Products that pay.
Senior-led Google Shopping from a Google Partner: feed management, Merchant Center and Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, judged on the profit each product makes rather than its revenue.
Revenue is not profit.
Shopping campaigns are usually judged on return on ad spend, which counts revenue and ignores what each product costs to make, ship and return. A product with a strong return on ad spend can still lose money, and a campaign that bids on revenue will push it harder. Much of the result is also decided by the feed rather than the campaign: titles, prices, images and product identifiers decide which searches a product appears for.
The work starts with the feed and the margin. Feed management in Merchant Center cleans and fills out the product data, using supplemental feeds, a second file that adds or corrects details without touching your main feed, and feed rules that rewrite titles and attributes in bulk, so products match the searches that sell. Custom labels then group products by margin, price band or best sellers, and where your data allows, cost of goods sold is passed into reporting and bidding so spend follows profit rather than revenue. In the UK, Shopping ads can also be placed through a Comparison Shopping Service partner instead of Google's own; whether that suits your account is tested rather than assumed.
What a Google Shopping engagement covers.
- Feed audit and feed management in Merchant Center
- Supplemental feeds and feed rules for titles, attributes and product identifiers
- Custom labels for margin band, price band, season and best sellers
- Standard Shopping and Performance Max structures
- Profit-based bidding, with cost of goods sold sent through conversions with cart data where your data allows
- Prices and availability kept in step with your site, with product structured data to match
- Free listings, local inventory ads, promotions and product ratings, where they fit
- Disapproval and price competitiveness monitoring
- Comparison Shopping Service options in the UK
- Results read against your own sales and margin
Judged on margin.
One senior operator runs the feed, the Shopping campaigns and your search account together, so products, budgets and search terms are planned as one account rather than three.
Results are read product by product against your own margin data, and the POAS calculator on this site shows the sum, so budget moves to the products that make money.
Google Partner. Shopping is measured on the same conversion data as your search campaigns, and judged on margin where your data allows.
Google Shopping questions.
Why are our products disapproved in Merchant Center?
Usually because the feed and the website disagree, such as a price or availability that differs between the two, or because required details such as product identifiers are missing. The feed is checked against Merchant Center's policies and your site, and fixed at the source so the disapprovals do not return.
What is a supplemental feed?
A second data source in Merchant Center that adds to or overrides details in your main product feed, such as clearer titles, custom labels or missing product identifiers, without changing the file your website or ecommerce platform produces. Where a platform exports a weak feed, it is often the quickest way to fix the data at scale.
What are custom labels for?
Custom labels are five spare fields in the feed that you fill with your own groupings, such as margin band, season or best sellers. Shopping and Performance Max campaigns can then split budget and targets by those groups, so a low-margin product is not bid on like a high-margin one.
Should we use Performance Max or standard Shopping?
It depends on how much control you need and how much conversion data the account has. Performance Max decides more for you and needs strong data and a clear profit goal; standard Shopping gives more control over which products and searches get budget. The two can be tested side by side before choosing.
Can our products appear in Google's AI Mode?
In the markets where Google runs ads in AI Mode, its conversational search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns are among the campaign types it draws them from. That likely puts more weight on the feed, because complete titles, attributes and prices give Google more to match against a detailed question, so feed work comes before any change to the campaigns.
What is a Comparison Shopping Service?
In the UK and much of Europe, Shopping ads can be placed by an independent comparison shopping service instead of by Google's own. The ads look much the same. Whether a CSS changes your costs depends on your account, so it is tested rather than assumed.
One budget, every platform.
Each platform is run inside one paid media plan, held by the same senior practitioner, so budget moves to wherever a customer is won most profitably. How the paid media practice works.
Start with a conversation.
A proper conversation with the person who would do the work. Tell me what you run on Google Shopping today, or are thinking of starting, and you will get an honest read on what I would change, what I would leave alone, and where the real upside is.
Speak with NicThe senior read,
once a week.
Most marketing newsletters are noise on a schedule. This is not that. Once a week I send a short, considered read on the shifts that actually change what you should do, across the AI shift, PPC, technical SEO and analytics. Filtered, weighted and signed off by me before it goes out. The judgement is mine, and now you can hear every edition in my own voice.
Nic CraneFounder, The Crane Consultancy
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