The 5 Google Shopping feed
mistakes I find in 9 out of
10 accounts
The five most common Google Shopping feed mistakes are weak product titles and descriptions, no product reviews, empty or wrong Product Type and Google Product Category values, thin optional attribute coverage, and incomplete delivery and returns policies. Google Shopping has no keyword targeting, so the feed is the targeting and should be fixed before excluding search terms. Fixing them improves query matching and visibility, and complete delivery and returns policies make Google's Top Quality Store badge attainable.
Prefer to watch? The video version covers the same ground.
How do you optimise product titles and descriptions for Google Shopping?
Optimise Google Shopping product titles and descriptions by building them from the language customers actually search with, taken from search term reports, Search Console queries and product reviews, then structuring titles around brand, size, product, colour, material and value proposition or use case.
One of the first issues I spot in an audit is weak feed attributes. Leaving your product titles and descriptions as whatever Shopify spits out is lazy - and actively working against you. These two attributes carry enormous weight in Shopping, as they're what Google uses to match your products to user searches. There's no keyword targeting. The feed is the targeting.
Leaving it as "1234 - Black - T-shirt" with a vague brand-focused description does you no favours. Instead, harvest your search term reports, Search Console high-ranking queries, and product reviews to understand the exact language your customers use and the features they look for.
Once you've built a strong, search-orientated base of queries, integrate them into product titles systematically. Iterate and test different orderings of this structure:
Same goes for descriptions. Make the most of the long character limit - layer in long-tail keywords, value propositions, benefits and use cases that your title can't fit.
Before you start excluding thousands of queries in the search term report and blaming the algorithm - fix the feed. For the full picture on Shopping and feed strategy, see the Google Shopping Ads & Feed Optimisation Hub.
Do product reviews improve Google Shopping performance?
Product reviews improve Google Shopping performance, and they can be collected for free through Google Reviews, with GTINs inheriting reviews left on the same product elsewhere and the Item Group ID pooling reviews across variants.
Human psychology - built over millions of years - tells us we rely on social approval and group behaviour to inform decisions. Having zero product reviews integrated on-site and in your feed gives users no reason to take a chance on you.
You can get started for free with Google Reviews. Products with low review ratings should be monitored and then filtered out of feeds - preventing negative brand associations, wasted clicks and wasted spend on underperforming SKUs.
If you're struggling to build up reviews on a product, don't send it out at unique ID level. If you have GTINs, use those instead - reviews left by others on the same GTIN are inherited automatically.
Similarly, if you've got thousands of variants per product, use the Item Group ID when sending reviews. This pools all reviews under one parent product, so every variant inherits them - provided you've accurately applied the Item Group ID attribute. A pretty handy trick from a shopping expert, ey.
Product Type & Google Product Categories
Similar to titles and descriptions, Product Type and Google Product Categories (PT & GPC) do heavy lifting for query matching - and are consistently under-used.
Product Types let you segment shopping campaigns in your ads account, going up to 5 levels deep. That's 5 layers of keyword and converting search term integration, completely customisable and not pre-set by Google. Even if you only use them for campaign segmentation, the query relevance boost alone is significant.
Google Product Categories are less flexible - you're selecting from Google's pre-defined taxonomy - but they are equally important. And as bad as wrong values are, empty values are just as costly. Don't leave these blank. You're literally leaving visibility on the table.
Which optional attributes should you add to a Google Shopping feed?
A Google Shopping feed should go beyond the required attributes and include optional ones such as colour, size, material, pattern, additional images, video link, product highlight and product detail, because attribute depth improves query matching and relevance.
Once the minimum required attributes are covered to serve product ads, too many accounts call it a day there. That's a mistake.
You should be passing as much data as possible from the "optional" attributes list. Depth of attributes directly improves query matching and relevance - leading to increased search visibility and a higher likelihood of conversion from a better-aligned user.
- Colour, Size, Material, Pattern
- Additional images
- Video link
- Product Highlight
- Product Detail
These aren't nice-to-haves. They're the difference between Google showing your product to the right person or not at all.
Bonus tip - all of these can be added via a supplemental feed.
Incomplete delivery & returns policies
Incomplete delivery and returns policies hold back Google Shopping performance more than most people realise, because Shopping rewards faster, cheaper delivery and returns with extra visibility. When left blank, Google attempts to infer this information from your site documentation - and often gets it wrong.
Delivery and returns include speed and price elements that Shopping actively rewards. Advertisers who outperform competitors on both get pushed harder by Google. Leaving this information incomplete or inaccurate means you're potentially being penalised in visibility for no good reason.
It also makes Google's "Top Quality Store" badge - a visible marker of excellence that increases SERP visibility - completely unattainable. Having a genuinely better delivery and returns proposition than competitors is not only a key conversion differentiator, it's something Google actively surfaces to users on your behalf. Don't give that up.
These mistakes can silently kill shopping performance but show no errors. For a clear breakdown on GMC errors - the Merchant Centre error checklist is also available to work through. And if you'd rather have this layer owned and monitored than caught manually after the fact, that's exactly what I'd do as your Merchant Centre consultant.