Definition
The product type attribute is the feed field where a store sends its own classification of a product, written as a path in its own words rather than chosen from Google's list. It has no effect on which policies apply to an item, and Google does not require it. Its value is structural: it is the field campaigns are subdivided by when a store wants its ad account organised the way its catalogue actually is.
The same item under both classification attributes
- Product
- A gravel bike sold by a specialist cycling store
- google_product_category
- The published taxonomy path for bicycles, chosen from Google's list
- product_type
- Bikes > Gravel > Endurance, which is how the store's own navigation is built
- A second product_type value
- Bikes > Sale, submitted alongside the first because the item also sits in the clearance range
- What campaigns do with it
- Listing groups and ad groups split on the product type path, so gravel bikes carry a different target from commuters
- What shoppers see
- Nothing, since the value is used for organisation and reporting rather than display
An illustrative pair. Sending both attributes costs nothing and does two different jobs: one tells Google what the item is, the other tells your account how you want to manage it.
Why it matters
The product type attribute matters because campaign structure decides how budget is allocated, and structure built on Google's taxonomy rarely matches how a store thinks. A retailer whose margin, seasonality and return rate differ sharply between ranges needs those ranges separated in the account, and product type is the field that carries them. It also makes reporting legible: performance grouped by the store's own paths can be handed to a buyer or a merchandiser without translation. For large catalogues it is the difference between a manageable structure of a few dozen meaningful groups and thousands of individual product rows nobody has time to read.
Where it goes wrong
- Sending an inconsistent path depth across the catalogue, so some items carry three levels and others carry one, which makes any subdivision built on the field uneven
- Rebuilding the store's navigation without updating the feed mapping, leaving campaigns split on category names that no longer exist anywhere on the site
- Using the field to hold marketing phrases or keywords rather than a category path, which produces groups too fragmented to bid on and reports nobody can summarise
- Assuming it influences how Google matches queries, and skipping the actual work of a good title and an accurate Google product category because the field looks similar
- Letting a feed tool concatenate every collection a product belongs to into one long value, so a single item ends up in a group of its own
Questions about product type attribute
Is the product type attribute required for Google Shopping?
No. Products serve without it, and Google applies its policies and category rules from the Google product category instead. It becomes close to essential the moment a catalogue grows past a few hundred items, because without it there is no clean way to subdivide campaigns along the lines the business actually manages.
How should the product type path be structured?
Mirror the store's own hierarchy, use a consistent separator and keep the depth uniform across the catalogue. Two or three levels usually gives enough resolution to bid on without splitting the account into groups too small to learn from. Decide the depth once, write it down, and apply it in the feed build rather than product by product.
Can product type be set in Shopify or WooCommerce automatically?
Yes. Shopify's product category and type fields, and its collections, can all be mapped into the attribute by the Google and YouTube channel or by a feed tool. WooCommerce product categories map the same way, and the plugin usually offers a choice of which taxonomy to send. Check what the mapping actually produces on a sample of products, since nested categories can serialise in unexpected ways.