Industry Guide · 16 chapters · first chapter coming soon
Google Ads for Ecommerce: Google Ads Reports Revenue. Your Bank Account Reports Profit.
An online store shares the results page with Walmart and Target in Google's free product listings, with rival brands that bid on its name, and with a Google crawler that rechecks the price on every product page. Shipping, payment fees and returns come out of every order before any profit does. These sixteen chapters build a Google Ads account in the order we build them, using real searches, ads, websites and customer reviews from twelve US online stores that sell coffee, cookware, e-bikes and fly fishing gear. Your numbers will differ. The method works for any store that sells online.
A Sale Isn't a Profit Until Shipping, Fees and Returns Clear. Build the Account Around the Margin.
New account? Chapter 1 comes first. Each chapter uses the setup from the ones before it.
Measure
Count the purchase and its value, then work out the ROAS your margin can afford
Count the Purchase, Not the Cart
Product Searches First
Break-Even ROAS
Build
Tight ad groups, Standard Shopping on manual bids, and ads written from what customers praise
The Category Page Wins
Seed With Your Brands
Standard Shopping First
Bid on Order Value
Ads From Five-Star Reviews
Launch
The Google defaults to check before the first click
Settings Before Launch
Scale
Performance Max, Demand Gen, your brand campaign and AI Max, once Search and Shopping sell
Performance Max After 30 Sales
Demand Gen After Sales
Your Name, Their Bids
AI Max Last
Ecommerce
Bonus chapters: the product feed, ratings and free listings, and the rules for sale prices and subscriptions
Bonus: Merchant Center and the Feed
Bonus: Ratings and Free Listings
Bonus: Sale Prices and Subscriptions
The Rollout, Month by Month
The order matters as much as the campaigns. Each step waits until the one before it has taught Google something.
Isolation, Shopping and brand
Exact match on the product and category searches you know sell, Standard Shopping on manual bids, and your store name in a campaign of its own.
Exploration
Broad match bidding on order value once the account logs about 30 sales a month. Busier stores get there sooner.
Performance Max
Usually sooner in a store than in a lead-gen account, never at launch. It waits for about 30 sales a month, held steady, and bids on order value.
Demand Gen and AI Max
Your product feed on YouTube once Search and Shopping sell, and AI Max last.
How to Use This Guide
Starting a new store account?
Read in order. Tracking the purchase and its real value comes before the first keyword.
Chapter 01 →Reselling other brands?
Searches for the brands you carry can match your category searches. Start with the keyword research chapter.
Chapter 05 →Real store examples
Examples come from twelve US online stores selling coffee, cookware, e-bikes and fly fishing gear, described as we found them. Your numbers will differ; the method is the same.
Chapter 02 →Google Ads for Ecommerce
A Store Can Look Profitable at 3.0 ROAS and Still Lose Money. Know Your Break-Even Before You Spend.
We've run paid ads for 25+ years and seen just about every way a budget goes sideways. Get on the phone with someone who does this every day. Bring your questions, your numbers and your skepticism. You'll hang up knowing what we'd do, whether you hire us or not.
Or see how our Google Ads management works.