How do I optimize Google Shopping ads and campaigns?

A Performance Max campaign with a Merchant Center data source advertises your products too. Each asset group has listing groups, divided by the same attributes, but Google’s developer guide says they aren’t used to set bids, as in Standard Shopping, but to include or exclude a set of products.

Smart Shopping campaigns no longer exist: Google upgraded them to Performance Max in 2022. So Smart Shopping campaign optimization now means the Performance Max column: its listing groups, your product data, and the campaign’s target and budget. The Performance Max guide covers the rest of that campaign: its search terms, assets, signals and exclusions.

Google is also testing AI Max for Shopping campaigns, a beta in which Google’s AI can rewrite product titles to match a search. If you run both campaign types on the same products, the section on one product in two campaigns says which serves.

The Product groups page is where a Standard Shopping campaign’s bids are:

1. 01In Google Ads, go to Campaigns, select the Shopping campaign, then an ad group, then Product groups in the page menu.
2. 02Select the columns icon, then Modify columns, and add the conversion columns. The page also offers Impression share, Click share and two benchmark columns, for clickthrough rate and maximum CPC.
3. 03To split a group by device or day of the week, select the download button, then More options and Add segments.

Click share is Google’s estimate of the share of all achievable clicks you received. Its pages read for this guide list the benchmark columns without saying how they’re worked out.

The Products page shows the same spend one product at a time, in both campaign types:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Products. At the account level it covers Standard Shopping and Performance Max, and the Campaigns filter narrows it to one.
2. 02Sort by cost, and read the Issues column. Low maximum CPC and High target ROAS mean your bids on the product were lower than your top competitors’ in the last 30 days.

A product report’s cost and conversions are only the share from ads that showed products, so its totals can differ from the campaign’s. For Performance Max’s listing groups, open the campaign and go to Asset groups › Listing groups.

1. 01On the Product groups page, read each group’s cost, conversions and conversion value over 30 days.
2. 02For each group, add up what every other group spent and sold. Divide conversion value by cost on both sides: that is each side’s return on ad spend (ROAS).
3. 03Divide the group’s cost by what the others paid for a conversion: that is how many sales its spend would have bought at their rate. Under half of them, on spend worth several sales, is worth acting on. A few clicks prove nothing either way.
4. 04To see which products took the spend, select + next to the group’s name, choose Item ID beside Subdivide by, tick the products, then Continue to review bids and Save.

Work from the product outward, since a lower bid can’t fix a page:

• The page and the data first. Where a product draws clicks and few sales, Google’s advice is to check that the price and availability in your product data match your site, and that the page works on a phone. Then its title: 9 of Marram Loom’s 14 rugs are the ones whose titles leave out their brand in the Shopping feed guide.
• Lower the bid. Under Manual CPC, lower the group’s maximum CPC. The simulator icon beside the bid estimates what other bids would have brought over the previous 7 days.
• Bid it separately. Subdivide the group and give the products that drag it a lower bid, so the ones that sell keep theirs.
• Exclude it. A bid strategy leaves no group bid to lower, and Performance Max has none. In a listing group, select the green circle beside its name, then Exclude. Google’s pages read for this guide say a product group can be excluded too, without giving the click.

One bid, many prices. The rugs run from $119 to $1,149 under one $1.80 bid, and at the same conversion rate a click on the dearest is worth about 10 times a click on the cheapest. A custom label that carries a price band lets you divide a group by it.

A product that sells well on little spend is the opposite case. If its click share shows searches it misses, raise its group’s bid, or lower the campaign’s Target ROAS, which Google likens to raising a bid. Google also says to check that your top products aren’t limited by the campaign’s budget.

• Manual CPC. You set a maximum CPC on each product group.
• Enhanced CPC is gone. Google’s developer blog announced that from early October 2023, Shopping campaigns using it behave as Manual CPC.
• Maximize clicks gets as many clicks as it can within a spend you choose, and needs no conversions.
• Target ROAS maximizes conversion value at an average return you choose: 500% asks for $5 of sales for each $1 spent. Google asks for at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days.
• Maximize conversion value aims for the most conversion value within your budget, and with no target tries to spend the whole daily budget.

Under Target ROAS, Google says the strategy bids in every auction by how each of your products performs, so you manage the campaign’s target rather than each group’s bid. For a first target, Google suggests your conversion value divided by cost over the last 4 weeks, then 15 days before you judge it. The Target CPA and Target ROAS guide has how to tell a target is set too high.

Two campaigns can hold the same product, and each then has part of its clicks and sales. Which one bids depends on the campaign types:

• Two Standard Shopping campaigns. Each has a priority: Low unless you set Medium or High, under Settings › Campaign priority. The highest priority bids, even where a lower one has the larger bid. If it runs out of budget, the next bids. At the same priority, the highest bid is used.
• Performance Max and Standard Shopping. A Google page from 2022 still says Performance Max takes priority. Google changed that in late 2024: Performance Max is no longer automatically prioritized, and Ad Rank determines which campaign serves an ad.

One of Google’s troubleshooting pages words the first rule the other way round, with the higher bid winning and priority settling a tie. The page about the setting itself is followed here.

To find shared products, Google suggests the Shopping products report with Campaign added as a row under Item ID. In the example, Performance Max — All products spent $349 on the same 14 rugs over the same 30 days and sold 8. So a bid in Shopping — All products settles only part of what the rugs cost. Where a product’s results differ between campaigns, Google’s advice is to consider putting it in one.

A Shopping campaign takes negative keywords, for the campaign or for one ad group:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords, then select Negative search keywords and the plus button.
2. 02Choose Campaign or Ad group, and enter one negative keyword per line: in quotation marks for phrase match, in brackets for exact.

The searches are in the search terms report, each with no keyword and Exact as its match type. An ad group negative is how you keep a search with one set of products: Google says to build ad groups around how you want to group products for negative keywords. The wasted search terms guide has how to find the searches to add.

Goldbeater reads every product and product group over the last 30 days and tests each against the rest of its own campaign. It counts a gap only where it’s too wide to be chance, allowing for every product or group tested across your account, at 5% overall. Every day it raises:

• A product group selling far below its campaign. A Standard Shopping group of several products that spent at least $20 and bought under half the conversions its spend would have at the other groups’ rate, with under half their ROAS where your conversion value is real. Under Manual CPC the finding names a bid at half of today’s.
• A product group selling far above it. The same test at over twice the others’ rate. Under Manual CPC it names a bid a fifth higher, where the group still misses searches.
• A product selling far below its campaign. The same test for one product, in Standard Shopping and Performance Max, with where to exclude it. It reads low where the product still beats your other campaigns.
• One bid over very different prices. Under Manual CPC, a group where a click on some products returns less than the bid and on others more, with the campaign’s conversion rate taken at the most chance allows.
• A bid above what a click can earn. Under Manual CPC, where your conversion value is real, a group whose maximum CPC is higher than the most a click on it has shown it can return.
• The same products in two campaigns. Two campaigns that each spent at least $20 on the same products, unless they’re Standard Shopping campaigns at different priorities.
• One search split between ad groups. A search two or more ad groups of a Standard Shopping campaign paid for and one converted, where the others spent at least $20 on it, with the ad groups to add it to as an exact negative.

That is the group read above. The same run raises no rug on its own, and raises Performance Max — All products and Shopping — All products as a pair that both paid for the same 42 products. Each of these findings is advice: a group’s bid or exclusion is an edit to the campaign’s tree of product groups, so Goldbeater names the group, the bid and where to set it, and drafts no change.

The audit checklist has every Shopping line with where to find it.

How do I optimize Google Shopping ads?

Decide three things for each campaign: which products it advertises, what it bids on them, and which searches it stays out of. Read each product group’s return beside the rest of its campaign over 30 days. Lower the bid on a group that spends without selling, or exclude what drags it, and fix a product’s page and data before its bid.

What’s the difference between Performance Max and Standard Shopping?

A Standard Shopping campaign shows product ads on Google Search, the Shopping tab, Google Images and search partners, and lets you set a maximum CPC on each product group. Performance Max shows across most of Google’s channels, and its listing groups only include or exclude products: a bid strategy sets every bid.

Which campaign serves when a product is in Performance Max and Standard Shopping?

Since late 2024, Google says Performance Max is no longer automatically prioritized over a Standard Shopping campaign in the same account: Ad Rank determines which campaign serves an ad. Between two Standard Shopping campaigns, the higher campaign priority bids, and at the same priority the highest bid is used.

Which bid strategy should a Google Shopping campaign use?

Google offers Maximize clicks, Target ROAS and Maximize conversion value for Shopping campaigns, beside Manual CPC. Target ROAS needs at least 15 conversions in the last 30 days. Enhanced CPC is no longer a choice: Google announced that Shopping campaigns on it behave as Manual CPC from October 2023.

How do I optimize a Smart Shopping campaign?

You can’t any longer. Google upgraded Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max in 2022, so Smart Shopping campaign optimization now means a Performance Max campaign: its listing groups, its product data, and its target and budget.

Do negative keywords work in Google Shopping campaigns?

Yes. A Shopping campaign has no keywords to target with, but it takes negative keywords for the whole campaign or for one ad group. They’re added under Audiences, keywords, and content, on the Search keywords page.