The masterclass closes with scale: shops with physical premises, agencies with dozens of clients, brands selling in ten countries and catalogues that will not fit in a spreadsheet. What changes is how you organise the accounts and the feeds; what does not change is the rule running through the whole module: a clean, synced catalogue is the advantage.
Local inventory ads and the local storefront
For physical shops with stock (lesson 13.5 built the campaign; here is the Merchant Center side):
- Business Profile linked with every shop verified (store codes =
store_code). - Programme → Local inventory ads (and free local listings).
- Feeds:
- Local products: the catalogue (it can be the same online feed flagged for the local destination, provided the price and data match).
- Local product inventory:
store_code,id,quantity,price/sale_price(if they differ by shop),availability,pickup_method/pickup_sla(in-store pickup). Daily updates as a minimum; via API if stock moves a lot.
- Inventory verification: Google checks a sample of products with a visit or a phone call; only the first time.
- Optional: a local storefront page hosted by Google (if the website has no per-shop page) or a "merchant-hosted" page (your website shows availability by shop).
- In Google Ads: standard Shopping or PMax with "local products" switched on; a local campaign with store goals.
What it gets you: "Available in your store 2 km away", in-store pickup, presence on Maps and on the Shopping tab under the "nearby" filter.
Multi-client accounts (MCA)
A multi-client account groups sub-accounts together, each with its own website, feeds and settings (which can be inherited). The cases:
- Agencies: one MCA with a sub-account per client; agency users with access to all of them; the client with access to their own. The sub-account can be transferred to the client if the relationship ends (a request to Google).
- Brands with several shops/countries: a sub-account per domain or country (one MCA can claim several domains).
- Marketplaces: sub-accounts per seller (the marketplace programme has its own requirements).
The rules: a suspension of one sub-account does not affect its siblings (unless the problem sits with the MCA); shipping settings and the Google Ads link can be inherited; each sub-account claims its own website. Do not mix different shops into a single account.
Several countries, languages and currencies
Google requires every product to target a country of sale with an accepted language and currency, and the landing page has to match.
The options:
- One feed per country (the clean way):
target_country/language per data source; the country's URL, price (local currency) and landing page language; shipping configured per country. The same source can serve several countries if the landing page and price are the same (the eurozone with the same language). - Currency conversion: if you sell into a country with another currency without holding local prices, Merchant Center shows the converted price (and the landing page charges in your currency). It works where it is available; the real currency conversion happens at the checkout.
- Languages: the ad is shown in the feed's language; in multilingual countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Canada…) you need one feed per language.
- International shipping: shipping services per country with real rates; a "country not covered" = disapproval.
- Products and certifications: restrictions by country (alcohol, pharmacy, toys with conformity marking, electronics with energy labelling).
Structure in Google Ads: campaigns by country (a single account currency: the tROAS is interpreted in that currency; with several currencies, one Google Ads account per currency is usually cleaner, under the same manager account).
Large catalogues
Tens or hundreds of thousands of SKUs:
- The Merchant API instead of files: batch inserts/updates, price and stock in real time, no Sheets row limits.
- Feeds per business line (several data sources) so one error does not take the whole catalogue down.
- Minimum quality attributes across everything (GTIN, category, images) and enrichment prioritised by performance (the 2,000 highest-spending ones first).
- Structure built on labels calculated in the ERP/PIM (not in spreadsheets): performance, margin, stock.
- Practical limits: 100 values per custom label, file size per source, products per account (very high, but giant accounts use an MCA).
- Monitoring: percentage of disapprovals per source, expired products, sharp changes in impressions by category → automatic alerts.
Feeds for marketplaces and other channels
The same catalogue feeds Amazon, Meta, TikTok, Bing, comparison sites… Each channel has its own specification; the healthy practice is a master feed (a PIM or a spreadsheet) with every attribute and exports per channel driven by rules (feed management tools or scripts). Google is the most demanding channel on quality: if the master feed is built for Google, it will serve them all.
Automating Shopping oversight
What is a weekly routine in a small shop becomes impossible by hand at scale:
- Disapprovals by source and reason (Merchant API / reports).
- Top products with no impressions, products with spend and no sale, label changes.
- Price competitiveness for the top 100.
- Email alerts when a threshold breaks.
🔧 The scripts solve this: in the Suite, Shopping Ninja covers per-product performance oversight (spend with no sale, margin, exclusions and titles) and the Agent watches the account (anomalies, conversions, budgets) — with Ninja Shield excluding the fraudulent placements in PMax where the feed also shows. In multi-country accounts they are installed per account under the same manager account, and the Agent consolidates the alerts into a single email.
What to remember
- Local inventory: Business Profile + an inventory feed per shop + verification → "available nearby" and in-store pickup.
- MCA for agencies/brands/marketplaces: a sub-account per shop or country, isolated suspensions, transfer possible.
- Several countries: a feed per country/language, local price and landing page, shipping per country; currency conversion when you have no local prices.
- Large catalogues: the Merchant API, several sources, labels coming from the PIM, prioritised enrichment.
- A master feed built for Google will serve every channel; oversight at scale gets automated.
End of Module 14 — and of the Advanced level. If you have got this far with the previous ones behind you, you already know more Shopping than most agencies.