Most of the advice about Google Shopping, Meta Ads and tracking assumes your store is a blank slate. It is not. The platform you sell on decides how your product data leaves the store and how each order gets reported back.
Shopify and Shopify Plus
Shopify connects to Google, Meta and TikTok through sales channel apps. They are quick to set up, which is their strength and their weakness: the feed works, but it is often thin.
What to check:
- Titles and attributes. The channel sends what is on your product pages. If your titles are short or attributes live in metafields, they may not reach the feed. A feed app or Merchant Center rules can fill the gaps.
- Variants. Make sure each size and colour is sent as its own item with the right group ID, image and stock.
- Tracking. Check that purchases are recorded once, not twice, when apps, pixels and a tag manager all report the same order.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is flexible, so the feed and tracking depend on the plugins you choose. That flexibility is where problems creep in.
What to check:
- Feed plugin settings. Make sure GTIN, brand, colour and size are mapped to the right WooCommerce fields.
- Plugin clashes. Caching, consent and tracking plugins can stop tags firing. Test a real order end to end.
- Speed. Heavy themes and plugins slow product and checkout pages, which costs sales from every channel.
Magento and Adobe Commerce
Magento suits large catalogues, and that brings its own feed challenges.
What to check:
- Attribute mapping. Magento lets you create custom attributes. Map them deliberately to Google's attributes rather than relying on defaults.
- Configurable products. Send each child product with its own data, linked by item group ID.
- Update frequency. With thousands of products, price and stock change constantly. Make sure the feed refreshes often enough to avoid mismatches.
The checks that apply everywhere
- Compare tracked sales with real orders in your store each month.
- Use server-side tracking, enhanced conversions for Google Ads and the Conversions API for Meta, so fewer sales go missing.
- Watch Merchant Center product status so disapprovals are fixed quickly.
- Add custom labels for margin or best sellers, so campaigns can be split by what matters.
Whichever platform you are on, the ads can only be as good as the data behind them.
Get a quote and tell us which platform you use. We will tell you what we would check first.