Why are my products approved but getting no impressions?
Approval only means a product is allowed to show. Impressions depend on whether a campaign includes it, how well its data matches searches, and how competitive its price is. Approval is the floor, not the goal.
Work through it in order. First, confirm the product is actually in a campaign's listing groups and not excluded by a filter or custom label. Second, read the title: if it does not contain the words people search for, it will match few queries. Third, open the pricing reports under Analytics in Merchant Center. Products priced well above similar listings often get little traffic.
In the accounts I audit, many zero-impression products are sitting in a catch-all group while a few bestsellers take the budget. Splitting by margin or performance with custom labels, then giving the quiet products their own budget, tells you quickly whether the problem is data or demand. That split is core to our Performance Max work.
Sources: Merchant Center Help: FAQ about the transition to Merchant Center Next, Google Ads Help: Manage a Performance Max campaign with listing groups
Should I turn on automatic item updates in Merchant Center?
Yes, turn on automatic item updates as a safety net, but do not rely on them to keep prices and stock correct. Google uses the structured data on your product pages to fix small price, availability and condition mismatches, which can keep a handful of products from being disapproved.
The catch is in Google's own help: products with mismatches are still treated as critical errors that can lead to account suspension, even after Google updates them. The real fix is timing. Schedule feed or API updates right after prices change on your site, set sale price effective dates with the right timezone, and make sure your page markup shows the price the shopper sees.
A quick check: in Merchant Center Next, open Automatic Improvements under Products and see how often Google has been correcting your data. Frequent corrections mean your feed lags your site. That is usually an app sync schedule or caching issue we fix at the source in Shopify.
Sources: Merchant Center Help: About automatic item updates, Merchant Center Help: How to fix automatic updates mismatched price
Where did supplemental feeds go in Merchant Center Next?
In Merchant Center Next, supplemental feeds live under Settings and tools, then Data sources, then Product sources, and you may need to turn on the Advanced data source management add-on before they appear. Feed rules sit in the same area under each product source.
This trips up teams who learned the old interface. The features still exist; they sit behind an add-on so the default view stays simple. Once enabled, supplemental sources let you override or add attributes like custom labels, GTINs or better titles without touching your store's primary feed.
We use supplemental feeds for anything the store platform handles badly: margin labels, seasonal flags and title rewrites for a test set of products. It keeps changes reversible. If a new title performs worse, you remove the row and the original comes back. Where we can, we still fix data at the source first, and we track the results the same way we track free Shopping listings.
Sources: Merchant Center Help: FAQ about the transition to Merchant Center Next, Google for Developers: Maintain a product feed
Should I use Standard Shopping or Performance Max with my product feed?
Use Performance Max for most of the catalog once conversion tracking is solid, and keep Standard Shopping where you need tight control, clear reporting or a clean test. The feed powers both, so feed quality matters either way.
The common complaint about Performance Max is that brand searches soak up the credit. Our fixes are plain: add brand exclusions at the campaign or account level, reuse placement exclusions from your display work, and test incrementality by switching delivery off in a zip code or time window and measuring the loss. Running branded and non-branded campaigns separately also makes the split visible.
One detail people miss: in Performance Max, listing groups decide which products are included, but they do not set bids the way product groups do in Standard Shopping. If a product line needs its own budget, it needs its own campaign. More in our Performance Max service.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Manage a Performance Max campaign with listing groups, Google Ads API: Listing groups for retail
How do I get star ratings to show on my Shopping ads?
You need to join Google's Product Ratings program and submit a product reviews data source, and Google says you should have at least 50 product reviews before signing up. Once approved, reviews are matched to products by GTIN or by brand plus MPN.
Many stores get reviews into Google through their review platform, which sends the file for them. If you send it yourself, Google asks for a full reviews file at least once a month to stay eligible. Wrong or missing GTINs are a common reason reviews never attach to the right products, so identifier cleanup comes first.
Stars are worth the setup for products that already sell, because shoppers compare listings side by side. Start with your top sellers, make sure their identifiers are right, and check afterward that ratings actually appear on them. If you run reviews through Shopify, we connect that at the store level as part of Shopify work.
Sources: Merchant Center Help: Upload a product reviews data source
