Log in with GoogleProduct Segmentation
Product Metrics ML segments your products into six segments by advertising clicks and return, recalculated daily. Dogs and Drainers show where clicks do not pay, and Ghosts show products without clicks.
Google Shopping monitoring
Monitor Google Shopping product by product. Eight signals, checked on a schedule.
Google Shopping monitoring means checking, for every product, whether it can show, whether it wins the auction and whether its clicks pay. This page lists eight signals, which of them you find in Merchant Center and Google Ads, which Product Metrics covers per product, and how often to check each.
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Three questions
Google Shopping ads monitoring answers three questions. Can the product show, does it win the auction, does the click pay?
- Signals 1 and 2
Can it show?
A disapproved product stops showing across Google. A product with a warning keeps showing, but its performance may be limited. Feed health decides whether a product gets any impressions.
- Signals 3 and 4
Does it win the auction?
An auction runs every time someone searches. Impression share and your price against the market show how often an eligible product wins one.
- Signals 5 to 8
Does the click pay?
Standard Shopping bills per click. A click pays when the product’s return is above its own break-even, so spend, return, stock and tracking are read per product.
The checklist
Google Shopping monitoring checklist: eight signals. Where to look, how often, and what each one tells you.
- 1
Disapprovals and warnings
Check: daily
Disapproved products stop showing across Google. Products with warnings keep showing, but performance may be limited, and unresolved warnings can lead to disapprovals. Start with the issue that affects the most products: one feed fix can clear many.
Where to look
- Merchant Center: Products, Needs attention
- 2
Price and availability mismatches
Check: daily, and after every price change
Google compares your feed with the landing page. Common causes are a feed that updates slower than the shop, incorrect structured data, a crawler that sees another price or currency, and wrong sale dates or time zones. Prices must be in the page HTML.
Where to look
- Merchant Center: Products, Needs attention
- 3
Impression share and auction insights
Check: weekly
Impression share is your impressions divided by the impressions you were eligible for. The Shopping auction insights report adds overlap rate and outranking share against each competitor. A falling share on a product that earns is the cue to look at budget, target and competitors.
Where to look
- Google Ads: Auction insights, Shopping
- 4
Price position
Check: weekly
Google’s Pricing tab compares your price with a benchmark built from other retailers selling the same GTIN, so it needs valid GTINs. Own-brand products share no GTIN: Competitor Prices matches them by style, colour and dimensions you approve and shows your price position, without shipping costs. The Price Monitoring add-on keeps it current at €0.004 per product check, excl. VAT.
Where to look
- Merchant Center: Analytics, Pricing
- Product Metrics: Competitor Prices
- 5
Spend and return per product
Check: weekly
An account ROAS averages winners and losers. Read spend, clicks and return for each product: look for products with many clicks and no return, and products with no clicks at all. Product Segmentation segments products by clicks and return, recalculated daily. Product Journeys adds what each click sells in GA4, direct and cross-sell.
Where to look
- Google Ads: Product groups
- Product Metrics: Product Segmentation
- Product Metrics: Product Journeys
- 6
Return against break-even
Check: monthly, and when margins change
Break-even ROAS is 1 ÷ contribution margin. A product with a ROAS of 3 earns at a 50% margin (break-even 2) and loses at 25% (break-even 4). Product Metrics works on ROAS right away; connect margins and it switches to POAS.
Where to look
- Product Metrics: Product Segmentation
- Product Metrics: Break-even ROAS calculator
- 7
Stock against ad spend
Check: weekly
A product that sells out while its ads run wastes clicks, and a product that sits unsold ties up capital. Inventory Insights gives a reorder date per product from projected demand, lead time and a safety buffer, and stock cover reaches your Merchant Center labels.
Where to look
- Merchant Center: availability
- Product Metrics: Inventory Insights
- 8
Conversion tracking
Check: monthly, and after every site change
Missed conversions lower the ROAS you see, and Google learns from what it counts. Compare the conversions in Google Ads with the orders in your shop. Full Signal Tracking sends every conversion back to Google Ads and gets through every adblocker.
Where to look
- Google Ads: Conversions
- Product Metrics: Full Signal Tracking
Intervals are suggestions, not Google rules. Check sooner after a feed change, a price change or a promotion.
Worked example
A healthy account ROAS can hide losing products. Six products, one week of Google Shopping spend.
In this example, the account returns a ROAS of 4.15, above its target of 400%. Checked per product against each margin, two products lose money.
| Product | Spend | ROAS | Margin | Break-even ROAS | After ad spendContribution after ad spend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Running socks | €150 | 9 | 50% | 2 | €525 |
| Trail shoe | €420 | 5 | 40% | 2.5 | €420 |
| Rain jacket | €380 | 4 | 30% | 3.33 | €76 |
| Headlamp | €100 | 4.8 | 35% | 2.86 | €68 |
| Hydration vest | €600 | 3 | 25% | 4 | -€150 |
| Trekking poles | €350 | 3 | 20% | 5 | -€140 |
| All products | €2,000 | 4.15 | €799 |
Hydration vest and Trekking poles take €950 of the €2,000 spend (47.5%) and lose €290 of contribution between them. Both return a ROAS of 3. Running socks at 9 and Trail shoe at 5 lift the account to 4.15, so the account total passes its target and hides them.
Running socks returns €525 on €150. Increase priority on the products above break-even and lower it on the two below.
Illustrative data: contribution after ad spend is revenue × margin − ad spend. It is not profit: margin is contribution margin before ad spend, and fixed costs, overheads and tax are excluded.
With Product Metrics
Product Metrics monitors what happens after the feed. Merchant Center and Google Ads stay the source for feed health and auction share.
Competitor Prices
Competitor Prices shows your price position against matched own-brand alternatives, next to POAS, margin and stock. The Price Monitoring add-on checks Google Shopping prices for the products you choose, daily, weekly or monthly, at €0.004 per product check, excl. VAT.
Inventory Insights
Inventory Insights gives a reorder date per product and shows slow stock with its reason, so you stop paying for clicks on stock you cannot deliver.
Product Journeys
Product Journeys uses your GA4 data to show what each Shopping click really sells: what the advertised product sells itself, and what it sells for the rest of your products.
Full Signal Tracking
Full Signal Tracking sends every click and every conversion back to Google Ads. It runs on an endpoint on your own domain and gets through every adblocker.
Merchant Center labels
Product Segmentation writes each segment to a Merchant Center custom label. You split campaigns or asset groups on that label and set the targets and budgets yourself.
Product Metrics reads your data and writes only the labels you approve. It is not an attribution tool.
Works with
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Magento
- Lightspeed
- Shopware 6
A routine
A Google Shopping monitoring routine fits three rhythms. Daily for feed health, weekly for the auction, monthly for economics.
- Signals 1 and 2
Daily
Daily Google Shopping monitoring means opening Needs attention in Merchant Center and looking for new disapprovals, new warnings and price or availability mismatches.
- Signals 3, 4, 5 and 7
Weekly
Weekly Google Shopping monitoring means reading auction insights and impression share, your price position, spend and return per product, and stock against ad spend.
- Signals 6 and 8
Monthly
Monthly Google Shopping monitoring means checking return against break-even after margin or price changes, and comparing Google Ads conversions with your shop’s orders.
Google Shopping monitoring, answered.
What should I monitor in Google Shopping?
Google Shopping monitoring covers eight signals in three groups. Whether products can show: disapprovals and warnings, and price and availability mismatches. Whether they win the auction: impression share, and price position. Whether the clicks pay: spend and return per product, return against break-even, stock against ad spend, and conversion tracking. Merchant Center and Google Ads show the feed and auction signals; Product Metrics covers spend and return per product, break-even, stock and conversion tracking, and price position for own-brand products.
How often should I check my Google Shopping campaigns?
Check Google Shopping campaigns daily for new disapprovals, warnings and mismatches, weekly for auction share, price position, spend and return per product and stock, and monthly for break-even and conversion tracking. These are suggested intervals, not Google rules. Check sooner after a feed change, a price change or a promotion.
How do I find disapproved products in Merchant Center?
In Merchant Center, go to Products, then the Needs attention tab. Disapproved products stop showing across Google. Products with warnings keep showing, but performance may be limited, and unresolved warnings can lead to disapprovals. After you fix an issue you can request a review, and Google says crawls usually finish within 24 to 48 hours.
Why does Google flag a price mismatch?
Google flags a price mismatch when the price in your Merchant Center feed differs from the price on the landing page. Causes Google lists include Merchant Center data that updates slower than your website, incorrect structured data, a crawler that sees another price or currency than shoppers, and wrong sale dates or time zones. The price must be in the page HTML. Googlebot re-crawls disapproved products over the next hours or days.
What does impression share tell me?
How do I monitor competitor prices on Google Shopping?
In Merchant Center, the Pricing tab under Analytics compares your price with a benchmark: the average price that typically leads to more successful ad auctions, from other retailers’ prices for the same GTIN. It needs valid GTINs. For own-brand products without a shared GTIN, Competitor Prices matches alternatives by style, colour and dimensions you approve, and the Price Monitoring add-on keeps the comparison current at €0.004 per product check, excl. VAT. Prices are compared without shipping costs.
Monitor every product, not just the account. Your first analysis covers all your products.
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