Set up a feed

A feed sends a set of products to Google for one country. You can create as many feeds as you want, and one product can be in several feeds. Getting the feed structure right up front makes your Google Ads campaigns much easier to manage later.

Create a feed

Go to Feeds and select Create feed (or Create feed on the Dashboard). The form has five sections.

1. Basic information

• Feed name — for you only, e.g. US — Apparel only.
• Target country — the list shows the countries in your enabled Shopify Markets. The feed uses that Market’s currency, prices and language.
• Feed label — how Merchant Center tells your feeds apart. Up to 20 characters: A–Z, 0–9 and dashes. Feeden suggests one from the feed name. Change it only if you need to match a label your previous app used.

Target country and feed label can’t be changed later

Changing either would orphan every item already in Merchant Center and resubmit the whole feed from scratch. To sell in another country, create a new feed.

2. Product selection

Choose one method:

Method	Includes	Good for
All products	Every active product in the store	Your main feed for a market.
By Collection	Products in one or more Shopify collections	Bestsellers, a seasonal range, a brand.
By Category	Products filed under a Shopify product category and its subcategories	One product line, e.g. Apparel & Accessories › Clothing.
Manual	Products you pick one by one	A few hero products, tests.

Collections and products you add later to a selected collection or category join the feed automatically.

3. Content options

• Variant submission mode
  • All variants (recommended) — each size/color combination is its own listing. Google can show the exact variant a shopper searched for.
  • First variant only — one listing per product. Use it for catalogs with many near-duplicate variants (e.g. 40 engraving options) that Google would flag as duplicates.
• Variant option filter (optional, with All variants) — select + Add condition to skip variants by option value. Example: in a US feed, exclude the Size values EU 38, EU 40… Leave it empty to include every value.
• Append variant name to title — sends “Classic Tee — Blue / M” instead of “Classic Tee” when a product has more than one variant. Keep it on so each variant has a distinct title.

4. Destinations

• Shopping Ads — paid campaigns (Performance Max, Standard Shopping).
• Free listings — organic placement on the Shopping tab, Search and Images, at no cost.

Both are on by default. Turn off Shopping Ads for products you don’t want to spend ad budget on.

5. Default product categorization and identifiers

• Default category — a Google product category for products that don’t get one from mapping. Type to search Google’s taxonomy.
• Default age group, gender, condition — used for products that don’t have their own value. Required by Google for apparel in many countries.
• Identifier strategy — how identifier_exists is decided:

Option	Use when
Auto (recommended)	Normal retail products. Feeden sends brand, GTIN and MPN when present; identifier_exists is true if at least 2 of the 3 exist.
Brand + MPN only	Your Shopify barcode field holds internal or warehouse codes, not real GTINs. GTIN is never sent.
Custom product	Handmade or made-to-order items with no industry identifier. No brand, GTIN or MPN is sent.

Finally, Custom rules for mapping lets you add exceptions for this feed only — see Configure mapping. You can add them later too.

Select Save in the save bar at the top of the page. Feeden starts pushing the feed’s products to Google right away. They show as Pending in Manage Products until Google has reviewed them — usually minutes, sometimes a few hours.

After the feed is created

Open a feed from the Feeds page to edit it. The Target country and Feed label are greyed out; everything else can be changed.

At the bottom of each feed page:

• Static feed URL — an XML copy of the feed, regenerated every night. Add it in Merchant Center as a Scheduled fetch (Settings → Data sources) as a fallback, in case real-time sync is ever down or rate-limited. Select Copy to copy the URL.
• Delete feed (top right) asks whether to also remove the feed’s products from Merchant Center. Choose Delete feed only to keep them listed on Google until you remove them yourself.

The feed page also warns you about problems that stop products from being published:

Warning	Fix
[Country] has no Shopify Market	Prices come from Shopify Markets, and no enabled Market covers the feed’s country. Add the country to a Market in Shopify admin.
No shipping synced for [country]	Google may disapprove products without shipping. Open Shipping settings and follow Set up shipping.

Real-world setups

1. One country, everything

Store: a US apparel brand selling only in the United States.

Feed	Country	Products	Destinations
US — All products	United States	All products	Shopping Ads + Free listings

Set Default age group = adult and leave the rest to mapping. This is all most single-market stores need.

2. Several countries

Store: sells in the US, Canada and Vietnam through Shopify Markets.

Feed	Country	Products	Notes
US — All products	United States	All products	USD prices from the US Market.
CA — All products	Canada	All products	CAD prices; set a longer transit override in Shipping.
VN — Bestsellers	Vietnam	By Collection: Bestsellers	Start small in a new market.

Each feed uses its own Market’s currency and language automatically. Make sure every country has shipping synced.

3. Separate budgets for bestsellers

Goal: spend more on bestsellers without splitting products by hand in Google Ads.

Feed	Country	Products	Destinations
US — All products	United States	All products	Shopping Ads + Free listings
US — Bestsellers	United States	By Collection: Bestsellers	Shopping Ads

Both feeds target the US without conflict, because each has its own feed label. In Google Ads, point a higher-budget campaign at the US-BESTSELLERS feed label.

4. Clearance on free listings only

Goal: keep low-margin sale items visible without paying for clicks.

Feed	Country	Products	Destinations
US — Full price	United States	By Collection: Full price	Shopping Ads + Free listings
US — Clearance	United States	By Collection: Sale	Free listings only

5. One country, several size systems

Store: each shoe has both US 8 and EU 41 size values. In the US feed, choose All variants and add a Variant option filter that excludes the EU values. In a German feed, exclude the US values instead.

Common errors

Message	Fix
Feed name is required.	Enter a name.
Choose a target country from your enabled Shopify Markets.	The country isn’t in an enabled Market. Enable it in Shopify (Settings → Markets) first.
Feed label must be 1-20 characters — A-Z, 0-9 and dashes only.	Remove spaces, accents and other symbols.
This feed label is already used by another feed.	Pick a different label — each feed needs its own.
Select at least one collection. / Select at least one product. / Choose a category.	The selection method you picked needs at least one item.
Connect Google Merchant Center in Settings first.	Feeds can’t publish without a connected account.