Dynamic remarketing uses your visitors' previous interactions to show them personalized ads. Most performance issues stem from a broken setup where product or service events don't match your product catalog, but resolving these gaps can significantly improve results. In this article, you’ll learn about match rate terminology, how to monitor your data, and how to resolve common implementation errors.
On this page
- How to know if these tips apply to you
- Understand dynamic remarketing data and terminology
- Resolve common match rate issues
How to know if these tips apply to you
These troubleshooting steps apply if you use dynamic remarketing and notice:
- Low match rates: Your "Remarketing key match rate" in Data Manager is below the 30% target.
- Underperformance: Your dynamic remarketing campaigns are performing poorly compared to your average campaign performance.
- Serving gaps: Even when matches happen, the correct products aren't consistently appearing in your ads.
Understand dynamic remarketing data and terminology
Before troubleshooting, it’s important to understand how Google connects ad behavior to your product catalog.
Key terminology
- Feed or product feed: A database containing your product catalog. The system uses this to select which items to display to a user based on their interests.
- Match rate: This is the percentage of remarketing events (like
view_item) that successfully align with product IDs in your Google Merchant Center or business data feeds. - Google Merchant Center or business data feeds: The specific data feeds (such as Google Merchant Center or business data feed) that hold the product catalog.
- Dynamic remarketing: This is the strategy of personalizing ads using information about a user's prior product or service interaction to drive improved remarketing performance.
- Business data feeds: These are data feeds that are managed within Google Ads and are used by advertisers in non-retail verticals (such as Travel or Education).
- Remarketing events: User actions recorded by your SDK or tag (for example,
view_itemandadd_to_cart). - Feed key: The unique identifier passed in an event that links an in App or site action to a specific item in your product feed.
- Key coverage: The percentage of all remarketing events that include a feed key.
How to access the feed key match rate table
To find the monitoring surface for your feeds:
- Go to Data manager within the Tools menu
.
- In the “Connected products” tab, locate your data source (either Google Tag or Google Analytics).
- Select the three-dot icon next to the product, then select View stats.
- Scroll down to the “Feed key match rate” section.
Resolve common match rate issues
Low match rates are often caused by implementation issues where the tracking doesn’t correctly align with your feed data.
The web or app isn’t sending view events
Many advertisers only track purchase events for conversion tracking. Because dynamic remarketing needs to know what products a user viewed to show an ad, a lack of view_item or view_item_list events will prevent the system from working optimally. Additionally, if the total number of view events is smaller than the number of add_to_cart or purchase events, this indicates an integration with incomplete tagging.
To resolve this issue, update your SDK or tag implementation to include view events. Learn more about how to set up events with your data for SDK and Web.
The web or app doesn’t include item_id in remarketing events
If the item_id parameter is missing from your remarketing events, the system can’t identify which product the user interacted with.
Verify that the item_id parameter is included in every remarketing event and is being populated with the correct value dynamically. You can find directions on how to implement the item_id into the site’s page here.
The item_id value doesn't match your feed
The item_id sent by your web or app must exactly match an ID in your product feed. If they don't match, the system can't find the product in your catalog to show in the ad.
For retail dRMKT campaigns
Ensure the item_id in your web or app matches one of these 3 Google Merchant Center attributes:
iddisplay_ads_idItem_group_id
For non-retail dRMKT campaigns
Ensure the item_id in your web or app matches your feed entry for ID based on the feed type. For help verifying the implementation and functionality of tags on your website, learn how to Troubleshoot with Tag Assistant.
There are filters in your feed
You may have applied filters, inventory filters, or custom labels to your product feed. In this case, your web or app is correctly collecting the product IDs, but the system can’t serve because those specific products have been excluded from the active campaign pool.
