How do you preview Google Shopping ads?

How to open the tool

• In Google Ads, click the Tools icon in the left-hand menu.
• Open the Troubleshooting section and select Ad Preview and Diagnosis.
• Enter a search term to preview the results page and check whether your ad appears.

Why not just search Google

Searching for your own products on Google adds impressions you did not want and skews your statistics. Google says the tool avoids accumulating ad impressions, so it is the cleaner way to check.

If your Shopping ads do not appear

• Check the campaign is linked to the right Merchant Centre account. Google says you cannot change the linked account after you create the campaign.
• Make sure products are in the linked Merchant Centre feed for shopping ads destinations.
• Use the diagnosis in the tool and the campaign status to find the cause.

In practice

Shopping ads promote physical products from a product feed, so most app and game advertisers do not use them. They matter if your app also sells products online. For app installs and in-app actions, App campaigns are the relevant Google format.

See how we run App campaigns on our Google Ads agency page.