Google Shopping and paid ads for e-commerce
For online shops, paid ads should be judged on one thing: profitable sales. I run Google Shopping, Performance Max, Microsoft Shopping and Meta Ads around your margins and best-selling products, not just total revenue.
What I manage
- Google Shopping and Performance Max
- Merchant Center and product feeds
- Microsoft Shopping
- Meta Ads for prospecting and retargeting
- Shopify and WooCommerce tracking
How I run e-commerce accounts
- Feed first. Product titles, descriptions, categories and images in Merchant Center decide which searches you show for. Fixing the feed is often the biggest quick win.
- Margin-aware structure. Products are grouped by margin and performance, so high-margin best-sellers get budget and loss-makers don't drain it.
- Performance Max with guardrails: brand exclusions, audience signals and separate campaigns where it matters, so it doesn't just take credit for sales you'd have made anyway.
- Return on ad spend targets set from your margins, not a rule of thumb. A 4x return can be great for one shop and a loss for another.
- Meta Ads to find new customers and bring back cart abandoners, with the pixel and Conversions API set up properly.
- Accurate revenue tracking on Shopify, WooCommerce or your platform, so every platform reports real sales values.
Results: for a home products brand, a Performance Max campaign I managed generated £20k to £25k of revenue from £2k to £3k of ad spend in its first month, roughly 7 to 12 times return on ad spend. On the agency side, I worked on multi-market search for The North Face, where spend dropped 12% while profitability rose 23%.
When paid ads don't suit a shop
If margins are very thin, average order values are low and customers rarely buy again, paid ads can struggle to make a profit. I'll work that out with you in the audit, before you spend anything, and tell you straight if I don't think it adds up.
Common questions
What return on ad spend should I aim for?
It depends on your margins. If your gross margin is 50%, you need at least a 2x return just to break even on ad spend, before other costs. I'll set targets from your actual numbers.
Do you work with Shopify stores?
Yes. Shopify, WooCommerce and most other platforms. I'll check the Google and Meta integrations and the tracking are sending correct revenue.
What's the minimum budget for e-commerce?
I'd usually suggest at least £750 to £1,500 a month to give Shopping and Performance Max enough data. Smaller catalogues can start lower.
What if you don't think ads will work for my business?
Then I'll tell you, and I won't take you on. If the audit shows that your budget, margins or search demand won't support profitable advertising, you'll get an honest explanation and, where I can, suggestions for what to fix first. I'd rather lose a client than take money for something I don't believe will work.
Find out where your ad spend is leaking
Get a free, no-obligation audit of your Google, Microsoft or Meta Ads. You'll get a written report and a call to walk through it. Use it with me or without me.