Google Shopping ads that find new buyers, judged on the orders you keep
We clean up your product feed and build Shopping and Performance Max campaigns around your margins. We also keep Google from taking credit for customers who were already looking for you.
Free, 30 minutes, and you'll leave with at least one clear next step.
What does a Google Shopping agency do?
A Google Shopping agency manages the product listings that appear with a photo and price at the top of Google search, and the campaigns that pay for them. The work splits into two parts. The first is the product feed, the file Google reads from your Shopify store through Merchant Center. The second is the campaigns, today mostly Performance Max with standard Shopping campaigns where they still help.
Most of the gains we find sit in the feed. Google decides which searches to show a product for largely from its title, description, category and product details. A title that reads "The Ava" tells Google nothing. A title that reads "Ava Linen Midi Dress, Sage Green, Women's" matches the words people type.
For Veiled Collection, a modest fashion brand that once sold mostly at pop-up events, getting its products into Google Shopping opened a new sales channel. Shopping was one part of the ad program that has brought the brand more than 50,000 new customers.
The feed fixes we make first
- Rewrite product titles to lead with what the product is, then brand, color, size, material and who it's for
- Fill in GTINs or mark products as custom, so listings don't get limited for missing identifiers
- Set Google product categories and your own product types, so campaigns can be split by line
- Add custom labels for margin band, best sellers, new arrivals and seasonal items
- Fix disapprovals from price or stock mismatches between Shopify and Merchant Center
- Sync sale prices and shipping costs so the price in the ad matches the price at checkout
Where Google Shopping budgets leak
Most of these start in the feed, so they never show up as a campaign setting.
A few products get all the budget
Google spends on the products that sold before, so most of the catalog rarely gets shown. New arrivals can sit for weeks with almost no views.
Every product gets the same target
A 70%-margin best seller and a 20%-margin clearance item share one campaign and one return goal. The low-margin item wins the budget because it sells, and profit drops.
Listings switch off without anyone noticing
Merchant Center flags a product for a missing GTIN or a price that doesn't match Shopify. The listing quietly stops showing, and it's often a best seller.
Returns never reach the account
Google sees the sale the day it happens. The refund three weeks later stays in Shopify unless you tell Google. We send an order ID with each sale, so refunded orders can be adjusted in Google later (Google Ads Help).
Performance Max or standard Shopping?
Performance Max fits when
- Your feed is clean and your conversion tracking comes from Shopify orders
- You want Google to find new buyers across Search, YouTube, Gmail and Display
- You can use the new customer goal to bid more for first-time buyers
- You have enough monthly sales for Google's bidding to learn
Standard Shopping still helps when
- You need tight control over which products get budget
- You want to see search terms in detail and block bad ones
- Your catalog is small or your sales are too few for automated bidding
- You're testing a new product line before handing it to Performance Max
How we take over a Google Shopping account
- Week 1
Feed and tracking audit
We check every product's status in Merchant Center, review titles and attributes, and confirm conversions come from Shopify orders without double counting.
- Weeks 2 to 3
Feed rebuild
Titles, categories, identifiers and custom labels fixed in the Shopify Google and YouTube app or a feed tool, depending on catalog size.
- Weeks 3 to 4
Campaign rebuild
Campaigns split by margin band or product line, brand searches kept apart, and the new customer goal set where it fits.
- Ongoing
Weekly tuning, monthly review
Weekly changes to budgets, targets and products. A monthly report on new customers, revenue after returns and profit per order.
How do you know Shopping ads are bringing in new customers?
We split results into new and returning buyers using your Shopify customer data, and report cost per new customer as its own number. Where Google allows it, we also keep existing customers out of campaigns meant to find new ones. That way more of the budget reaches people who haven't bought yet.
For a firmer answer, we run a test. We pause Shopping ads on brand searches for a few weeks, or in a group of similar regions, and count how many orders still come in. Our incrementality testing page explains how. Returns come out first, following our guide to measuring ad results with returns.
Baked Bouquet, which makes gift bouquets out of cupcakes, ran Google Ads as one of its main channels on the way to more than 10,000 new customers. Other ads explained the product first, so shoppers knew what they were seeing by the time they searched.
Which brands get the most from Google Shopping?
Brands whose customers search for the product by name or type, such as "linen midi dress" or "cupcake bouquet delivery", tend to do best. That covers much of fashion, home goods, jewelry and food and gifting. Brands selling something new that people don't search for yet usually need Meta or TikTok to create demand first, which our paid ads team runs alongside Google. See all our work for online brands.
Google Shopping agency questions
Why are some of our products not showing in Google Shopping?
Usually it's a Merchant Center problem. Common causes are a missing GTIN, a price or stock mismatch with your Shopify store, a policy flag or a missing shipping setting. We check each product's status and fix the causes in the feed.
Do we need a feed tool, or is the Shopify Google app enough?
For smaller catalogs, Shopify's Google and YouTube app is often enough once titles and attributes are fixed. Larger catalogs, or brands that need rules like custom labels by margin, usually do better with a feed tool. We recommend one after the audit.
Should our brand name searches be in Performance Max?
We usually keep them apart. Brand searches convert well no matter what, so mixing them in makes Performance Max look better than it is. We exclude your brand terms where Google allows it and report brand results on their own.
What are custom labels and why do they matter?
Custom labels are tags you add to products in the feed, such as margin band, best seller or seasonal. They let us split campaigns and set different goals, so a high-margin product can get more budget than a low-margin one.
Can you run Google Shopping without touching our Meta ads?
Yes. Some brands keep Meta in-house or with another team and hand us Google only. We still look at total Shopify sales, so we can tell you how the two channels work together.
How soon does a feed fix show results?
Google needs to re-read the feed and approve the changes, which usually takes a few days. Changes in which searches you show up for can then take a few weeks to settle as bidding adjusts.
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Find out what your product feed is costing you
On the call we'll look at your Merchant Center feed and your Shopping campaigns and point out the fix with the biggest payoff.