How does a product get from your shop into Google's results?
Through a feed. Your shop sends Merchant Center a list of products with a title, description, price, image, stock level, brand, a product identifier such as a GTIN where one exists, and the link to the product page. Merchant Center checks every item, flags anything that breaks the rules, and passes the approved products to Google Ads. Google Ads Help ("About Shopping ads") describes the result as an ad with the product's details, built from that data rather than from text you write.
Most owners never type a feed by hand. Shopify, WooCommerce and the other shop systems connect to Merchant Center and keep prices and stock in step, which matters because a price in the ad that differs from the page gets the product disapproved.
Why does the product title do the work a keyword does?
Shopping ads have no keywords. Google reads your product data to decide which searches to show each product on, and the title carries most of the weight. A title written for your own stock list, "Bridle BLK FS", gives Google almost nothing. A title written the way a buyer searches, "Leather snaffle bridle, black, full size, padded crown", matches the searches people type and tells them in the ad what they are looking at.
The other control is negative keywords, which stop a product showing on searches you do not want, and the campaign's structure, which decides how much budget each group of products gets.
Which products earned their keep for a Wagga Wagga saddlery? (example figures)
An online saddlery in Wagga Wagga, run by the owner and one packer, spends $1,800 a month on Shopping ads across its range. Its gross margin is about 40 percent, so its break-even ROAS is 2.5. A month's product report, grouped:
| Product group | Typical price | Spend | Revenue | ROAS | Against break-even of 2.5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synthetic saddles | $1,150 | $620 | $4,600 | 7.4 | Well ahead |
| Bridles | $139 | $410 | $1,390 | 3.4 | Ahead |
| Saddle pads | $89 | $380 | $800 | 2.1 | Losing a little |
| Fly veils | $39 | $390 | $470 | 1.2 | Losing |
The account as a whole showed a ROAS of 4.0 and looked healthy. Product by product, the fly veils were losing about $200 a month and the pads were close to even. The owner cut the fly veil budget, rewrote the pad titles to name the sizes and fabrics people search for, and moved the difference to saddles, the products that paid. A $39 item rarely carries the cost of the click unless people buy several at once.
What does CoraVision read from Merchant Center?
At launch, CoraVision reads Google Merchant Center once it is connected: your products and how each one performs, every night, alongside the campaigns, spend and conversion value it reads from Google Ads. That is the product-by-product view in the Wagga Wagga table, without the export. CoraVision never edits your feed or your campaigns; the titles and budgets are yours to change.
Questions
Why has Merchant Center disapproved one of my products?
Merchant Center checks each product against Google's Shopping policies and data rules. Common causes are a price or stock level in the feed that does not match the product page, a missing product identifier, or an image with text or a watermark over it. The product's row in Merchant Center names the issue.
Can my products appear in Google for free?
Yes. Products in Merchant Center can show in free listings on Google's Shopping tab and other surfaces, without an ad budget. Ads buy the paid placements above and beside the free results, and the same product data feeds both.
Do I need Shopify to use Merchant Center?
No. Any online shop with product pages and a checkout can use it. Shopify, WooCommerce and most other shop systems have an app or plug-in that sends the product data for you and keeps the prices current.