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In addition to paid results in the Google Shopping tab, merchants can participate in Free Product Listings or SAG (Surfaces Across Google) and Enhanced Free Listings. Free Listings and Enhanced Free Listings let shoppers find products from more merchants. This means merchants can reach more shoppers, multiply their product placement, and potentially increase sales. Merchants also have an opportunity to participate on Google Shopping for free. This gives merchants a chance to reach potential customers where Google can offer a broader inventory for repeat shoppers.
Sounds interesting? Here is how you can place your products in Google’s Free Listings.
Merchant Center
You will first need a Google Merchant Center account. You can easily create this account at https://www.google.com/retail/solutions/merchant-center. Follow the steps on that page to sign up for a Merchant Center account using a Google account that is not yet associated with an existing Merchant Center. You can also reach out to us at css@shoaprize.com to create a Merchant Center account for you.
You can use your Shoparize Merchant Center or any other CSS you’re working with to upload your products into the Merchant Center product feed. You must submit your complete product inventory into your product data feed to increase your chances of appearing in the Free Listings.
If you are new to Google Shopping ads and a CSS that has Free Listings activated creates a Merchant Center for you, this CSS will be selected for Free Listings. If you work with multiple CSSs, the CSS to which you last switched your activities will be chosen automatically. Previously, this was the CSS for which you uploaded the most products. If you want to change this to another CSS, you can do this from the CSS dashboard.
The CSS Dashboard
If you have a Merchant Center under Google Shopping CSS, you can find the CSS dashboard in that Merchant Center Account under Shopping ads setup.
If you switched your Merchant Center to Shoparize CSS or any other CSS, you need to claim your domain via a new Google Merchant Center account under Google Shopping CSS (see below). Only the Merchant Center Account where your website is claimed (under Google Shopping CSS) has the CSS dashboard to manage the settings. This might seem redundant, but it is a necessary first step to control which CSS you want to use for Free Listings.
Claiming your domain
Once the Merchant Center has been created, you can claim your domain. In the Google Merchant Center Tools, you can navigate to Business information. Here you can claim your website URL. If you get any pop-ups or emails stating your products will be disapproved or your account will lose its claims, you can ignore them. If you feel unsure about this, please feel free to reach out to us at any time.
Setting up Shoparize for free listings
Just as you did before, go to the Tools menu in your Google Shopping CSS Merchant Center. Navigate to Shopping ads setup.
In the CSS tab, you can choose one CSS through which to participate in Free Listings in Europe. Here you can select Shoparize CSS by using the three dots that appear when hovering over Shoparize CSS. You now see the option to make Shoparize the CSS for Free Listings in Europe. Please note that it can take up to 24 hours before you will see that your products are approved for Free Listings.
To be eligible for Free Listings on the Shopping tab, feeds must meet the data and eligibility requirements for Free Listings. To get the most out of these Free Listings, read our article on optimizing your feed for higher visibility and receiving more traffic from this feature. You will be able to view the performance of the Free Listings in your Google Merchant Center.
We hope this article has been helpful. If you would like to learn more about the many ways Shoparize CSS can assist you in improving the performance of your Shopping ads, connect with us at css@shoparize.com.
