Google Ads for a Shopify store works best when you start with Shopping: product listings that show a picture, a price and your shop name, built from your product feed. Add search ads for the phrases that bring in your best customers, then widen out only when the first two are paying their way. This guide explains each part, in the order we would set them up.
The main ways to advertise on Google
- Shopping listings: your products appear with an image and price, taken from your product feed. Good for shoppers who already know roughly what they want.
- Search ads: text ads that appear when someone searches a phrase you have chosen. Good for category searches, brand searches and offers.
- Display and video: adverts on other websites and on YouTube. Better for reminding people who have already visited than for finding new buyers. See Display ads.
- Automated campaign types: Google offers campaign types that mix several of these. The main one is Performance Max, which runs across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Maps and Discover from one budget.
Before you spend anything
Paid traffic only pays if the store can turn visits into orders. Check these first:
- Delivery costs, returns and contact details are easy to find.
- Product pages load quickly on a phone and have clear prices and photos.
- Your tracking records orders correctly, so you can see which adverts led to a sale. See GA4 setup and audits.
- You know your margin on each product, so you know what you can afford to pay for an order.
If any of these are weak, fix them first. Advertising sends more people to the problem rather than solving it.
Google Shopping: start with the feed
A Shopping listing is only as good as the product data behind it. Titles, images, prices, stock status and product identifiers all come from your feed.
- Write product titles the way shoppers search, with the product type, brand and key detail near the start.
- Keep prices and stock in step with your store. Mismatches can get products refused.
- Use clear photographs on a plain background where you can.
- Check the Merchant Center for warnings and refused products regularly.
Shopify’s Google & YouTube app sends your products to Merchant Center. Google requires a GTIN for any product that has one, a brand for most products, and accurate prices, stock and shipping.
Search ads: pick phrases with intent
Choose phrases that show someone is ready to buy, such as a product type plus a detail, or your own brand name. Be wary of very broad phrases. They bring plenty of clicks and few orders.
- Group similar phrases together so each advert can match what was searched.
- Add negative keywords, which are phrases you do not want to appear for, as you see what people actually searched.
- Send each advert to the most relevant collection or product page, not the home page.
Setting a budget
There is no standard budget that suits every store. A sensible approach is to work out what you can afford to pay for one order from your margin, then set a daily budget that gives the campaign enough room to learn without risking more than you are comfortable losing.
For a step-by-step method, read How to set a Google Ads budget for a small store.
Measuring whether it pays
Look at these together, not one at a time:
- Revenue from the advert compared with what you spent on it.
- Profit after the cost of the goods and the advert, not just revenue.
- Which products and phrases earn their keep, and which only attract clicks.
- Whether your analytics and Google Ads report similar numbers. They often differ a little because they count in different ways.
Judge results over weeks, not days. Campaigns need time and enough orders to show a pattern. Avoid changing many things at once, or you will not know what made the difference.
Other paid channels
Microsoft Advertising reaches a smaller audience than Google, and for some stores it is a low-cost addition once Google is working. See Microsoft Ads. Microsoft can import your Google Ads campaigns, including Shopping and Performance Max, and your Merchant Center feed.
From experience
A poorly optimised feed leads to poor performance. We have seen countless feeds set up and then forgotten, and now that products can also appear in Google’s free listings, many brands are leaving money on the table.
Go deeper
Three supporting articles go further on this topic:
- Google Shopping feed checklist
- How to set a Google Ads budget for a small store
- Is Microsoft Ads worth it for a Shopify store?
Where to get help
If you would like an expert to look at your product feed and Shopping set-up, our Google Shopping service starts with a review of what is holding your listings back.
Related services that often go with it:
- Google Ads, for search campaigns that sit beside Shopping.
- SEO for ecommerce, for the free traffic that paid listings should complement.
- GA4 setup and audits, so you can trust the numbers you judge adverts by.
- Dynamic creative, for adverts built from your product data.
