performance Max Campaigns and free listings

2.1 Set up your account: Connect your Google and Google Ads accounts.

2.2 Configure and launch your paid campaign: Select your target countries, determine your budget, and set up your billing with Google Ads to launch your campaign to promote your approved products across Google Search, Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and the Display Network. After your billing is confirmed, press Launch paid campaign to activate your paid campaign.

Pausing or Editing your campaign: You can pause or edit your campaign at any time although we recommend letting your campaign run for at least 15 days without pausing or editing to allow Google’s Machine Learning to fully optimize your campaign.

General requirements

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In order to sync your WooCommerce store with Google and begin showcasing your products online, you will need to complete the following steps within your Google Listings & Ads setup:

• Set up your accounts
• Choose your audience
• Provide shipping information
• Provide tax rate information (required for US only)
• Display price including tax (merchants selling outside the US/Canada)

Set up your accounts

Connect the following accounts to use Google Listings & Ads:

• WordPress.com: Connect your WordPress.com account to Google.
• Google account: Connect your Google account with Google Merchant Center and Google Ads.

Required Google Account permissions

In order to create and manage your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts through the Google Listings & Ads plug-in, you will need to grant certain Google account permissions for the application to work as expected. Failure to grant all requested authentication scopes to the application will prevent you from using the plug-in. 

When connecting your Google Account to the Google Listings & Ads plug-in, you will be prompted to grant the following authentication scopes: 

• Manage your Adwords campaigns: This scope will allow Google Listings & Ads to create and manage Google Ads account on your behalf. If you do not grant this scope, you will not be able to create new Google Ads accounts or make changes to your existing accounts through the plug-in.
  
• Manage your product listings and accounts for Google Shopping: This scope will allow the plugin to create a Google Merchant Center account, manage an existing Google Merchant Center Account, sync your WooCommerce products to Google and is an essential step to successfully complete onboarding in the plug-in. If you do not grant this scope, you will not be able to use Google Listings & Ads plugin. 
  
• Manage your new site verification with Google: This scope will allow Google Listing & Ads to verify and claim your store’s website (or in other words, prove to Google you are the owner/admin of this website) in order to set up your merchant center account. This is an essential step in setting up your Merchant Center account through the Google Listings & Ads plug-in. If you do not grant this scope, you will not be able to use the Google Listings & Ads plugin. To learn more about verifying and claiming your store’s website see the Google Merchant Center Help article here.

Please note that those permissions are “un-checked” by default, and that clicking “Allow” on the OAuth prompt without checking these prompts can lead to plug-in errors. Merchants on versions 1.6 or higher will be required to allow these permissions in order to use the plug-in, and will be continually prompted to do so in order to continue onboarding. 

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

1. Revoke the previous access permissions to your Google account in order to reconnect: Open the Security settings for your Google Account at https://myaccount.google.com/security, then go to “Manage third party access” and remove access for the WooCommerce App. 
2. Reconnect your Google Account to Google Listings & Ads and ensure that all necessary authentication scopes are granted: To do this, in WooCommerce go to Dashboard > Marketing > Google Listings & Ads 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. 

To learn more about Google’s granular account permission changes for third party applications, see the developer blog post here.

Claiming and verifying website URLs on Google Listings & Ads

• Claim and verify your website: 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 Listings & Ads setup.
  • The Merchant Center account must belong to a Google account that has been verified on the URL, and only one Merchant Center account can claim a URL.
  • By default claiming also claims any sub-URLs – so if https://ww.brand.com is claimed, https://www.brand.com/store is unclaimable.
  • While it is possible to overwrite a URL claim, it can only be done with a Merchant Center sub-account – that is, an account that was created within the Google Listings & Ads extension. Existing, independent accounts don’t have permission to overwrite existing URL claims.  
    
    Learn more about verifying and claiming website URLs.

Choose your audience

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(ies). 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.

Shipping information

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

• Shipping rate: choose between three options:
  
  • Recommended: Automatically sync my store’s shipping settings to Google.
    
    Choosing this option will allow Google Listings & Ads 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 rates advanced cost is not supported)
    
    Currently, the extension only supports syncing regional shipping in Australia, Japan, and the United States. If there are regional shipping rates defined for states/provinces or zip/postal codes of these countries in your store’s shipping zones settings, Google Listings & Ads 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.
  
  
  • happens asynchronously so it might take a while for the changes to appear on your Merchant Center account. Make sure the 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 Listings & Ads will choose the most expensive one 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 set as you expect.
    
    
  • My shipping settings are simple. I can manually estimate flat shipping rates.
    
    You would need to enter estimated shipping rates for all the countries specified in your target audience countries. Otherwise, you won’t 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, then you 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) that will apply to all your shipping settings. You can then modify this value manually for each of your shipping rate settings by visiting the Google Merchant Center.
  
  Note that you must enter a shipping time for all of the countries defined as 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 and 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.
  

Server requirements

If your WordPress site doesn’t meet the minimum recommended server requirements for WooCommerce, the Google Listings & Ads plugin won’t function as expected. We highly recommend checking that your site meets the server requirements.

Learn about the server requirements.

Tax rates (required for U.S. only)

Provide your tax rate information. This will be shown to potential customers on Google, together with the cost of your product. Choose between two options:

• My store uses destination-based tax rates
• My store does not use destination-based tax rates

Tax rates (stores selling outside the US/Canada)

Make sure your website displays prices including tax if you’re selling products outside the US/Canada. This is required in order to be approved by Google Merchant Center as Google recommends using the price attribute and advises against using the tax attribute. More information is available on the list of target countries mentioned here.

Google Merchant Center requirements

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Make sure your business follows the Google Merchant Center guidelines. Start by making sure your website has:

• Website, domain, and URL basics
• Secure checkout process and payment information
• Refund and return policies
• Billing terms and conditions
• Contact information

*If you’re located in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, make sure you review the Comparison Shopping Services guidelines. Learn more below.

Helpful articles:

• Verify that your store follows Google Shopping Ads policies and requirements
• Common disapproval reasons and how to avoid or fix them

Website, domain, and URL basics

Your WooCommerce website must:

• Be live and have a valid domain
• Contain no broken links
• Have a verified and claimed URL

Secure checkout process and payment information

Your website must meet the following payment and transaction requirements:

• Secure checkout process: Payment or transaction processing must be conducted over a secure processing server (SSL-protected, with a valid SSL certificate – https://)
• Valid payment provider: Process all transactions through a valid payment provider, like Stripe or PayPal
• Visible payment methods: Visibly display all of your accepted payment methods on your website

Helpful tip: If you are using PayPal, you have the option to link your account to Merchant Center. Linking your PayPal account helps to provide Google with relevant order and shipping data, which can improve your Google Listings & Ads reporting and performance over time.

Refund and return policies

Your refund and return policies must be accurate and easy to find on your website. If Google’s review team can’t find it, your account may be suspended. If you don’t offer returns or refunds, make sure to explicitly state this on your website. Be sure to clearly explain the following:

• Policies (mandatory): How you handle returns and refunds, including what the customer is required to do, the returns time frame, and when a customer can expect a refund
• Return addresses (mandatory): Include where the return should be mailed to
• Rules (recommended): Provide any rules for refund and return rules

Don’t have a refund and return policy already? 

When setting up a new store, WooCommerce automatically generates certain pages for you, including the “Refund and Returns Policy” page. In order to review and publish your “Refund and Returns Policy” page, go to WooCommerce > Home and review the prompt to set up a “Refund & Returns Policy Page”. You can also review and edit your existing Pages, including your “Refund and Returns Policy” page, by going to Pages > All Pages.

Learn more about return policy requirements.

Billing terms and conditions

Your site must clearly and conspicuously disclose all related conditions before and after purchase as well as disclose the payment model and full expense that a user will bear before and after purchase. Learn more about billing terms and conditions.

Contact information

In case any issues arise with your shoppers,  you must feature at least one contact method on your website. Contact methods include, but are not limited to, a contact us form, a link to your business profile on social media, an email address or a phone number.

A great way to make it easy for your customers to find you is to add contact details in your website footer.

Separately, you must also provide your phone number and business address to Google Merchant Center for verification. This verification information will not be displayed to customers. You can do this by going to Google Listings & Ads > Settings > Contact information.

Comparison Shopping Services guidelines

If you are in the European Economic Area or Switzerland your Merchant Center account must be associated with a Comparison Shopping Service (CSS). Please find more information at Google Merchant Center Help website.

If you create a new Merchant Center account through this application, it will be associated with Google’s CSS (Google Shopping) by default. You can change the CSS associated with your account at any time. Please find more information here.

Once you have set up your Merchant Center account, you can use our onboarding tool regardless of which CSS you use.

Product feed information

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Google Listings & Ads will automatically sync your WooCommerce product data to Google Merchant Center and you can add or edit your products individually or in bulk. To ensure your products are approved by Google, make sure that your product feed includes the following information:

• General product information
• Unique product identifiers
• Data requirements for specific categories (auto-assigned by Google):
  • Apparel & Accessories
  • Media
  • Books

Learn more about product data specifications.

After setting up Google Listings & Ads, you can review whether missing required product data may be preventing your products from showing on Google by going to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads > Product Feed and reviewing the Account Issues and Product Issues tabs. 

Note: Google Listings & Ads syncs general product information to Google upon setup. For unique product identifiers and category-specific data stored as custom attributes, you can use our Attribute Mapping Tool in order to meet Google Merchant Center requirements. Learn more about Attribute Mapping.

Did you know? Google will remove a product from a feed if it hasn’t been updated in 30 days. Google Listings & Ads checks for expiring products and resubmits them.

General product information

Ensure your products have basic product data information like:

• Product title
• Product description
• Product ID
• Product Link 
• Product Image

Since these are required fields for any product to be approved in Google Merchant Center, Google Listings & Ads will not sync over WooCommerce products that do not have these fields. 

Unique product identifiers

Include unique product identifiers to help define your products in the global marketplace. This data helps Google identify the products you are selling to match them with search queries so your products can show up when shoppers are searching on Google. Learn more about unique product identifiers.

Data requirements for specific categories

Provide any specific requirements for products within these categories:

• Apparel & Accessories: Review the guidelines for the following data: age group, gender, color, and size.
• Media: Products like music, movies, or video games require a specific unique product identifier: UPC, EAN, or JAN
• Books: Products in this category require a specific unique product identifier: ISBN
• Electronics: Products in this category require a specific unique product identifier: UPC, EAN, or JAN, recommended identifiers include color, size

Note:  In WooCommerce, this information is typically stored as custom global attributes, which are not synced over to Google by default when you set up Google Listings & Ads. In order to sync this information to Google, use our Attribute Mapping Tool. Learn more about Attribute Mapping.

Don’t have this information in WooCommerce already? Learn more about creating global attributes for these required fields. 

Sync and statuses

After submitting your product feed, your products will be assigned a status. There are six different product statuses:

• Not synced: These products do not appear on surfaces across Google or the Google Shopping tab as free listings. They are queued for submission or may be ineligible or excluded from the product feed.
• Active: These products are fully approved and are eligible to appear in free listings on the Google Shopping tab within the next 3–5 days. Your products can also appear on Google Search, Google Images, and Gmail if you’re selling in the United States.
• Expiring: These products will become inactive and will no longer appear in Google Listings within the next three days.
• Pending: These products are still being processed by Google and will not appear in Google Listings until they are approved.
• Disapproved: These products are inactive and do not appear in Google Listings. Check error status to learn more.

Channel visibility

Choose exactly which products you want to list across Google by toggling the Channel Visibility option in the Google Listings & Ads Product Feed. There are two options:

• Sync and Show: Eligible products will be visible across Google
• Don’t Sync and Show: These products will not be visible across Google (helpful for custom products with varying prices, giveaway products, etc.)

When you set up GL&A, all products in your WooCommerce store will be automatically added to your Product Feed, and set to ‘Sync and show.’

You can change the channel visibility of your products at any time, and your product feed will be synced automatically within 1-2 days.

All products in your product feed set to ‘Sync and show’ will appear in both your Free Listings and Paid Campaigns.

Displaying deals and promotions on Google

To show your coupons and promotions on Google Shopping listings, make sure you’re using the latest version of Google Listings & Ads (version 1.6+).  When you create or update a coupon in your WordPress dashboard under Marketing > Coupons, you’ll see a Channel Visibility settings box on the right: select “Show coupon on Google” to enable it. This is currently available in Australia, Canada, Germany, France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Free listings on Google

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Showcase eligible products to shoppers looking for what you offer and drive traffic to your store with Google’s free listings on the Shopping tab. Your products can also appear on Google Search, Google Images, and Gmail if you’re selling in the United States.

Free listings

Products that are eligible for free listings will appear in content-rich formats on the Shopping tab, which may boost traffic and drive sales. If you are approved for free listings, your products will be shown as Active in your WooCommerce dashboard.

Opting out of free listings

You can opt out of showing your products on Google’s free listing program from Google Merchant Center. Learn about removing a feed from a destination.

Helpful articles:

• Data and eligibility requirements to show your products for free.
• Best practices for showing up on surfaces across Google.

Google Performance Max Campaigns

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Create Performance Max Campaigns to promote your products across Google Search, Maps, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, the Display Network and Discover feed and help grow your business.

You can connect your Google Ads account, choose a budget, and launch your campaign straight from your WooCommerce dashboard. You can also track performance, review campaign analytics and access automated reports so you can easily track performance all in one place.

Once you launch your Performance Max Campaign, Google’s machine learning will optimize your ads so they appear at the right time and place to boost store traffic and sales. You can edit or pause your campaign at any time but we recommend you allow at least 15 days for your campaign to optimize before making any changes.

Get $500 in free ad credits
New advertisers can get $500 in ads credit when they spend their first $500 on Google Ads within 60 Days

How does it work?

After completing the plugin’s setup, you create a Performance Max campaign by following these:

1. Go to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads, under “Performance (Paid Campaigns)” click Add paid campaign
2. Create a new ads account, or choose from a list of existing accounts to create your campaign. 
3. Define your ads audience by choosing the countries you want your product ads to appear.
4. Choose a budget, you will be prompted with a recommendation based on the countries you are targeting. 
5. Set up billing in a Google Ads pop-up window.
6. Once you have completed the billing setup, return to Google Listings & Ads to complete your campaign setup, and launch your performance max campaign.

Earn promotional ads credit as a new advertiser.
When you create a new Google Ads account through Google Listings & Ads a promotional code will be automatically applied to your account. Get $500* in ad credit when you spend $500 within your first 60 days. You can edit or cancel your campaign at any time.

*Ad credit value varies by county. See full terms and conditions here.

Helpful articles:

• About Performance Max Campaigns
• Optimize Performance Max Campaigns

Google reviews and approvals

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Initial review

When you upload items to your account for the first time, your items and website will be subject to an initial review to ensure they meet Google’s requirements and Shopping ads policies. This process can take between 3–5 days and your products will show as Pending.

If the review reveals that your products or website do not comply with the Shopping ads policies, your account will be suspended immediately and you will receive a notification email with further details. If the review is successful, your products will become eligible to serve in Shopping ads. Learn more about account-level enforcement for policy violations.

Account-level policy violations: warnings and suspension

If your products or website are not in compliance with Shopping ads policies, your products may be disapproved and you may receive:

• A warning email: Including details about the issue, how to fix it, and a time frame in which to fix your issues (usually 7 days).
• An account suspension: If your issues are not fixed, you’ll receive a series of emails containing all of the relevant information related to Shopping ads policies and account suspension. Once you resolve all issues, your account or website will be reviewed and the warning will be lifted.

Learn more about account-level enforcement for policy violations.

Requesting an account review

Account reviews can be requested through the Google Listings & Ads extension or directly on Google Merchant Center. Requesting a review through the extension is only available to merchants who created their Google Merchant Center account during the extension setup. Merchants who linked existing standalone accounts would have to request a review directly from Google Merchant Center.

You can only request a review if there are no other pending requests. If your account has multiple policy issues in the same country of sale, the review will apply to all issues for that country of sale. If your account is suspended, you’ll have two opportunities to request a review. Learn more about account-level enforcement for policy violations.

Requesting a review via Google Listings & Ads extension

If your account gets a warning for setup/policy issues or is suspended, after resolving the issues, you can request a review using the “Request review” button in the Product Feed section of the Google Listings & Ads extension (Marketing > Google Listings & Ads > Product Feed):

To request a review, click the Request review button, this will open a modal with a summary of the issue(s) to resolve and a reminder to resolve the issue(s) before requesting a review:

If you’ve resolved all the issues, select the checkbox “I have resolved all the issue(s) listed above“, then click on Request account review. This will submit a review request to Google Merchant Center and show a notice confirming a review has been submitted.

Under review

When a review request is submitted, the account status is changed to “Under review”. It takes at least 7 days for an account to be reviewed.

Review disapproved

When an account review is disapproved, a notice is shown in the Account Issues tab as well as an indicator in the Summary. If the disapproved account is eligible for a review, the Request Review button will be available in the notice.

Disapproved – Cooldown period

After requesting a 2nd review, if the account gets disapproved again, it enters a probation period referred to as the “cooldown period”. This means the user needs to wait for some days before they can request another review. In this case, we show a message with the expected wait time and the request review button is disabled:

Approved

When an account is approved, the account status is changed to “approved”.

Requesting a review via Google Merchant Center

If your account has been suspended, you can request a review using the Request review button by completing the following steps:

1. Sign in to your Merchant Center account
2. Navigate to Account issues on the Diagnostics page
3. Locate the account-level issue that you’d like to have reviewed
4. Make sure that there are in-stock products uploaded and all issues for the affected country of sale are resolved
5. Click Request review
6. Read the pop-up window to ensure that you understand the review process and its requirements and limitations
7. Tick the box and click Request review

Product-level policy violations: disapproved products

WooCommerce automatically checks your product feed before Google’s review to help you resolve any issues. Any issues requiring your attention will be listed on your Google Listings & Ads Product Feed and will include all the necessary details, including affected product name, issue, and suggested action. You can edit products individually, or make edits in bulk through Products > Bulk actions > Edit. Your product feed will then be synced automatically within 1–2 days.

Helpful articles:

• Troubleshoot your product feed
• Disapprovals for product data quality violations
• Product data specification
• Item disapprovals for policy violations

Getting started with campaign analytics

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Once your free listings and Performance Max Campaigns are set up, you will be able to track your performance straight from your WooCommerce dashboard. You can view your reports yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily. The following metrics will be visible within your reports:

Conversions

An action that’s counted when someone interacts with your ad or free product listing (for example, clicks a text ad or views a video ad) and then takes an action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business, such as an online purchase. Learn about conversions.

Clicks

When someone clicks your paid ad or free listing, it counts as a click. Learn about clicks.

Impressions

An impression is how often your paid ad or free listing is shown. It is counted each time your paid ad or free listing is shown on a search result page or other site on the Google Network. Learn about impressions.

Total Sales

The total amount of sales your store has received through paid campaigns only.

Total Spend

The total amount you have spent on ads.

You can also review product and account issues that could potentially be affecting your performance by going to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads > Product Feed and reviewing the Account Issues and Product Issues tabs. Read more about the issue if needed in the documentation linked and edit your items to meet the guidance. For best performance, ensure products are approved and that there are no issues to resolve causing limited performance. 

Disconnect Google Listings & Ads

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Once Google Listings & Ads has been set up, if you’d like to disconnect the extension (and revoke WooCommerce access to your Google account) you can follow the prompts on the Settings tabs (see below) to disconnect all linked accounts or disconnect only the Google Ads account.

Clicking the “Disconnect all accounts” button will display a pop-up asking you to confirm the process.

When disconnecting…

• Any active product listings will continue to show on Google. They can be managed, edited, or deleted manually from Google Merchant Center (merchants.google.com).
• Any ongoing paid campaigns will continue to run. They can be managed, edited, or deleted manually from Google Ads (ads.google.com).
• WooCommerce access to your Google account will be revoked. Note – this effects all sites using Google Listings & Ads connected to your Google account, so if you wish to continue using the extension elsewhere you may need to reconnect on the other sites.

Note – if Jetpack is being used elsewhere on your site – it will continue to remain connected.

When plugins are removed, data is often left behind on the site in the database and such. To fully delete all data related to the Google Listings & Ads integration, there is a constant you can define in the wp-config.php file to erase data then when plugin is deleted. This needs to be added before the plugin is deleted.

define( 'WC_GLA_REMOVE_ALL_DATA', true );

Note that this only works when the plugin is deleted from your WordPress site and not when deactivated.

Attribute Mapping

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Google Listings & Ads Attribute Mapping functionality is designed to map existing WooCommerce product attributes to Google Merchant Center feed data. It allows merchants to create attribute rules at the category level and systematically apply them to Google Merchant Center product data that has no attribute values defined, thereby assigning Google product attributes to all products in the specified category.

With Attributes Mapping, you can:

1. Map existing WooCommerce product attributes to Google product attributes
2. Map from available values (Adult, Age Group, Condition, Gender, Is Bundle, Size System, Size Type) 
3. Map items based on fixed values

You can find some attribute mapping use cases here.

Please note that individual product attributes assigned on the Google Listings & Ads tab of the product editing screen override global attributes rules. This means that global attribute rules won’t apply to fields with individual attributes assigned.

Available Attributes

These are the currently available attributes in Google Listings & Ads:

• Adult
• Age Group
• Brand
• Color
• Condition
• Gender
• GTIN
• Is Bundle
• Material
• MPN
• Multipack
• Pattern
• Size
• Size System
• Size Type

How to map existing WooCommerce product attributes to Google product attributes

Existing global attributes on the store can be mapped to Google product data attributes. Please note that individual product attributes created on the product page aren’t supported, the attributes have to be created as global attributes.

To map an existing attribute to Google, From your WP Admin:

1. Navigate to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads
2. Click on Attributes (tab) to open the attribute mapping interface:

3. Click on Create Attribute Rule
4. Select a Google attribute to manage (e.g, Color)
5. Click on Use value from existing product field, and select an existing attribute  (e.g, Product Color)
6. Next, you will need to select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories EXCEPT – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

7. To select a category select Apply to All categories except or Apply to only to this category, click the search box and select your category
8. Click Save rule to save your attribute rule

How to map items based on fixed values (Set a fixed value)

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If all of your products have the same value for the attribute, you can create a fixed value and assign it to all Google product data. Be sure to be mindful of the attribute value requirements and case sensitivity.  

1. Go to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads, and click on Attributes (tab)
2. Click on Create Attribute Rule
3. Select the target attribute (e.g, brand  ) and input the fixed value 

4. Next, you will need to select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

1. Apply to All categories- Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
2. Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
3. Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

5. To select a category select Apply to All categories except or Apply to only to this category, click the search box and select your category
6. Click Save rule to save your changes.

How to map items based on available values (Set default value)

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Note: this option is given when Google requires specifically listed values (i.e. ENUMs) for a field in merchant center

1. Go to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads, and click on Attributes (tab)
2. Click on Create Attribute Rule
3. Select a Google attribute to manage (e.g, Age Group)

4. Select a default value from the “Select one option” dropdown. The following value is to set the demographic that your product is designed for. For example, for the age group attribute the options are:

• Newborn – 0-3 months old. Newborn sizes are often identified by the age range in months (0–3) or just “newborn.”
• Infant – Infant sizes are often identified by the age range in months (3–12).
• Toddler – Toddler sizes are often identified by the age range in months (12–24) or years
• Kids – Children’s sizes are often identified by the age range in years (5-13).
• Adult – All sizes within this age group have been manufactured to fit an adult or teen.

5. Next, you will need to select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

6. To select a category select Apply to All categories except or Apply to only to this category, click the search box and select your category
7. Click Save rule to save your changes.

How to Map Age Group

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The following value is to set the demographic that your product is designed for. If your product is designed for all age groups then you may select “Adult”.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select Age Group

3. Select a Value the following value is to set the demographic that your product is designed for. If your product is for everyone then select Adult.

• Newborn – 0-3 months old. Newborn sizes are often identified by the age range in months (0–3) or just “newborn.”
• Infant – Infant sizes are often identified by the age range in months (3–12).
• Toddler – Toddler sizes are often identified by the age range in months (12–24) or years
• Kids – Children’s sizes are often identified by the age range in years (5-13).
• Adult – All sizes within this age group have been manufactured to fit an adult or teen.

4. Next you will need to select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

5. To select a category select Apply to All categories except or Apply to only to this category. Then click the drop-down.

How to Map Brand

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Brand is used to identify the brand name that will be presented to the consumer. If you manufacture your own goods or have your own private label brand then insert your Store Name as your Brand. If you sell other manufacturers then you would enter the appropriate brand for each item.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select Brand

3. Next, select an option.  

• Use value from existing product field – If you have created product brands with WooCommerce Brand, you can map the brand attribute by selecting “Brands” under Taxonomies.
• Set a fixed value – This allows you to set a fixed value for all products or products in a specific category. (See how in the next step of this guide)

4. Select fixed value

5. Enter your Brand in the field. If you’re selling custom products enter your store name or domain name without https and www (e.g, example.com)
6. Next you will need to select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

To select a category select Apply to All categories except or Apply to only to this category and specify the categories.

How to Map Color

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The color value will be used to help users identify the primary color of an item for filtering purposes. You may enter your proprietary color in this field or use standardized colors for example (Blue, Red, Yellow Green). If your item contains two colors, put the most dominant color first.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select Color
3. Select an option:

• Use value from existing product field – This option will allow you to map color to WooCommerce global color attributes by selecting “Product Color” under “Global Attributes”.
• Set a fixed value – If all of your items have the same color, you can create your color at a bulk level by selecting “Set a fixed value” and inputting your color.

4. Select the category to apply and save changes:

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

How to Map Gender

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The following value is to set the Gender that your product is designed for. If your product is designed for all then you may select Unisex.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select Gender
3. Select an attribute to indicate the gender your product is designed for.

• Male
• Female
• Unisex

4. Select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to All – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes. 
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected. 
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

5. Click Save Rule

How to Map MPN

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A MPN uniquely identifies your product. This specific number helps us make your ad or unpaid listing richer and easier for your customers to find. MPN codes are unique to each variant and SKU and cannot be reused. If you are the manufacturer of your own items you can use whatever unique identifier you use to distinguish your items as the MPN. You can also map your SKUs as MPN.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select MPN
3. Select an option:

Use value from existing product field – Selecting this will allow you to map existing value from product fields such as SKU.

Set a fixed value – This will allow you to input your desired value.

4. In the catagories dropdown, select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to all categories – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes.
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected.
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

5. Click Save Rule

How to Map Size

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The size attribute describes the standardized size of your product. When you use this attribute, your product can appear in results that are filtered by size.

1. Click on Create Attribute Rule
2. Select Size
3. Aelect an option under Assign value

• Use value from existing product field – if you’re using a global size attribute for your products, you can map to it by selecting “Product Size” in the dropdown.
• Set a fixed value – This will allow you to type in your size name in the field (e.g Medium).

4. In the catagories dropdown, select the category in which you want the rule to apply.

• Apply to all categories – Should be used when the attribute selected above should be populated for all items that have blank attributes.
• Apply to All categories Except – This is used to provide your attribute above to every category that is NOT the ones that are selected.
• Apply to Only to this category – This is used to assign the provided attribute to just this specific category.

5. Click Save Rule

Editing attribute rules

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To modify an existing attribute rule:

1. Click the “Edit” option on the rule row.
2. This will open the rule modal dialog where the rule can be modified the same way as creating a new rule.
3. Make the required changes and click “Save rule” to save your changes

Deleting attribute rules

To delete an existing attribute rule,

1. Click the “Delete” option under the rule row.
2. Select “Delete attribute rule” on the confirmation modal to delete the rule

Attribute mapping use cases

Just getting started with attributes mapping? We’ve documented some attribute mapping use cases here to help you get started.

Common errors and how to resolve them

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Can’t complete setup – “Continue” button not working

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The “Continue” button on the last step of the onboarding screen is greyed out when one of the pre-launch items hasn’t been completed. The most common item is the store’s address not being fully entered. You can resolve this by Navigating to “WooCommerce > Settings” and ensuring your store’s address is fully entered – including address, city, postcode, and country.

Limited performance due to missing identifiers [gtin, mpn, brand]

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This error is returned on products with missing product identifiers: GTIN, MPN, and Brand. These identifiers are used to distinguish products and match them in related search queries. Although adding these identifiers is not mandatory, not assigning them may result in products having less visibility on Google Shopping channels. On the other hand, adding them increases performance.

Product identifiers can be assigned individually to products on the ‘Google Listings & Ads’ tab of the product editing screen or mapped at the category level or store-wide using the Google Listings & Ads attribute mapping functionality. See: attribute mapping uses cases.

How to resolve the error:

Custom/homemade products

If you’re selling custom/homemade products, you can ensure your products are not flagged by following these steps:

• GTIN – Leave blank
• MPN – Assign the product SKU used in WooCommerce
• Brand – Assign your domain name (without https and www)

Products of known brands

If you’re selling products of known brands, the product identifiers are assigned by the product manufacturer. 

• GTIN – GTINs are provided by the product manufacturer and are usually available on the barcode on the product or on the product’s packaging. If you can’t find the GTIN, please contact your product manufacturer. 
• MPN – MPN is a manufacturer-assigned alphanumeric value. It is used to identify a product among other products from the same manufacturer. If your product does not have an MPN, leave the field blank. 
• Brand – Enter the brand of the product, e.g. Adidas, etc. This is used to match products in searches.

Unable to update your Google Merchant Center contact information. Please try again later.

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Errors related to Unable to update your contact information are mostly returned when Google Listings & Ads cannot communicate with your site’s XML-RPC URL. An XML-RPC connection is used to communicate with WordPress.com, when the connection is blocked, this communication is simply not possible. The common cause is your web hosting provider, firewall, or a security plugin on your site blocking XML-RPC requests to your site. 

The first step to troubleshooting this issue is confirming your site’s XML-RPC URL – example.com/xmlrpc.php is working properly. (Replace example.com with your domain). It should show XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only. If the above text is not returned, that confirms your XML-RPC URL is indeed blocked. You’d have to contact your web host to unblock the connection or check that a security plugin or your site’s firewall isn’t blocking the URL. In the case your web host confirms they’re not blocking the URL, you can perform a conflict test to help you check if your site’s theme or plugin is blocking the connection.

Sites intentionally blocking the XML-RPC connection can:

1. Add Jetpack’s IPs to the allowlist – This ensures only Jetpack can use the XML-RPC connection. Learn more about Jetpack’s usage of XML-RPC.
2. Allow access to Jetpack endpoint – Jetpack defines a custom XML-RPC endpoint https://example.com/xmlrpc.php?for=jetpack or https://example.com/?for=jetpack&jetpack=comms that behaves mostly the same as the canonical WordPress one. This XML-RPC endpoint only works for Jetpack XML-RPC methods.

Note: Google Listings & Ads uses Jetpack services to initiate the connection to WordPress.com, the Jetpack plugin isn’t required for this.

A Google ID was not found in Merchant Center

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Typically, this error is logged when the status for a product marked as synced on the site cannot be found in Google Merchant Center. This may be due to the product being deleted directly in Google Merchant Center, making the Google Listings & Ads extension unable to find a product with a matching ID in Google Merchant Center, prompting the error A Google ID was not found in Merchant Center. This error isn’t a cause for concern as all products are automatically synced to Google Merchant Center when updated. The “Sync All Products with Google Merchant Center” option on the debug page accessible at wp-admin/admin.php?page=connection-test-admin-page can be used to push a sync for all products to Google Merchant Center.

Error submitting products to Google: Google Merchant Center has not been set up correctly. Please review your configuration.

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This error points specifically to an issue with the Google Merchant Center connection and can be resolved by disconnecting the extension connections and reconnecting them. To disconnect the connection, go to Marketing > Google Listings & Ads > Settings and click “Disconnect from all accounts”.

Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Google Listings & Ads Frequently Asked Questions can be found here below.

Google Listings & Ads FAQs

Support

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Do you still have questions and need assistance? 

• Get in touch with a Happiness Engineer via our Help Desk. We provide expert priority support for WooCommerce.com and Jetpack customers but not other third-party plugins.
• If you are not a customer at WooCommerce.com, we recommend finding help on the Google Listings and Ads forum or hiring a recommended expert on our customizations page