How to Send Google Shopping Traffic Directly to Checkout (And Why It Boosts Conversions)

Want to boost your Google Shopping conversion rates with just a few clicks?

There’s a simple setting inside Google Merchant Center that most people aren’t using:

It lets you send shoppers directly from a Google Shopping ad or listing straight into your checkout page.

That means… no product page visit, no extra decisions, no drop-off. If someone is already ready to buy, they can do it there and then.

In this edition, I’ll show you exactly how to set it up, where it works (and doesn’t), and what to do if your store platform or product IDs don’t quite line up.

Send Users Straight to Checkout from Google Shopping

Inside Google Merchant Center, there’s a setting under Business Information → Checkout that lets you enter a “checkout URL template.”

When activated, it lets Google inject the correct product ID into a pre-defined template that links directly to your checkout page with that product already added to the cart.

Here’s how you turn it on:

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Login to Merchant Center.

2. On the left-hand menu, go to Business Information.

3. Click on the Checkout tab.

4. Change the setting from “Don’t include a URL” to “Include a URL to your cart or checkout page”.

5. In the template field, paste your platform-specific checkout URL structure.

If you're on Shopify, here’s the exact template you can use:

https://yourstore.myshopify.com/cart/{{product_id}}:1

Replace yourstore with your actual Shopify store URL.

When enabled, Google will substitute in the correct product ID from your feed and send users straight to the cart or checkout with that product already added.

Test that the URL Works

There’s a test button in the Merchant Center interface that will:

• Grab a random product ID from your feed.

• Inject it into the template.

• Open the URL in a new tab.

If the checkout page loads correctly with the product added to the cart, you’re good to go.

If it doesn’t load correctly, here’s what might be wrong:

• Your product ID in Merchant Center doesn’t match your variant ID in Shopify.

• The checkout URL template isn’t compatible with your ecommerce platform.

In either case, the fix is to go more granular…

Alternative Setup: Use Product-Level Checkout URLs

If the account-wide template doesn’t work for your setup, you’ll need to use product-level checkout links instead.

Inside your product feed, add a custom attribute:

checkout_link_template

Many modern feed tools (like Feedonomics, DataFeedWatch, etc.) will allow you to add this custom field.

This lets you set a unique checkout URL per product, solving the ID mismatch problem, especially useful for stores not on Shopify.

Where This Checkout Feature Actually Works

Here’s where you can currently use the direct checkout feature:

• ✅ Free Shopping listings: These show up in the Shopping tab and cost nothing. If your feed is already active, you might be getting these by default.

• ✅ Performance Max Display placements: When Performance Max campaigns show display ads, especially to retargeted visitors, this checkout feature works brilliantly.

• ✅ Demand Gen campaigns: Yes, the feature is supported in Demand Gen too, whether it’s display banners or YouTube Shorts.

And where it doesn’t work… yet:

• 🚫 Standard Shopping Ads

• 🚫 Performance Max Shopping placements

So no luck (for now) if you want this on your main Shopping campaigns. But don’t let that put you off…

Why This Is Still Worth Doing

Let’s be real: this feature is very handy for warm traffic, especially:

• Visitors already familiar with your brand.

• People who’ve seen your products before (e.g. retargeted via PMax).

• High-intent shoppers browsing free listings.

Sending these users straight to checkout cuts friction and boosts your odds of converting.

It’s not a silver bullet for all campaigns, but for those warm touchpoints, it’s a really smart move that takes just minutes to implement.

And if you’re like me, anything that gets us a few extra conversions without having to redo our entire ad strategy is always welcome.

Summary

To recap:

• You can now send traffic directly to your checkout from Google Shopping using a Merchant Center setting.

• It works via a checkout URL template—ideal for platforms like Shopify.

• If account-wide templates don’t work, use the checkout_link_template attribute at product level.
  It currently supports Free Shopping listings, PMax Display, and Demand Gen—not paid Shopping Ads.

• It's especially effective for warm and retargeted traffic, giving you a handy conversion rate boost.

Let me know if you want to run this setup in your store but need help getting it working right with your feed structure, we’re happy to take a look.

Regards,
Daryl
Founder of Big Flare

Inside the Google Ads Strategy Behind a 700% ROAS Ecommerce Account

Let me show you what a high-performing, high-spending ecommerce Google Ads account really looks like.

This is a peek behind the curtain at one of our client accounts at Big Flare where we’re spending over $100,000/month and achieving a return on ad spend (ROAS) of over 700%.

I’ll break down the exact campaign types, how we structure Performance Max, how we layer in Standard Shopping, the search campaign strategy that makes the magic happen and plenty more.

Campaign Type Breakdown

We're spending just over $200,000 NZD a month in this account (a bit over $100K USD), and that spend is spread across multiple campaign types. Here’s how it breaks down:

• Performance Max and Standard Shopping are the workhorses, taking the lion’s share of the budget.

• Search campaigns, particularly non-branded ones, deliver the highest ROAS at 8.74X.

• Display is used solely for retargeting (not cold traffic).

• YouTube ads are used to build top-of-funnel awareness.

• We’re also testing Demand Gen with some early results.

Key Takeaway:

Performance Max and Shopping do the heavy lifting, but it’s search campaigns done right that push performance through the roof.

How We Structure Performance Max & Standard Shopping

We run one core Performance Max campaign that includes all products (around 160). This works well because all the products are profitable and their ROAS is well above the breakeven point.

But here’s the nuance:

• If you have products with varying profit margins or performance levels, consider splitting them out into different campaigns.

• If some products are performing below breakeven, pull them into a separate campaign and set a different ROAS target to let the system optimise accordingly.

New Customer Campaign

We duplicate the core Performance Max campaign and run it exclusively for new customers, using the “new customer acquisition” setting in Google Ads.

Why?

Because new customers have higher lifetime value, and we’re willing to bid more to acquire them. We target a slightly lower ROAS (around 600%) in this campaign to force the system to be more aggressive.

Best Performers Campaign

Top-performing products are pulled into a separate Standard Shopping campaign, where we can push budget and lower ROAS targets to scale results further.

Special Category Campaign

When we have a strategic product or a new product line we want to push harder, we give it its own campaign with its own budget and ROAS targets to prioritise its exposure.

Asset Group Strategy in Performance Max

Each asset group represents a single product category.

That means the assets — images, headlines, descriptions, videos — are tightly aligned with the products being advertised.

A few tips:

• Include audience signals and search themes.

• Don’t just run “feed only” unless you're working with very slim margins.

• Rotate out underperforming assets regularly. Only keep assets marked “Good” or “Best” in the asset performance report.

Search Campaigns: The Real ROAS Engine

This account’s non-branded search campaigns are delivering the highest ROAS. But too many ecommerce advertisers ignore search or only run branded campaigns.

Here’s what we recommend.

Segment Branded vs Non-Branded

Always run branded search separately and aim for:

• ROAS: 1,000%+

• Impression share: 95%+

For non-branded search, we run several types of campaigns:

Product Campaign

The core non-branded search campaign. Start by using keyword insights from your Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns to seed your search keywords.

Broad Match Strategy

Start with phrase and exact match. Once that’s working well, launch broad match in a separate campaign. Surprisingly, broad match is working great lately, sometimes even better than phrase and exact.

Competitor Campaign

Target exact competitors’ brand terms (but don’t include their name in your ad copy). You’ll get lower quality scores, but returns can still be solid.

Dynamic Search Ads

We use DSA campaigns strictly for discovery. Keep budgets low, monitor search terms weekly, and mine new keywords to build out your core campaigns.

Bid Strategy Portfolios

Group your non-brand campaigns into a bid strategy portfolio. This lets the algorithm share conversion data across campaigns and optimise more effectively.

Display Campaign: Only for Retargeting

We don’t run cold traffic through Google Display Network. Instead, we use a single campaign segmented into funnel stages:

• Homepage visitors

• Category page visitors

• Product page visitors

• Cart abandoners

• Previous purchasers

Each segment is its own ad group, and we exclude deeper funnel audiences from higher funnel ad groups to avoid overlap.

Attach your product feed so that ads dynamically show the exact products people viewed.

Keep budgets tight and use maximise conversions bidding (or Target ROAS if you’ve got the volume). Manage ROAS by adjusting the daily budget. Lower budget = higher ROAS (usually).

YouTube Ads: Embrace the Funnel

We’re running both cold and retargeting campaigns with video.

Key learning: Video ads are top-of-funnel. Expect a lower ROAS, but they’re fantastic for filling the pipeline.

We run:

• Creator Partnership Campaigns via Google’s Brand Connect. Great for scaling UGC-style content that already exists on YouTube Shorts.

• Testing Campaigns to try different creatives and audiences.

• Winner Campaigns where we scale the best combos of creative + audience.

Advanced Tactics to Boost Performance

Here are two final strategies this client used that helped us scale so successfully:

1. Geographic Expansion

They started in New Zealand, then expanded to Australia, the US, the UK, and Canada. Campaigns are duplicated and localised for each region.

2. Product Launches

They continuously launch and test new products, giving us new content to work with and new categories to scale.

Conclusion

This client’s results, 700%+ ROAS at $100K/month spend, aren’t magic. They come from:

• Smart campaign structure (core, new customer, best performers, special category)

• Proper segmentation in search campaigns

• Creative management within Performance Max and display

• Knowing when and where to bid more or less aggressively

• Constant iteration, optimisation, and keyword mining

If you’ve got a solid product and a growth mindset, these strategies will help you scale, too.