If you sell into Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, or the Balkans, this is the biggest Google Ads update you'll see all year. Shopping Ads are finally coming to 15 new markets — and the first-mover window is real.
Google is finally rolling out Shopping Ads to 15 new European markets in 2026. I say finally because we're based in Vilnius, Lithuania, and we've been watching this gap for years. Our clients selling physical products here had to make do with text Search campaigns while merchants in Germany or France had full Shopping carousels. Same Google. Same auctions. Just... not available here. It was one of those things you just had to work around.
That changes this year.
What's Actually Happening
Google is rolling out Shopping Ads in two waves, both timed to land before major retail seasons. The announcement confirms the following timeline:
Wave 1 — Before Back to School 2026
Summer 2026
Cyprus, Luxembourg, Moldova, North Macedonia, Malta, Liechtenstein
Wave 2 — Before Holiday Season 2026
Autumn 2026
Lithuania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Estonia, Latvia
No exact dates yet from Google, just those seasonal windows. Which means if you're selling into any of these markets, you need to start getting ready now, not when the launch is confirmed.
What This Actually Opens Up
Shopping Ads are different from text ads in a way that matters a lot for e-commerce. When someone searches for a product, they see an image, a price, and a store name before they click anything. That's a much better experience for the buyer, and it tends to bring in more qualified traffic because people already know what they're getting into before they land on your site.
For merchants who've been running text campaigns in Lithuania or Bulgaria, this is a real upgrade. You're not just competing on ad copy anymore. You're showing the product.
And for brands considering expansion into these markets, the timing is good. The demand is there. The channel just wasn't.
The First-Mover Window Is Real
I've seen this play out enough times to know what happens when Shopping launches in a new country. The first few months are quiet. CPCs are low, competition is thin, and the auction hasn't filled up yet. Merchants who get in early build up conversion data and quality scores that take months to accumulate. By the time everyone else shows up, those early accounts are already running with a data advantage that's hard to close.
The brands that wait until the market is "proven" end up paying more for the same visibility. Every time.
If you're already shipping to any of these 15 countries, the question isn't whether to run Shopping Ads here. It's whether you'll be ready when the switch flips.
What You Need to Get Right Before Launch
Getting your products approved and running well in a new Shopping market isn't complicated, but it does require some actual work. Here's what matters.
Why Local-Language Feeds Matter More Now
This matters more now because Google is expanding AI Mode, which matches Shopping Ads against a much broader range of conversational queries than standard keyword matching. Google's latest ads and commerce announcement makes it clear that AI-driven matching will play a bigger role in how Shopping products surface. A thin or machine-translated feed will underperform against competitors who've invested in proper local-language product data.
What Is a CSS Partner and Should You Use One?
If you're expanding into these new European territories, you'll probably hear about CSS partners. A Comparison Shopping Service (CSS) is basically a Google-approved partner that can place Shopping ads on your behalf. Google's own CSS is the default, but using a third-party CSS partner gives you a bidding advantage.
Google takes a margin (around 20%) from bids placed through its own CSS, but third-party CSS partners don't have that margin applied to the auction. That means your effective bid is higher without actually spending more.
| Factor | Google CSS (Default) | Third-Party CSS Partner |
|---|---|---|
| Auction margin | ~20% taken by Google | No margin applied |
| Effective bid strength | Standard | ~20% stronger at same spend |
| Setup complexity | None (default) | Requires CSS partner onboarding |
| Best for new markets | Simpler but less competitive | Better CPCs when data is thin |
Google also deduplicates bids at the merchant level, meaning you can use a CSS partner to gain incremental visibility without artificially inflating your own CPCs.
In new markets where you don't yet know what CPCs will settle at or which product categories will convert, a performance-based CSS model can absorb a lot of the early uncertainty. You're not paying for clicks that don't convert. We ran a setup like this for a client expanding into a new market last year and it worked better than expected, especially in the first couple of months when the data was still thin.
Finding the Right Google Shopping Ads Agency for CEE Expansion
Because Shopping Ads haven't been available in Lithuania or the Baltics until now, most local agencies have zero actual experience running them. They know text ads. They don't know Merchant Center feed optimisation, Performance Max scaling, or CSS strategy.
At Three Chapter Media, we're based in Vilnius, but we haven't been waiting around for Google to flip the switch locally. We've been running high-volume Google Shopping and Performance Max campaigns for e-commerce brands in the UK, the US, and across Western Europe for years. We know the platform inside out, and we know the local CEE and Balkan markets because we live and work here.
We're offering free consultations throughout the entire rollout period for any brands considering this expansion. If you want to make sure your setup is ready before the launch, or if you just want an honest assessment of whether these new markets make sense for your brand, book a free audit and we'll go through it with you.
What works for one brand won't always work for another. We share what we've seen and tested, but every situation is different — test and adapt rather than copy anything blindly.