Our company has two separate stores with many overlapping products. Our main store is already synced with Google, and we have also been driving sales through several ad campaigns pointing to this domain. We would like to set up our new store in a similar fashion, and we want to target a different audience. In order to do this, I am assuming we would need to create an entirely new merchant center account, even if most of our product listings are the same? What would be the best approach in this scenario? Would we risk account suspension if both stores share the same product listings? Thanks in advance!
Google expects 1 business = 1 store / website / account.
You should merge all websites into 1, ie the original website.
If you do proceed with setting up multiple websites, and accounts in Google merchant center, expect a suspension at any time.
And once suspended, it’s very hard to get approved again, so proceed at your own risk.
Thank you for the quick and informative reply. It does confirm what I’ve been reading elsewhere.
To clarify, the two websites are entirely separate and we would be advertising different products. Ultimately, we want to run an ads campaign only for products exclusive to the new store. If we were to create a separate merchant account and feed for products exclusive to the new store and deselect any “overlapping” products from the Google sales channel entirely, would this be permissible or would Google flag us anyway?
Most likely yes.
If you want two websites, then you need two officially registered and unique business entities. Even then its possible you get suspended.
But the minimum requirement is having a unique business entity per website.
Hello there
If you have two separate stores with many overlapping products, you can set up a new Google Merchant Center account for your new store, even if most of the product listings are the same. This will allow you to target a different audience with separate ad campaigns and not risk suspension of your existing Merchant Center account.
Here are the steps you can follow:
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Create a new Google Merchant Center account for your new store. You can use a different email address and business information to set up the new account.
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Set up the product feed for your new store in the new Merchant Center account. You will need to create a new product feed with the product listings specific to your new store.
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Create new Google Ads campaigns targeting the audience for your new store, and use the product feed from the new Merchant Center account as the source for your ads.
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Make sure to use different tracking and conversion codes for your new campaigns to track the performance of your new store separately from your existing store.
@EcomGraduates This will violate Google policy, namely abuse of ad network. Reference: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020954?hl=en
Namely unfair advantage.
And will lead if detected by Google into a lifetime ban.
Thank you again for your input. We read through the abuse of ad network documentation. Both of our companies are registered and separate legal business entities. Based on your advice, we would NOT have any overlapping products. If we were to proceed with setting up a new google account (as per @EcomGraduates ’ suggestion), the product feeds would be different, and each would be marketed toward a different audience.
The only section in the abuse of ad network article that gave me pause was the following:
“Each website or app that you promote should offer distinct value to users. For example: avoid promoting similar products and prices across related destinations.”
Although the products we sell in both stores exist in the same general industry, their applications and values are distinct. We seem to be reading more and more conflicting opinions on this topic. I appreciate the forewarning as we certainly do not want to risk suspension.
Think of it this way. Is there any keyword that can trigger both sites? Most commonly, generic search terms.