How To Properly Manage Google Merchant Center Feeds For Shopify Markets
Got a call the other day from a client saying they were closing their separate .com.au and .co.nz stores and moving to one .com store serving both regions using Shopify markets.
Previously we have had:
Two Shopify stores (with separate product feeds for each)
Two Google Ads accounts
Two GMC accounts
What’s the correct way to handle this from a Google Merchant Center perspective?
I presume I might need some kind of 3rd party plugin/tool to create a product feed per ‘market’ – one for the AU version of the site, one for the NZ version.
From there, is it going to be problematic that both regions sit on the same domain but with only a parameter ID in the URL telling you which country version you are on (unless you look at the pricing for either NZD or AUD). e.g. thesite .com/product1&country=AU or thesite .com/product1&country=NZ
Also is this likely to cause an issue with Google Ads itself? They want to keep two separate accounts if possible.
Any advice would be appreciated.
The short answer is:
Your new setup with a single.com domain utilizing Shopify Markets for AU and NZ can be successfully managed within a single Google Merchant Center (GMC) account, which is preferable, or the two existing GMC accounts, but requires careful feed separation and URL normalization.
The critical solution is to use a robust third-party Shopify app that leverages the Shopify API/webhooks to generate two distinct, localized product feeds – one for Australia (AUD) and one for New Zealand (NZD).
This external tool must correctly append the country-specific parameter (like &country=AU or &country=NZ) to the link attribute in the feeds, ensuring prices and currency match the landing page as required by Google’s policy.
Maintaining two separate Google Ads accounts is fine, as both can be linked to the single GMC or their respective GMC accounts, and performance will be managed via the Google Ads API for bulk operations and reporting.
The key is using a feed app to ensure data accuracy and compliance, thus minimizing the risk of disapprovals which is the most cost-effective approach versus a complex custom build.
The long answer is:
The core challenge lies in satisfying the Google Merchant Center’s strict requirement that the product’s advertised price, currency, and availability must exactly match what the user sees on the landing page for the target market.
Since you are consolidating to one domain with a parameter-based solution for country targeting (thesite.com/product1&country=AU), you must explicitly tell Google which feed corresponds to which country.
The native Shopify integration often struggles with the granularity required for complex multi-market setups, which is why a dedicated third-party feed management app is essential.
This third-party tool is your API integration solution, utilizing the Shopify API/webhooks to reliably extract all necessary product data, including the country-specific pricing and currency configured via Shopify Markets.
It then constructs two separate primary feeds, one targeting AU and one targeting NZ, ensuring the price [price] attribute and the currency [currency] attribute are correctly set for each.
Crucially, the app must manipulate the link [link] attribute for the AU feed to include the &country=AU parameter and the NZ feed to include the &country=NZ parameter, thus creating the necessary link-to-price match for Google’s crawlers.
Your two existing Google Ads accounts can remain separate and be linked to your GMC account(s) – a single GMC account can be linked to multiple Google Ads accounts, and this linkage can also be managed programmatically via the Google Ads API for high-volume or complex account structures.
Furthermore, utilizing the Merchant API (formerly Content API for Shopping) is the most technical and robust way to manage feed submission, offering real-time updates and direct error handling, which many third-party apps employ under the hood.
While parameter-based URLs are not Google’s preferred method (they suggest subdomains or subdirectories), they are permissible as long as the price and currency match exactly what is in the feed, which is precisely what the specialized feed app ensures.
This approach is highly cost-effective because it automates a process that would otherwise require complex manual updates or custom server-side coding to manage data synchronization and compliance across two separate international markets.
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