Skip to content
In the past months, we received many questions from our clients about the free product listings on the Shopping tab. This year, Google launched free product listings in the US to help small and medium retailers with sales to fight the COVID-19 situation, and finally, it is coming to the EU too.
What are Surfaces across Google?
If you are advertising on Google and you want to boost your sales, Surfaces across Google can help you with that because they will be for free by the end of 2020. If you will participate in this program, your products can be shown in unpaid listings on Google Surfaces, like the Shopping tab, Google Search, Google Maps, Google Images, and Google Lens.
Your paid campaigns will be able to expand with free lists. If you are already using the Merchant Center and Shopping Ads, they will be launched automatically.
Where they will be available?
As we said, the free product listings on the Shopping tab are powered by the surfaces across Google which is the Merchant Center program. Surfaces across Google will be available in all countries where Shopping Ads are available.
The list of the countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
How to opt-in?
Currently, we do not know the specific date. Google only said it will be by the end of the year 2020.
After it will be launched, the Shopping tab will be redesigned to enable separate paid and unpaid programs, with an ads carousel across the top, and unpaid experiences listed beneath. Shopping ads will work as usual, with free product listings on the Shopping tab complementing them.
If you are using the CSS program, you will be able to choose one CSS partner through which you will participate in surfaces across Google. If you have only one CSS partner, they will be chosen by default. If you are using multiple partners, you can switch to another CSS at any point via the CSS dashboard. CSS selection for Shopping adds is unaffected.
What’s the current situation?
Currently, you can see in your Merchant Center that your Surfaces Across Google are “green” or active. It is because your feed is eligible for the usage of the free listings, but they do not work. If your Surfaces Across Google are “red” after the switch to CSS Partner, it is because after the switch your Merchant Account was refreshed and they are not active in the EU yet.
After this program will be active, your free listings should start automatically. If they won’t, do not hesitate to contact us so we will help you with that.
