Vehicle ads (VLA) allow advertisers to promote their entire inventory to customers shopping for vehicles on Google. This format shows customers an image of the vehicle and information such as make, model, price, mileage, and advertiser name. Vehicle ads drive sales by optimizing for both leads and store visits.
Initial configuration
Contact your Advertising Engineer to set up the initial feed configuration.
Google prerequisites
Fluency account setup and data ingestion
Hover over Global Settings (gear icon) and select Platform Integrations.
Link Google Ads, Merchant Center (GMC), and Business Profile (GBP, formerly Google My Business).
Auto-Linking (available for both GMC and GBP) automatically connects individual accounts—GBP matches by physical address, GMC matches by domain. Confirm linking status on the Accounts Management page. Note: Business Profile isn’t required to be linked to Fluency in order to run vehicle ads; they can be externally linked to the accounts.
Manual Linking: If auto-linking is off, go to Accounts Management, click the pencil icon next to the partner platform, select the associated account, and click the link icon. Accounts showing "Incomplete" status must be manually linked.
Hover over Global Settings (gear icon) and select Customer Info.
Under Products and Catalogs, click the + sign and select Extract Vehicle Inventory. Add the name of the common inventory source (e.g., Google) and toggle on Enable Automated Google Vehicle Product Feeds. Note: This setting requires support from your Advertising Engineer.
Locate the Google Store Code column in your ingest sheet and enter the Google Store Codes. If a column does not exist, add a new column and name the header “Google Store Code.”
Note: The store code can be found in Google Business Profile and cannot begin with a 0. The store code may also be included in the inventory feed, if this is the case, you do not need to include the store code in the ingestion sheet.
Locate your inventory feed data column in your ingest sheet and enter your associated account feed data link. Your feed data header should follow this syntax: feed:24:google:720. In this example, your data will be updated every 24 hours. If your data has not changed in over 720 hours, you will receive a stale data notification.
Hover over Automate (rocket icon) and select Account Ingest. Manually sync your ingest sheet.
Fluency will populate your feed as an External Data Source. Confirm your data source populated: Hover over Manage (globe icon) and select an account > Account Settings > Rocket Icon > External Data Sources > Confirm the data source populated.
Once a change in your inventory data occurs, you will see an Account Data Source titled [VLA: vehicles] (Account Settings > Rocket Icon > Account Data). Click on your new account data source to see how your feed data has been normalized.
Use the Vehicle Ads Checklist to identify which steps need attention to get your campaigns ready for launch (Account Settings > VLA Checklist).
Google Merchant Center diagnostics and approvals
Use the VLA Checklist to track prerequisite completion and feed/product approval status in one place:
Hover over Manage (globe icon) and select an account.
Click Account Settings near the top.
Under Partners, select VLA Checklist.
Toggle on Show Completed Steps to see everything finished so far. The checklist also displays the store codes associated with GMC and GBP for quick cross-checking.
Navigate to Merchant Center to track data source creation by clicking the Data Sources tab you should see the Fluency-controlled data source titled “Vehicles.”
Navigate to the products tab. All products will initially have a “Pending initial policy review for vehicle ads” error—this is standard and usually takes 24–48 hours for Google to approve but can sometimes take more than a week.
Review diagnostics and look for any disapprovals.
If you see the “missing inventory data” error, it should resolve after Google’s initial policy review is approved.
Resolve any issues with missing vehicle attributes, store codes, etc., from your feed.
Note: Fluency pushes only the first 25 vehicles to GMC to isolate errors and prevent mass disapproval.
Once one vehicle is approved, another change in feed data (automatic refresh or manual trigger) unlocks and sends the full feed. Back in Fluency, navigate to the Vehicle Ads Checklist to re-process the feed.
Click Resubmit Inventory. This triggers a refresh in your data source to check for a change in inventory.
Account-level vehicle feed control
You can control vehicle ad feeds at the account level, rather than globally across a portfolio. Enabling this functionality requires Fluency Engineering support during the initial configuration stage.
Once enabled:
Hover over Manage (globe icon), and select Accounts.
Click on an account from the list and select Account Settings near the top.
Under Partners select Options.
Toggle on Google Vehicle Feeds.
Refresh the data source.
The VLA:Vehicles inventory feed will automatically be generated and pushed to Google Merchant Center (GMC).
Blueprint setup
Creating scalable vehicle ad strategies via Blueprints.
Create a Google Performance Max or Shopping campaign.
Open the Product Filters section, and select Add one now to create a new product filter.
Select a Product Attribute from the dropdown and add an Attribute Value. E.g. Product Attribute is Condition and Attribute is New. You can also use tags in this area.
Note: Custom labels can also be leveraged here within product filters. Reach out to your advertising engineer for assistance with custom label mapping.
Open the Advanced Settings section, and input the name of the VLA inventory feed in the Catalog Template field. Note: This will always be VLA: vehicles as long as you are using Fluency feeds to Merchant Center. If you are not, contact your Fluency team member for assistance with this field.
(Optional) Add a Product Division (Select or create a Blueprint ad group > Product Divisions). This should be different from your campaign-level filter and segment the asset groups (e.g., Brand, Condition, etc.). Note: Product Divisions are not required if you have already configured a product filter at the campaign level.
Add a Performance Max creative.
Feed Only Vehicle Ads: Creative asset fields are required in Blueprints but not required for feed only Vehicle Ads. Create a placeholder tag, the tag should not contain any text and therefore should not resolve. Simply input [Placeholder] in the Headlines, Descriptions, Marketing Images, and Logo Images fields.
Asset and Feed Vehicle Ads: Include creative assets according to Google’s Performance Max requirements.
(Optional) Add feature flags to the campaign or ad groups' valid when statements.
Create different variations of your Performance Max campaigns as needed. Note: You can only have one creative per Performance Max ad group. Create separate campaigns or ad groups for different ads, such as separating new and used vehicles.
Continue with Account setup and campaign launch as described below.
Account launch
Launching new vehicle ad campaigns.
Hover over Automate and select Launch.
Stage your account with the Blueprint that contains your Performance Max or Shopping campaigns for vehicle ads.
Toggle on/off any feature flags, as needed.
Click the eyeball icon to preview and confirm that the correct campaigns and ad groups are generating.
Notes:The landing page URLs will look like they’re directing to your account’s homepage. Once the campaigns push to Google, Fluency will use the URLs specific to each model in your inventory feed.
The ads look blank but that is to be expected. Fluency pushes an empty shell of a creative to the partner so you won’t be able to preview the ad until it connects to the feed at Google.
There will be a warning for “too few headlines and descriptions.” This is also expected as these assets are not required for vehicle ad creatives.
Click Launch to create the campaigns and asset groups in Google Ads.
Troubleshooting common issues
Here are some common issues you may encounter with vehicle ads and tips on how to troubleshoot them.
Missing or incorrect store code
Make sure your account ingestion sheet and feed is pulling in a valid store code.
In your account, go to Settings > Blueprints > Account Data, and check your vehicle ad inventory feed to confirm the store code is accurate and included.
In the Account Management page click the pencil icon to view your GMC and GBP settings to view the associate store code.
In GMC, confirm that the correct feed is pulling the correct Google Store Code.
Missing products
Check if the products listed in GMC match your vehicle ad feed in Fluency. If there's a discrepancy, go to the VLA Checklist in Fluency (Account Settings > VLA Checklist) and select Resubmit Inventory.
You can also refresh the external data source in Fluency by navigating to External Data Sources (Account > Account Settings > Rocket Icon > External Data Sources), select the feed data source, and manually click Refresh Data to update your inventory manually.
Other product disapprovals
To view current disapprovals, go to the Google Vehicle Ads Readiness Checklist (select an account > Tools) in GMC.
You can also find disapproved products within GMC under Products > Needs Attention.
VLA: Vehicles data source not populating
Go to External Data Sources (Account > Account Settings > Rocket Icon > External Data Sources) and confirm the external data source is active and error-free. An inactive source needs a manual refresh regardless of whether a data change occurred.
Manually refresh the external data source, or temporarily lower the refresh frequency (e.g., from 12 hours to 6) to catch the change sooner—switch it back once the feed is established.
Confirm the feed link itself isn't broken. Click the live feed link from the ingest sheet to download the inventory data as a sanity check. A 404 or failed download means the break is on the provider's side—the client will need to contact their feed/inventory provider.
Confirm the account is not in Read-Only mode. Read-only status blocks feeds from being sent to GMC entirely and must be toggled off (Manage > Account Settings > Account Details).
GMC data source stuck at zero products or full feed not sending
If GMC is showing zero products or the full feed hasn't pushed after the initial 25-vehicle batch:
Check for legacy or duplicate feeds still active inside GMC. Google sees duplicate VINs across old and new sources and disapproves them—remove any old data feeds in GMC to eliminate the conflict.
Navigate to the data source tab directly in GMC, locate your fluency Vehicles data source and click Update
Confirm at least one vehicle has been approved in GMC—Fluency will not send the full feed until Google approves at least one vehicle from the initial 25.
Products stuck in "pending policy review" (72-hour loop)
If vehicles are sitting in "pending" indefinitely, frequent feed updates may be resetting Google's review clock:
Navigate to the data source tab directly in GMC, click into your Vehicles data source select the Data source setup tab click the pencil icon next to Scheduled updates and temporarily pause your data source.
Let the feed sit untouched for approximately 72 hours so Google can complete an uninterrupted review cycle.
Once approval clears, re-enable the automated refresh in GMC.
Stale data errors
If a feed is marked inactive due to a stale data threshold being exceeded:
Go to External Data Sources (Account > Account Settings > Rocket Icon > External Data Sources), select the Google feed, and manually click Refresh Data to prompt Fluency to re-recognize the inventory stream.
Check Notifications > Stale Data Alerts to catch this proactively—especially for accounts set up well before launch, where inventory can sit unchanged for an extended stretch and trigger staleness right as the client is ready to go live.
Read-only status
Read-only status will prevent feeds from being sent. Check if your account is on read-only by navigation to Manage > Account Settings > Account Details.
For more details on product disapprovals and guidelines, view the full list here.