Google Vehicle Ads Setup Guide for UK Dealers: Step-by-Step

Last updated 24 September 2026.

To set up Google Vehicle Ads in the UK, you check you meet Google’s prerequisites, register your interest with Google, switch on the Vehicle ads add-on in a dedicated Merchant Center account, add your stock as a vehicle feed, link Google Ads, and run the ads through a Performance Max campaign. It usually takes two to three weeks from start to live ads. The hard part is the feed: every car needs the right details, and the price in the feed must match the price on your website.

In our guide to the benefits of Google Vehicle Ads, one dealer had 23.9k visitors, 1.66 million impressions and 350 conversions in three months. This guide covers the setup behind results like that, step by step.

Google changes its Merchant Center screens and rules from time to time. The requirements below were checked against Google’s help pages in September 2026; the sources are listed at the end.

What do you need before you start?

You need a website with a page for each car, Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts, good photos, and stock data that is kept up to date. In more detail:

• A website with a page for every vehicle. Google says that page must show your dealership name and location, the price, the mileage for a used car, and the vehicle’s identifier.
• A Google Ads account, where the campaigns run.
• A Merchant Center account used only for vehicle ads. If Shopping ads or free listings are switched on in the same account, Google turns them off when vehicle ads are enabled.
• Your dealership location on a Google Business Profile, because each car in the feed is tied to a store code that must match the one in your profile.
• Clear photos of each car without text or logos laid over them.
• Accurate stock data, with prices and availability kept current.

Google only accepts vehicle ads from businesses that sell the cars themselves, such as dealers. Brokers are not allowed, and private sellers cannot use the format.

If you use a Haswent dealer website and DMS, most of this is already in place: every car has its own page, the photos are uploaded and the stock data is kept in one place. If we already post your cars to your Google Business Profile, your profile is connected too.

Step 1: Check you are eligible and register your interest

In the UK, vehicle ads are in open beta, so the first step is to check Google’s prerequisites and then register your interest using Google’s form. Google’s prerequisites for the UK include:

• the country in your Merchant Center business information matches the country you are advertising in (the United Kingdom)
• the Merchant Center account has no data sources yet and is not linked to Google Ads while Google reviews it
• Shopping ads and free listings are not running in that account

Once Google has approved the account, you switch on vehicle ads in Merchant Center under Settings, then Add-ons, by choosing the Vehicle ads card.

Step 2: Build your vehicle feed

The vehicle feed is the list of every car you want to advertise, with the details Google needs to match it to searches. You add it to Merchant Center as a data source, which can be a file, a Google Sheet or the Merchant API. For a dealer with changing stock, a file that Google collects from a web address on a schedule is the usual choice.

Required attributes

Google’s vehicle ads specification requires these for each car:

Attribute	What it is	Example
id	Your unique reference for the car, such as your stock number	STK12345
google_product_category	Google’s category for cars	916 (Cars, Trucks & Vans)
condition	New or used	used
brand	The manufacturer	BMW
model	The model, without the trim	3 Series
year	Four-digit model year	2022
mileage	Mileage with the unit	15000 miles
color	Exterior colour	Black
price	The selling price with currency	25995 GBP
image_link	The main photo of this car	https://yoursite.com/images/bmw-320d.jpg
vehicle_fulfillment	Whether the car is sold in store or online, with your store_code for in-store sales	in_store
link_template	The address of the car’s page, with Google’s store code placeholder added	https://yoursite.com/vehicles/bmw-320d-12345 plus the placeholder

A few UK-specific points from Google’s specification:

• The vin attribute is optional in the UK. If you do not send it, the id stands in for it and must also appear on the car’s page.
• The price must include all taxes and any charges the buyer cannot opt out of.
• store_code must match the store code in your Google Business Profile exactly, including capital letters.

Optional attributes worth sending

These are not required, but they give Google more to match searches against:

• trim, such as M Sport or S Line
• body_style, such as hatchback or SUV
• engine, meaning the fuel type: petrol, diesel, electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid
• additional_image_link, for up to 10 more photos of the car
• description, for anything else, such as one owner or the options fitted
• vehicle_option, a list of the options fitted
• date_first_registered
• custom_label_0 to custom_label_4, for grouping cars in your campaigns, for example by price band or age in stock

Finance attributes for FCA-registered dealers

If you are FCA-registered and want to show finance, Google’s installment attribute adds a monthly payment to the ad. It needs:

• months: the number of monthly payments
• amount: the monthly payment

You can also send a deposit, the APR (optional in the UK), the total amount payable and whether it is finance or a lease. The figures must match the ones your vehicle page shows when it first loads, or the car will be disapproved. Our page on finance for car dealer websites covers showing finance on your vehicle pages.

Keeping the feed in good shape

• Keep prices identical. Google requires the price in the feed to match the price on the vehicle page exactly, and a mismatch gets the car disapproved.
• Use clean photos. Google’s minimum is 500 by 500 pixels and it recommends 1500 by 1500 or larger. Images with watermarks, logos or text laid over the car are disapproved.
• Update often. We recommend refreshing the feed every few hours so sold cars come out quickly.
• Fill in every required attribute. Missing details are the most common reason a car is rejected.

With Haswent, the feed is built from your DMS stock records. We check the attributes, fill in specifications and schedule the updates so your ads match your stock. You can see what the feed contains on our Google Vehicle Ads integration page.

Step 3: Set up Merchant Center

Merchant Center is where Google receives and checks your feed before the cars can appear in ads. The setup comes down to four things:

1. Create a Merchant Center account for vehicle ads only, at merchants.google.com.
2. Verify and claim your website, to prove you own the domain your car pages sit on. Google offers several ways to do this, including an HTML tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager or a DNS record.
3. Fill in your business details: name, address, phone number and customer service contact.
4. Add your stores by linking your Google Business Profile, then add your vehicle feed as a data source.

Checking the diagnostics

After the feed is added, Merchant Center processes it and reports problems. Check the diagnostics for:

• problems with individual cars, such as a missing attribute or a policy issue
• problems with the whole feed, such as a formatting error or a feed Google cannot fetch
• problems with the account

Fix every error before you launch. It is worth fixing warnings too, because they can stop cars appearing or hold back performance. Google also runs a review of your website and data quality before the ads can serve.

Step 4: Link Google Ads and Merchant Center

Your Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts need to be linked so your campaigns can use the feed. Wait until Google has finished reviewing the account for vehicle ads before you link them. You start the link from Merchant Center by entering your Google Ads customer ID, then accept the request in Google Ads.

Step 5: Set up your campaign

In the UK, vehicle ads run through a Performance Max campaign that uses your vehicle feed. Once the feed is approved and the accounts are linked:

1. Create a new Performance Max campaign in Google Ads.
2. Choose your Merchant Center account when asked.
3. Select your vehicle feed.
4. Set the campaign goal, usually sales or leads.

Budget and bidding

• Daily budget: start with enough to gather useful data. Most dealers we work with start from £10 to £20 a day and scale up once they can see which cars and campaigns bring enquiries.
• Bidding: start with Maximise conversions so Google can learn what a good lead looks like. Once you have a steady flow of conversions, you can move to a target cost per acquisition for more control.
• Adjustments: after the first two weeks, look at performance by device, location and time of day.

Location targeting

Target the area your customers actually come from. For most dealers that means:

• your own town or city, with higher bids
• the surrounding area within a reasonable drive
• excluding places too far away for anyone to visit

Conversion tracking

Before launch, make sure you are tracking the actions that matter:

• phone calls from the ads and from your website
• form submissions, such as enquiries, test drive bookings and finance applications
• taps on your phone number on mobiles
• requests for directions to your dealership

Each action needs setting up in Google Ads, with the tracking code on your dealer website.

Step 6: Launch and keep an eye on it

Watch the campaign closely for the first two weeks after launch. Most early problems show up in the numbers within days.

Figures to watch

• Impressions: how often your cars are shown.
• Click-through rate: the share of impressions that turn into clicks.
• Cost per click: what each visitor costs you.
• Conversions: enquiries, calls and other actions.
• Cost per conversion: total spend divided by conversions.

Common problems after launch

Few impressions. The budget may be too low, the location targeting too narrow, or cars may be missing from the feed. Start with the Merchant Center diagnostics.

Expensive clicks. Check your bidding and look at your photos and car details against the competition. Poor photos and vague details make the ads weaker.

Visitors but no enquiries. If people arrive but do not get in touch, look at the vehicle page: speed, how it works on a phone, whether the next step is easy to find, and whether the price is clear.

Disapproved cars. Merchant Center gives the reason for each one. Price mismatches, missing images and policy problems are the most common.

Once you are live, it helps to know how Vehicle Ads fit with your other Google advertising. We compare the two in Google Vehicle Ads vs traditional PPC for car dealers, and our Google Vehicle Ads calculator estimates the return for your stock.

How do you fix common feed problems?

Most feed problems come down to four things: prices, photos, identifiers and sold cars.

Price mismatch

Google compares the price in your feed with the price on the car’s page, and disapproves the car if they differ.

Fix: update your feed and website from the same stock data. With Haswent, both come from your DMS, so they match.

Image problems

Photos must be at least 500 by 500 pixels and show the car without watermarks, logos or text laid over it. Google also advises against cluttered backgrounds.

Fix: use clean, well-lit photos from several angles, without branding or banners on top.

Missing identifier

In the UK you can leave out the VIN, but the id in your feed must then appear on the car’s page. If Google cannot match the two, the car can be disapproved.

Fix: show your stock number or VIN on every vehicle page, and use the same value in the feed. Record the VIN in your DMS when you add each car.

Sold cars still showing

A sold car left in the feed wastes clicks and annoys buyers.

Fix: refresh the feed every few hours and make sure sold cars drop out of it automatically.

Frequently asked questions

Let Haswent do the setup

Google Vehicle Ads involve several technical pieces: the feed, Merchant Center, linking accounts, the campaign and conversion tracking. When Haswent does the setup, you can be live within two to three weeks without handling any of it yourself.

Because we build your dealer website and provide the DMS your stock lives in, we look after everything from adding a car to the ad being shown. Feed updates are quicker, the data is checked where it is entered, and conversions are tracked from click to enquiry.

Get in touch with our team to get your cars on Google with Vehicle Ads.

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads overview
• Google Merchant Center Help: Prerequisites for vehicle ads in the EEA and the UK
• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads activation
• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads data specification
• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads image guidelines
• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads installments
• Google Merchant Center Help: Vehicle ads policies