Ecommerce Google Ads agency. Shopping and Performance Max, bid by margin.
Google is where the customer is already looking for what you sell. The fight is won in the product feed and in the margin, not in the bid strategy. At By Doodle Dog it runs in two markets.
From firefighting to profitable growth in two markets, with a team that stayed small.
- +227%
- REVENUE YEAR ON YEAR
- +222%
- META SALES YEAR ON YEAR
- 5.0
- BLENDED ROAS
Google Shopping harvests the demand that already exists
Google Ads for an online store is first of all Google Shopping and Performance Max: product ads built on your product feed, shown when someone searches for what you sell. As a Google Shopping agency, we build the feed, the campaigns and the measurement, and we bid on margin rather than revenue. For By Doodle Dog, Google Ads delivered 91% more conversions year on year across two markets.
Meta creates demand. Google catches it. That makes Google the channel with the most ready-to-buy traffic, but also the one where the budget disappears fastest into searches that never become a sale. The difference is in the feed, in the structure and in who reads the search terms.
The product feed is your most important campaign
Shopping ads have no keywords to bid on. Google matches the search against what is in your product feed. If a product is described wrongly in the feed, it shows on the wrong searches or not at all. Most Shopping problems are feed problems.
- Product titles with the words customers actually search for
- Category, product type, brand and GTIN where the product has one
- Price and stock status that always match the shop
- Images without promotional text or watermarks
- Custom labels by margin, so bids can be steered by it
At By Doodle Dog, Shopping runs on a feed managed through DataFeedWatch and Merchant Center and sent out through a CSS feed. With a CSS feed, the ads go through a comparison shopping service other than Google's own. That is possible in Europe, the ads still show in Google's search results, and the clicks can get cheaper.
An e-commerce Google Ads account is built in the same order every time
First the feed, then the structure, then the bids. And a human reads the search terms every week, not every quarter.
- 01Merchant Center and feed
The feed cleaned up, approved and connected to Google Ads, so every product can show.
- 02Brand and non-brand apart
Searches for your name are measured on their own, so they do not flatter the numbers for new customers.
- 03Performance Max by margin
Asset groups and product groups split by margin level, each with its own target.
- 04Search where the text has to sell
Tight campaigns on the searches where a text ad does better than a product image.
- 05Search terms read every week
Negative keywords added as we go, so the budget does not go to searches that never buy.
Performance Max runs across Google's channels, from search and Shopping to YouTube and display. It is effective, but it happily takes the credit for people who already searched for your name. So we keep brand traffic out of it and look at what it brings in new customers. More about how we run Google Ads as a channel.
Bid on margin, not on revenue
One ROAS target across the whole range treats a high-margin product and a low-margin one the same. That can make an account scale exactly the products the shop earns least on. We group products by margin and give each group the target it can carry. Count revenue without VAT at both ends.
| Margin before ads | Break-even ROAS |
|---|---|
| 60% | 1.7 |
| 40% | 2.5 |
| 25% | 4.0 |
- 60%
- Break-even ROAS1.7
- 40%
- Break-even ROAS2.5
- 25%
- Break-even ROAS4.0
Above break-even, the sale makes money. Below it, you are buying revenue. At By Doodle Dog we introduced POAS optimisation, focused on profit rather than ROAS alone, so the bids follow profit, not revenue.
By Doodle Dog runs feed-driven Shopping in two markets
By Doodle Dog sells dog beds and other design for pets in its home market and in Sweden. When we started in March 2024, the advertising was scattered and had no overall strategy.
- +227%
- REVENUE YEAR ON YEAR
- +222%
- META SALES YEAR ON YEAR
- 5.0
- BLENDED ROAS
Google and Meta were set in one channel strategy. Advantage+ prospecting on Meta creates the demand, and feed-driven Shopping is there when the customer searches. Sweden, which we opened from scratch, was profitable by the second month. Read the whole By Doodle Dog case.
Google Ads cannot harvest demand that does not exist
If you sell a new product that people do not yet know to search for, there is little to harvest. Then the demand has to be created first, and that is a job for Meta Ads. Google is not the first step either if Merchant Center rejects a large share of the products, or if purchases are not measured correctly. Then we start with tracking.
On a call we look at the feed, the structure and how the bids relate to your margin.
Book a call30 minutes. We look at your account and your numbers and tell you honestly what we would do.
Book a callWhat we are often asked.
Product ads with an image, a price and the shop's name, shown in the search results and under the Shopping tab when someone searches for what the shop sells. There are no keywords to bid on: the ads are built on the product feed in Google Merchant Center, so titles, GTIN, price and stock status decide which searches the products show on. That is why we fix the feed before we touch the bids.
With clear targets, a clean feed and brand traffic kept out. Performance Max uses your feed, images, text and videos to show ads across Google's channels, from search and Shopping to YouTube and display, and it happily takes the credit for people who already searched for your name. We split asset groups and product groups by margin level, so each group gets the target it can carry.
Usually because price or stock status in the feed does not match the product page, because the images have promotional text or watermarks, or because details such as GTIN or shipping are missing. A rejected product cannot show in Shopping or Performance Max, whatever the budget. So we go through Merchant Center before we touch the campaigns.
Google Ads buys visibility now and stops when the budget stops. SEO builds organic rankings over time and does not cost per click. They complement each other, and Google Ads also gives you data on which searches actually sell.
A CSS is a comparison shopping service that Shopping ads can be sent through instead of Google's own. The scheme exists in Europe, and the ads still show in Google's search results, but the click can get cheaper. By Doodle Dog's Shopping ads run that way.
Usually yes, but in a campaign of its own. If others bid on your name, you lose customers who were already looking for you. And when brand searches are kept apart, you can see what the rest of the account actually brings in new customers.
