If your Google Shopping Ads aren't helping you to sell, chances are your product feed data is incorrect or incomplete, leading to low conversions and low product visibility.

Shopping ads that lack relevant data and product attributes quickly become ‘invisible’ and struggle to appear on relevant consumer searches. If your ads aren’t relevant to the consumer, your products won’t sell.

As a retailer, you should understand the reasons why your products might not be selling, correct flagged errors and optimise your product feed regularly to improve your campaign performance, conversion rates and boost your overall ROI. 

Here are 5 reasons why your products might not be selling on Google Shopping.

1.   Poor quality of your product feed

When the quality of your product feed is bad, your products struggle to appear on user searches.  

Incorrect data within your product feed is a common issue that often results in Google shopping ad disapprovals. When Google flags several errors, it can lead to a temporary or permanent account suspension. 

Here’s an example of poor product feed data that doesn’t meet user searches:

A user searches for a white, short-sleeve, turtle neck T-shirt, you happen to sell one of those, it perfectly matches their search query, but your product feed doesn’t include all the details for ‘colour’ 'sleeve type' about the product. Your product won’t appear and you’ll miss the sale.

Many retailers struggle to get their product feed right and becoming visible in the highly competitive Google marketplace is hard work without a platform to manage and improve the product feed data.

A product feed optimisation software gives you full control over your product feed and suggests areas to optimise and improve in order to appear on relevant user searches.

2.   Incorrect title structure

Your Google shopping ads aren’t performing because your titles aren’t SEO optimised, they are over the character limits or they’re just not well-structured.

Titles are one of the most important elements within Google shopping ads, along with images. They are one of the first things users see from the search engine results page.

Because Google uses titles to match your ads to relevant product searches, titles should always include the words and phrases that consumers are searching for. When writing product titles, consider both branded and non-branded searches as well as product attributes and search terms.

Remember to place your most important search terms at the front of your titles. 70 or fewer characters will be displayed in Google Shopping depending on the user's device, but Google reads up to 150 characters.

3.   Category taxonomy not granular enough

You use the Product Type attribute to describe your product, and the Category attribute is for Google. Make sure you follow Google’s extensive UK taxonomy.

Example UK taxonomy

Be as granular as possible to make it easier for Google to show your Shopping Ads to relevant consumer searches. For example, if you’re selling a white faux-fur coat on Google Shopping ads:

Good -  Clothing & Accessories > Clothing > Outerwear > Coats & Jackets

Better - Clothing & Accessories > Clothing > Outerwear > Coats & Jackets > Faux-Fur Coats

4.   Poor image quality

Images on Google shopping grab users’ attention and they influence them to make a decision during the shopping journey.

Bad quality images damage conversion rates and ads performance. For this reason, it’s imperative that you only use high-quality images, that are appealing and engaging to users and in the correct format (pg/.jpeg, .gif-not animated, .png, .bmp, .tif/.tiff.).

Avoid images that include products not on sale or promotional content as this will result in a suspension of the ad. 

5.   Unclear product descriptions

Product descriptions are your chance to persuade a user and convince them to purchase your product.

Excessive use of superlatives like ‘The best’ or ‘The nicest’ can make your ad sound insincere, so keep ad descriptions simple, creative and in line with your brand tone.

Get in touch with our product feed optimisation team today for a free demo on how to improve your Google Shopping ads performance and sell more products online.



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