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Performance Max & YouTube Ads Case Study (Sports eCommerce)Google Ads Case Study: eCommerce Apparel Retailer (Performance Max)Google Ads Case Study (eCommerce Supplements)Google Ads Conversion Tracking: Get Rid of Window Shoppers (3 minutes) Lead Gen Case StudyGoogle Ads Case Study: eCommerce Shopify Supplement Store (Performance Max)Google Ads Case Study: Lead Generation B2BGoogle Ads Increase Law Firm LeadsFamily Medical Home CaseCosmetic Surgeon Generates 695 Leads with Google Ads
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Performance Max Google Ads: Creative Strategy (Advanced)Google Ads Increases Sales with eCommerce CompanyYouTube Ads Tutorial: Best Practices (2022)Google Ads Case Study eCommerce ($2 Million) #googleadsGoogle Ads Case Study: Luxury Fashion Retailer #googleadsGoogle Shopping Ads Optimization: Buy on Google (Free)Google Ads Case Study: Fashion Marketing (Swimwear) #googleadsGoogle Ads Fashion Marketing Case Study (Performance Max & Chat GPT) #googleadsZARA Fashion Marketing: Brand Breakdown (Google Ads)From Runway to Clicks | Driving Sales Through Clothing MarketingStarting a Dropshipping Business for Clothing - Things You Should LearnHow To Find Apparel Manufacturers & Suppliers for Your E-commerce BusinessPerformance Max Google Ads Strategy (Advanced)Google Merchant Center: Price Competitiveness ReportGoogle Merchant Center: Fashion AdvertisingGoogle Ads Performance Max: Step-by-StepGoogle Ads Audit (Part 1 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Campaign Performance (Part 2 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Ad Group Performance (Part 3 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Ad & Keyword Analysis (Part 4 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Responsive Search Ad Analysis (Part 5 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Landing Pages (Part 6 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Ad Position (Part 7 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Audience Analysis (Part 8 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Quality Score Analysis (Part 9 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Devices Analysis (Part 10 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Age Analysis (Part 11 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Hour Analysis (Part 12 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Auction Insights Analysis (Part 13 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Location Analysis (Part 14 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Gender Analysis (Part 15 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Household Income Analysis (Part 16 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Parental Status Analysis (Part 17 Tutorial 2022)Google Ads Audit Placements Analysis (Part 18 Tutorial 2022)Google Merchant Center: Fix Product Disapprovals (2022)Google Tag Manager For Submission Tracking (GA4)Google Shopping Ads Strategy: Convert Cold Traffic (Fast)Daily Ad Brief Interview: TGQ MarketingGoogle Shopping Ads: A/B Split Testing (2022)Google Merchant Center Shopify Dropshipping Feed Upload (Quick Method) 2022Reiss Brand Breakdown: Fashion MarketingGoogle Shopping Ads Tutorial: Advanced Scaling Strategy - Step By Step (2022)Manière De Voir Fashion MarketingTop Tips to Party Bus Marketing Plan (2021)
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Google Merchant Center: Fix Product Disapprovals (2022)

Overview:

Google Merchant Center is an important part of your overall digital marketing strategy. This is one of your most essential dashboards that’s home to your brand’s online presence. With a Google Merchant Center account, you’re able to tweak and make changes as to how your brand is perceived by your target audience. 

Perhaps, the most critical thing here is the opportunity for you to reach more audiences with GMC as your products are seen throughout the world’s biggest search engine. However, it won’t be successful marketing if errors occur within your merchant center dashboard. In this article, let’s talk about the common errors or disapprovals and the step-by-step guide on how to fix them. 


  • Availability Errors
  • Shipping and Tax Errors
  • Unique Product Identifiers
  • Price Errors Description-related Errors
  • Description-related Errors
  • Promotional Overlay on Image
  • Missing Additional Product Data Errors

Checking the Diagnostics Tab

Go to the diagnostic and click on all products, you will see all the problems and issues listed below. You need to click to download the actual item IDs of the issues detected. Once downloaded, you’re then able to get the example products and use these item IDs to check Shopify to pinpoint the actual product and make some updates.

1. Availability Errors

A. Invalid value [availability] /or/ Missing required attribute: [availability]

  • Sign in to your GMC account
  • Go to the diagnostics
  • Then, Item issues: Must be in stock, Out of stock, Reorder

What to do?

Once you see the example or product item, jump to your Shopify account Then you will want to go to Manage Availability and make sure that everything is check out.

B. Unclear value on your website [avalability]

Filter the downloaded report so that you can only see the products with:

  • Issue title = unclear value on your website
  • Search your product date for those products using the item ID and ensure that each product has a structured date added to the landing page
  • Use a Shopify SEO app like SMART SEO

What to do?

Go to your Shopify account and under apps, click on customize store button. Type in Smart SEO into the search tab and click on add app to your Shopify account. This will automatically add JSON structured data so that Google can read all your products. 

C. Automatic item updates active [availability]

Filter the downloaded report so that you can only see the products with:

  • Issue title - automatic item updates active: availability [availability]
  • Check your product data for those products using the item ID and ensure that each product has the same values for availability [availability] as is represented on your own site and its structured data. 

2. Shipping and Tax Errors

A. Missing Shipping Information

Step 1: Check and correct the account-level settings for the shipping services

  • Click the tools icon Tools and setting menu icon [Gear], then select Shipping and return under ‘Tools
  • ’On the Shipping services tab, create a new shipping service
  • Configure your shipping costs using the options available in the table.
  •  After verifying your shipping costs, the notification on the Diagnostics page will be removed.

What to do?

Go to your GMC account and click on the setting drop-down button and go to tools then shipping and returns. Click on ‘new shipping service’, the name of the shipping service, and the country. Follow the prompt instructions and you’re good to go.

B. Missing ‘shipping weight’ attribute

Step 1: Check and correct the account-level settings for the shipping services

What to do?

Do the same thing you did for the missing shipping information from the setting drop-down button → tools  → shipping and returns → new shipping service. Follow the prompts. Fill out the custom delivery time based on your carrier or partner and the range of delivery times boxes.

Step 2: If you're using item-level settings to modify the shipping rules for specific items, view the affected products. 

  • [shipping _label] i.e. ‘oversized’, ‘perishable’, or ‘free shipping’
  • Shipping (country: postal_code:price:min_handling_time:max_handling_time:

min_transit_time:max_transit_time)

What to do?

Go to your Google Merchant Center and click on products and check the diagnostics tab, then export the issue just like any diagnostics. Proceed to feed → add a supplemental feed. Follow the prompt until you reach the supplemental feeds page. Go to the excel sheet of the supplemental feed. Manually add the item ID, the shipping label, and shipping. Refer to your Google shipping label. 

Step 2: Resubmit your product data.

C. Missing value [tax] /or/ too few subattributes for attribute: tax

The tax [tax] attributes let you override the US tax settings that you created in Merchant Center. Use this attribute when you need to modify or override the tax for a single item.

What to do?

For the missing value tax, go to products → diagnostics → get the item ID of the products with problems → feeds → open the supplemental feeds. Proceed to the excel sheet of the feed and fill in the details such as item ID, shipping label, shipping, and tax. 

3. Unique Product Identifiers

A. Limited Performance Due to Missing Identifiers [GTIN, MPN, Brand]

Filter the downloaded report to see products with:

  • Issue title = missing identifiers: GTIN, MPN, Brand
  • Check your product data for those products using the item ID and ensure that each product has either an accurate GTIN attribute or both an MPN and brand attribute. 

What to do?

You want to see the products with the errors. Go to the diagnostics → supplemental feed excel sheet to see the products with the missing GTIN, brand, or MPN. You can also check from your Shopify account. Go to manage availability and make sure that all fields and identifiers are filled. Google then knows what the product is all about. 

B. Invalid value [GTIN]

Filter the downloaded report to see products with:

  • Issue title = invalid value: GTIN
  • Search your product data for those products using the ID and make sure each product is using an accurate GTIN. 

Some reasons why your GTIN is invalid:

  • Too many or too few digits. The GTINs usually have 8,10,12,13, or 14 digits. 
  • Failed check digit validation. If you mistype a digit, the check digit to catch that. Use the GS1 check digit calculator.

4. Price Description-related Errors

A. Missing or incorrect required attribute [price]

Filter the downloaded report to see products with:

  • Issue title=missing attribute in local product and local product inventory feed: [price]
  • Check your product data for those products using the item ID and ensure that the price attribute for each item matches your inventory.

What to do?

Once you see the item IDs of the products with the price errors, simply download the supplement feed excel sheet and edit the price column with the correct amount. Save and you’re good to go.

B. Mismatched [price]/page crawl

  • Check your product data for those products using the item ID and ensure that each item has the same values for the price (or sale_price and sale_price_effective_date) as those listed on your site and in its structured data 
  • Googlebot crawls data present in the HTML returned from the web server. If on y our website date is being passed dynamically with javascript after the page is loaded, this will trigger the error. Prices reflected in the HTML need to match exactly the prices uploaded in Merchant Center.

What to do?

Once you see the item IDs of the products with the price errors, simply download the supplement feed excel sheet and make sure that the price and sales_price columns have the same values.

Remember:

You can also check out your Shopify App store for Smart SEO. The app allows you to get JSON-LD structured data to let search engines know your stores in detail and rank them higher in search results.

C. Invalid value for category [price]

Filter the download report to see products with:

  • Issue title = invalid value: Google product category [google_product_categrory]
  • Check your product data using the item ID and ensure that each item has a GPC that conforms to your data specifications. 
  • Google Taxonomy

What to do?

GMC → diagnostics → get the item ID and download → go to supplemental feeds → update the google_product_categoy column → go to Google product taxonomy to find your product.

The next thing you do is grab the actual number of the product and paste it to your supplement feed excel sheet.

D. Invalid price format [ sale price]

  • Use the sale price [sale_price] attribute to tell customers how much you’re charging for your product during a sale. On sales, the price will be shown as the current price. 
  • Use the sale price effective date [sale_price_effective_date] attribute to tell us how long you want a specific sale price to be shown to users.

What to do?

GMC → diagnostics → get the item ID and download → go to supplemental feeds → ensure the that prices are the same → edit the effective date → save.

5. Description-related Errors

Missing value [description] /or/ text too short [description]

Filter the downloaded reports to see products with:

  • Issue title = text too short: description [description] 
  • Check your products with a too short description. Submit your descriptions of around 500-1,000 characters. But you can also submit up to 5,000 characters. Descriptions should also follow standard grammar rules and end with a punctuation mark.

What to do?

GMC → diagnostics → get the item ID and download → go to supplemental feeds → edit the description column, at least 500-5,000 characters → save.

6. Promotional Overlay on Image [image link]

  • Search your product data for those products using the ID and ensure that each product is a high-quality image without overlays. 
  • Change the URL submitted for the image_link attribute so that it points to the correct product image. Submit a new URL rather than updating an existing URL with new content to force a faster of the new image.

7. Missing Additional Product Date Errors

What to do?

GMC → diagnostics → get the item ID and download → go to supplemental feeds → Add the item IDs and assign the appropriate data for every product → save and update. 


Quick Review on Google Merchant Center Product Disapprovals

There you go! These are the most common disapprovals in your Google Merchant Center you should know about. Check out this tutorial as often as you can if you need your guide. Once again, the errors are:

  • Availability Errors
  • Shipping and Tax Errors
  • Unique Product Identifiers
  • Price Errors Description-related Errors
  • Description-related Errors
  • Promotional Overlay on Image
  • Missing Additional Product Data Errors

Fix the errors with our easy guide! Do you want more tutorials such as this? Subscribe to my YouTube channel and get a dose of tips and tricks to grow your eCommerce store. 



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About the Author

Ted is the founder of TGQ Marketing a PPC, Analytics and CRO agency focused on client results.