Country targeting in Shopping Ads campaigns is changing in August 2022

We’re starting a phased rollout of a change to country targeting in Google Ads and Merchant Center. The rollout has already begun and will continue into September.

See Feed label replaces target country in Content API for Shopping for how this change impacts the Content API for Shopping.

When the change reaches you, you’ll be able to set the feed_label field in ShoppingSetting for Shopping & Performance Max campaigns in the UI and API. Due to this change, you may begin seeing campaigns with feed_labels set in the UI and API for certain merchants. Campaigns with feed_label not set to a 2-letter CLDR territory code can serve ads in any country as long as the campaign has the appropriate geoTargeting and the appropriate target countries are set in Merchant Center.

This change doesn’t impact the countries targeted by existing shopping feeds. You don’t need to update existing shopping feeds or campaigns.

What’s changing in Merchant Center
Today, Google Merchant Center feeds require you to select a primary country of sale target (sales_country in Google Ads API), with the option to provide additional target countries once the feed has been created. Starting in August 23, 2022, we will make the following changes to how target countries are organized in the Merchant Center UI:

• The primary country of sale option will be removed in Google Merchant Center. Country of sale will be replaced by the more generic feed_label that can accept any string, including any existing 2 letter CDLR country code.
• The current additional countries field will be renamed target countries, and will include all countries you want the feed to target.

What’s changing in Google Ads UI and API
The current sales_country field for all available Shopping campaign types, including Performance Max, will eventually be replaced by feed_label. Note that we will keep the sales_country field for backwards compatibility until at least Q2 2023. Right now, you can continue to use sales_country in your campaigns.

You can create a feed_label in Google Merchant Center or the Content API. Feed labels let you group different offers according to a common trait, like language (or a country, as you’ve currently been doing). You can also use feed_labels in Google Ads campaigns to target the relevant offers (all products with the same Merchant Center feed label).

The ads for the offers that match the feed_label will show based on the following:

1. The countries you selected as target countries in Merchant Center.
2. Your campaign’s geo targeting. Note: The default campaign targeting behavior (if you do not geo target) is that your products will serve in all your Merchant Center target countries.

How you’re impacted
The phased rollout to enable this feature in Google Ads UI and API has already started, and is expected to be complete by the end of September 2022. For existing feeds, feed_label will automatically be set to the two-letter territory code of the existing sales_country field to avoid interrupting existing targeting.

However, if you want to support new users or new feeds that only have a feed_label and not a sales_country field, we recommend you update your code by August 23, 2022 to accommodate customers who will use campaigns that only have a feed_label (without a sales_country).

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us via the forum.
Benji Rothman, Content API for Shopping Team