Google Shopping offers the ultimate way to level up revenue for many Shopify stores. We have managed approximately one hundred Google Ads accounts for various stores, and it’s common for my team and I to produce a return on investment for our clients of 300-2000%. While these results are not possible for all businesses, the Google Shopping channel is a golden source of customers wanting products. By searching, they are wanting.
Maybe you work with an ad agency who do little behind-the-scenes to improve your campaigns. Perhaps you implemented Shopify’s Google channel then had its automated bidding burn through ad spend.
I’m sick of seeing people lose money in their businesses all because of bad freelancers, agencies, or information.
While it makes great business for me, it is heartbreaking to see people lose on business ventures they pour their hearts, souls, and finances into establishing.
So after 10 years of Google Ads management and 4 years working only with Shopify stores, I rolled up my writing sleeves to distil everything I have learned about Google Shopping into Google Shopping For Shopify: The Definitive Guide. The book sheds light on the tried and tested strategies of what works, and what hasn’t, for our clients on the channel. Since its first publication in 2019, I’ve kept it updated with features like Performance Max to be relevant today.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you can fudge your way through this. Paid advertising is most successful when you know all the levers you can pull that make up the whole ad platform then benchmarking these against quantifiable metrics to determine performance. Otherwise it’s all too easy to pour money down the drain that could have been spent elsewhere in your business.
I created this guide, not only as an easy reference for clients and team, but as a way to squelch a lot of the misinformation out there about Google Shopping basics. This is a step-by-step guide to show you how to get started then grow any shopping or Performance Max campaign.
Here are the Google Shopping lessons I reveal:
Start reading Google Shopping for Shopify: The Definitive Guide.
With a strong understanding of how Google Shopping operates that you’ll gain from this guide, you too can create a strong foundation for implementing effective shopping campaigns for your Shopify store. I keep the guide up-to-date with the latest strategies and tactics that change with technology and consumer behavior so rest assure its the most comprehensive tutorial ever written.
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5 Comments. Leave new
You mention the Shopify Google Shopping app and 3rd party Feed tools in the article – We have way too many variants than make sense for many of our products and would just like to sync one variant – possibly the least expensive one – can you comment on if there is any way, perhaps with Google Merchant Center Feed Rules to easily do this?
I’ve never used Merchant Center feed rules because we create and manage all our feeds through DataFeedWatch. It gets the data right at the source before it enters MC. If you want to advertise just the least expensive one, then you can alter your feed in DataFeedWatch and your campaigns to use just that.
Great guide Joshua. Seems some things have been updated in Google since it’s been written, or I’m doing something wrong, as I can’t get everything set up as per the guide. There doesn’t seem to be a condition in Analytics when creating an audience for “Pageviews” the only one seems to be “AdX Monetised Pageviews” – is that the same?
This hasn’t changed, Dan. Perhaps scroll down ever so slightly. Pageviews is under the “Users” section.
I am seeing many issues with the Pmax but this did not happen with smart shopping.
1) Every time I do a change (one product/variants) in my store, (product description, photos, product removal, inventory change, even adding reviews) the performance is affected. For example, my performance is 3 ROAS and I do the change, immediately it goes down to 1.2-1.7 and after 20 days it goes again close to 3. This has happened to me many times in the last 8 months. Any way to fix this issue?
2) My Account (not happening after May 2022) is generating unreal conversions on the current day and then when you check it the next day is different. For Example, if I check at 9 AM how many conversions are been generated today, I have 15 conversions (varies during the day), then 4 PM could be 23 and then 9 PM could be 18. But when I check today’s results the next day, I have 4 that are the real/correct ones. Why this is happening and if someone knows how to fix it?
3) My G4 conversion tag is tracking conversion but the conversion value is not being calculated; for example, it counts 40 conversions and conv. values are 40. I haven’t found a way to fix this. My universal analytics is counting correctly (40 Conv equal to $3,800). Any way to fix this?