Google Ads for ecommerce
Google Ads for ecommerce. One campaign for each category, product or sale you want to push.
An online store does not have one kind of shopper searching. Someone looking for work boots, someone looking for one exact boot in a size 10 and someone waiting for the Black Friday sale are three different searches. They should not share a campaign and a budget.
Omologist builds each campaign for you, as a Performance Max campaign, a Search campaign or both: the asset groups or ad groups, the ad copy, the audience signals, the negative keywords and a budget forecast, one page at a time. You pay once and run it yourself, or hand it to whoever looks after your marketing.
One-off price in US dollars · No retainer · Delivered within 24 hours
Every build is read by Sean Cooney before it is sent.
Running Google Ads since 2001.
Work boots
yourstore.com/collections/work-boots
Hi-vis workwear
yourstore.com/collections/hi-vis
Your best seller
yourstore.com/products/your-best-seller
Black Friday sale
yourstore.com/black-friday
End of financial year sale
yourstore.com/eofy-sale
Five pages to advertise is five campaigns. You do not need all five. Start with the category you most want more of.
Three kinds of ecommerce search. Three different campaigns.
Most ecommerce Google Ads accounts that waste money do it the same way: one Performance Max campaign for the whole store, one budget, and no way of seeing which part of the range it is paying for. The searches below behave nothing like each other.
Category
The shopper who knows the kind of thing
work boots · standing desk · large dog bed
They know what they want but not which one. This is the search a category page is built to answer, and it is where a new customer usually first meets a store.
In the campaign: one campaign for each category page, with groups for types, uses and price points. Performance Max and Search both suit it.
Product
The shopper who knows the exact product
a brand and model · a product name with a size or a colour
They have chosen the product and are now choosing the seller. They compare price, delivery and returns, and they do it in the Shopping results.
In the campaign: Performance Max with your product feed, which is what puts your price and picture beside the others. A campaign of its own for a hero product.
Sale
The shopper waiting for a reason
black friday deals · end of financial year sale · a category with sale
A sale has a start and an end, and the searches rise and fall with it. Copy that works in November is wrong in January.
In the campaign: a campaign of its own for each sale page, so it can be switched on and off without touching the rest of the account.
What one build covers
One build. One campaign. One category page.
Each campaign is built around a single page on your website. For a store that is usually a category or collection page, sometimes a single hero product, sometimes a sale page such as Black Friday or end of financial year. A second page is a second build.
One campaign · work boots · Performance Max
one budget · one goal
Asset group
People buying for work
Searches and audiences around boots for a job or a site
Asset group
People comparing brands
Searches that weigh one make against another
Asset group
People shopping on price
Searches with a price point, cheap or sale
Asset group
People who know your store
Searches for your name, kept apart from the rest
every ad leads to
One page on your website
The keywords, the clusters and the audiences are all researched for this page.
An example for one category in Performance Max. In a Search campaign the groups are ad groups with keywords, and they still lead to the one page.
Three categories to advertise is three builds.
Count the pages you want to send paid traffic to. That is the number of campaigns your online store needs.
One build
A category
yourstore.com/collections/work-boots
Everyone searching for that kind of product
One build
A product
yourstore.com/products/your-best-seller
One product that deserves its own budget
One build
A sale
yourstore.com/black-friday
A promotion with a start and an end date
What is in a Google Ads build for an online store.
Every build covers the same ground, delivered as an editable spreadsheet you own. Here is what each part does for an online store.
Keywords read for intent
“Work boots” and “work boot repair” share two words. One is a shopper. The other already owns a pair. Live search volume and cost for your own market, then a decision on every term. In Search, exact and phrase match only. We never use broad match in an initial build.
Groups built from how people shop
Grouped by what the shopper is trying to do, not by your menu. In Performance Max these are asset groups. In Search they are ad groups.
Ad copy written to each group
Headlines, long headlines and descriptions inside Google’s character limits, every line counted.
Audience signals
Who Performance Max should look for first, with the reasoning in plain English.
Negative keywords
Product searches are full of people who are not shopping. The list on the right is where that money goes when nobody excludes it.
Budget forecast
What your budget can realistically buy, and the return on ad spend you need for your margin to hold. If the numbers do not work for a category, the build says so.
Landing page readiness
What the category or product page needs fixed before you send paid traffic to it.
Pre-launch checklist
Purchase tracking with order values, locations, bid strategy, URL expansion and the defaults Google switches on for you.
People who already own one
repair · manual · spare parts · how to fix
People buying second hand
used · second hand · marketplace · swap
People buying in bulk
wholesale · bulk · supplier · distributor
People looking for a shop to walk into
near me · opening hours · stockists
People looking for work
jobs · careers · warehouse · casual
Examples of the kinds of term an online store should exclude. Your own list comes from the search data for your products and your market.
See the Performance Max build →
Or open a complete sample build, made for a fictional retailer: Search sample · Performance Max sample. Free, no email.
Performance Max, the product feed, and what a build covers.
Performance Max suits ecommerce well, and most of what is written about it assumes a product feed. You do not always need one. Here is what the feed changes, and where the build stops.
Performance Max and Merchant Center
What the feed changes
- Performance Max runs with or without a feed. With a Merchant Center feed it can show your products as Shopping ads, with a price and a picture. Without one it runs on the headlines, descriptions, images and video in its asset groups.
- Shopping ads need Merchant Center. Google requires a Merchant Center account linked to Google Ads, and product data kept up to date.
- You do not always need it. A store with a small range, or one page it wants to push, can start on assets alone and add the feed later.
- Decide what happens to your own name. Performance Max will show for searches on your store name unless you tell it not to. Google provides brand exclusions for this, so the campaign is measured on customers who were not already looking for you.
Sources: Google Ads Help, requirements for Shopping ads · brand settings in Performance Max.
Where the build stops
What a build covers, and what stays with you
- Covered: the campaign. The structure, the asset groups or ad groups, every written asset, the audience signals, the negative keywords, the budget forecast and the pre-launch checklist.
- Not covered: your product feed. We do not create or repair a Merchant Center feed. If you have one, you attach it to the campaign when you launch.
- Not covered: images and video. Performance Max needs them and they are yours to supply. The build covers the words and the structure.
- Sale prices have to be real. In Australia a was and now price is misleading unless the product was really offered at the higher price for a reasonable period. An ad repeats the claim.
Source: ACCC, was/now pricing.
Not sure what return you need? Work out your break-even ROAS before you set a budget.
This is a summary and not legal advice. You are responsible for your own advertising, whoever writes it. Read every headline before it goes live, and tell us in the brief anything your store cannot claim.
Is a build right for your online store?
Not for every online store. Better to know before you order.
A build fits if
- You know which categories or products you want to sell more of
- Your store has a page for each of them
- You, your ecommerce manager or your agency will run the account
- You want to know the return you need before you spend on clicks
- Purchase tracking is in place, or you are ready to set it up
Hire an agency instead if
- You want someone to manage the account every week and report every month
- You want an audit of an account that is already running. We do not review accounts
- You want to talk it through on a call. We work by email and do not take calls
- You need a product feed built or fixed. We do not do feed work
- You spend enough on ads that one person should be watching the account full time
What it costs an online store.
The price is for each campaign, paid once. Count the category pages you want to advertise and you have your total.
Your ad spend is separate and is paid to Google. The budget forecast in each build tells you what that spend can buy.
One category, Search
For example a Search campaign for your work boots page
One category, Performance Max
The same page, built for Performance Max
One category, Search and Performance Max
Both campaigns for the one page
Three categories, Search
Three pages, three campaigns, 3 × $129
Delivered as an editable spreadsheet within 24 hours. An optional upload into your Google Ads account, paused for you to check, is $79.
Google Ads for ecommerce: the questions.
Does Google Ads work for ecommerce?
It can, and it depends on three numbers: what a click costs, how many clicks become orders, and the margin on an order. Every build includes a budget forecast that works this through before you spend. If the numbers do not hold for a category, the build says so.
Should an online store use Performance Max or Search?
Performance Max runs across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, Maps and Display, and with a product feed it can show your products with a price and a picture. Search gives you tighter control over which searches you pay for. You can order either, or both for the same page for $199.
Do I need Google Merchant Center?
Not always. Shopping ads need a Merchant Center account and a product feed. Performance Max will also run without one, on its written, image and video assets. You can start without a feed and add it later.
Do you set up my product feed?
No. The build is the campaign: its structure, its written assets, its audience signals and its negative keywords. The feed stays with you and your store platform.
How many campaigns does an online store need?
One for each page you want to send paid traffic to: a category, a hero product or a sale. A store pushing two categories and a Black Friday sale needs three campaigns.
Does it work with Shopify or WooCommerce?
Yes. The build starts from the pages on your own site, whatever platform it runs on, and is delivered as an editable spreadsheet.
Do you supply images and video for Performance Max?
No. The build covers the written assets and the structure. You add your own images and video before you launch.
Does one campaign really use only one page?
It is built around one page, because the keywords, the groups and the audiences are researched for that page. Performance Max has a setting called URL expansion that lets Google send people to other pages on your site, and the build covers how to set it.
Do you manage the campaign after it is built?
No, deliberately. You own the campaign and run it yourself. If you later hire a freelancer or an agency to manage it, they start from a properly structured account.
We already have a marketing agency. Can they use the build?
Yes. The build is an editable spreadsheet that you own. Hand it to whoever manages your account.
Do I need to give you access to my Google Ads account?
No. You receive a spreadsheet. Access is only needed if you add the optional $79 upload, where we load the finished campaign into your account, paused.
Which countries do you work with?
Any. Builds use live search data for your own market and currency. Prices are in US dollars.
Start with the category you most want more of.
One campaign, built for that page and checked by a specialist, in your inbox within 24 hours. No retainer and no account access.
One-off price in US dollars · Human-reviewed · Delivered within 24 hours