About product issues

The product issues feature, sometimes referred to as product insights, showcases the different types of product issues and provides relevant suggestions for Shopping and Performance Max campaigns. This includes improving the performance of products in Shopping and Performance Max campaigns and helping you to:

  • Identify products with missing attributes.
  • Know which product offers are being outperformed by competitors.
  • Find products that have potential for further optimization.

How product issues helps you improve product performance

  • Know how products are performing: Have a better understanding of which products are under performing and what to focus on for optimization.
  • Improve the quality of your feed data: Identify key aspects that are missing in your products and take actions to fix those issues for a better feed setup.

  • Leverage ads performance data to optimize products: Get more visibility into how your products are performing, what to prioritize depending on your business goals, and how to further optimize them. Understand the competitiveness of your bids on products compared with your competitor’s, and what products have potential for optimization.
  • Understand what actions to take to optimize affected products: Fix issues and generate more revenue.

How to access product issues

Product issues in Google Ads is available for Standard Shopping and Performance Max campaign types.

Note: This will be available in Performance Max campaigns only if a Google Merchant Center account is linked to the campaign.

Product issues can be found in 2 locations on the Google Ads account page.

Product subtab

  1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon Campaigns Icon.
  2. Click Overview.
  3. Click the Workspace filter at the top of the page and select either a Shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign.
  4. Click the Campaigns filter and select a campaign.
  5. Click the Products drop down in the section menu.
  6. Click Products.
  7. The “Issues” column is to the right of the “Product status” column.

Product detail page

  1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon Campaigns Icon.
  2. Click Overview.
  3. Click the Workspace filter at the top of the page and select either a Shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign.
  4. Click the Campaigns filter and select a campaign.
  5. Click the Products drop down in the section menu.
  6. Click Products.
  7. Click a product you’re interested in and you’ll find the “Issues” panel on the product details page.

How product issues work

This feature analyzes submitted products to help you understand how you can improve your product performance. Product issues will provide suggested fixes that will help optimize your product ad performance.

Campaign or Google Ads related issues

The issue types you’ll find in Google Ads can indicate various concerns with your product or its performance. Refer to the table below for information on what each issue type means and the steps you can take to resolve each issue.

Issue type What it means Suggested fix
Low manual bids Your bids were lower than those of your top competitors in the last 30 days. Try automated bidding, or add this product to a Performance Max campaign.
High target ROAS Your target ROAS resulted in lower bids than those of your top competitors in the last 30 days. Lower your target ROAS in campaigns that include this product.
Low maximum CPC Your maximum CPC resulted in lower bids than those of your top competitors in the last 30 days. Increase your maximum CPC in the impacted campaigns, ad, or product groups, or add your product to a Performance Max campaign.
No campaigns advertising this product (Account level only) There are issues with all of the campaigns this product is in or the product isn’t in a campaign. Add this product to another campaign, or review product details to understand why it’s not serving.
Note: “No issues” indicates that we haven’t found any issues with the product or its performance and that the product is active in at least one campaign.
Tip: You can click “View campaigns that include this product” to find a table that outlines which campaigns include the product you’re reviewing.

Data feed or Merchant Center related issues

The issue types in Merchant Center will indicate either a missing value or a missing identifier. Refer to the table below for more information on what this means and how you can fix it.
Issue type What it means Suggested fix
Missing value: age group [age_group], color [color], size [size], gender [gender] A value hasn’t been provided in your product data for a required attribute. Provide the missing value to improve your performance.
Missing identifier: brand [brand], MPN [mpn], GTIN [gtin] A value you’ve submitted is either missing or isn’t recognized as a valid identifier. Provide the appropriate unique product identifier value, or state that such an identifier doesn’t exist.
Tip: When signed into your Merchant Center account, you can click “View in Merchant Center” to open the “Product details” page in Merchant Center. If you’re not signed into your Merchant Center account, you’ll be redirected to a login page. If the Google account you’re using doesn’t have access to the Merchant Center account you want to open, you’ll be redirected to a page that prompts you to choose a different account.

Related links

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?
true
Achieve your advertising goals today!

Attend our Performance Max Masterclass, a livestream workshop session bringing together industry and Google ads PMax experts.

Register now

Search
Clear search
Close search
Google apps
Main menu
9600196581062119590
true
Search Help Center
true
true
true
true
true
73067
false
false
false