Google Ads works differently than Meta Ads, and merchants who try to run them the same way consistently underperform. Meta is about creating demand — you're reaching people who weren't thinking about your product and making them want it. Google is about capturing demand — you're showing up when someone is already searching for what you sell. That distinction changes everything about how you structure, measure, and optimize your campaigns.
Why Google Ads Works for Ecommerce
Search intent is the most valuable signal in advertising. Someone typing 'buy leather wallet men' into Google is telling you exactly what they want and that they're ready to buy. That's why Google Search and Shopping campaigns typically convert at much higher rates than social ads — you're not interrupting anyone, you're answering a question they're already asking.
For Shopify stores, Google Shopping in particular is extremely effective. Your product feed shows actual product images, prices, and store names in the search results, giving shoppers the information they need to click through ready to buy.
Campaign Types That Matter for Shopify
Performance Max (PMax) is Google's fully automated campaign type that serves ads across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail, and Maps from a single campaign. For most Shopify stores, it's the recommended starting point. You provide the product feed, some creative assets, and a target ROAS — Google's algorithm figures out the rest. It's not perfect, but it's a fast way to get Google coverage with minimal setup complexity.
Standard Shopping campaigns give you more control over bidding and product groupings, which matters when you have large catalogs and want to prioritize high-margin SKUs. Brand Search campaigns — bidding on your own brand name — are almost always worth running to protect your branded traffic from competitors.
Setting Up Conversion Tracking Properly
This is where most Shopify merchants get it wrong. If your conversion tracking is off, Google's algorithm optimizes for the wrong thing and your campaigns degrade over time. You need purchase events firing accurately with correct revenue values. The best setup is the Shopify Google channel integration for basic tracking, combined with Google's Consent Mode and Enhanced Conversions for improved data accuracy under privacy restrictions.
Check your conversion counts against your actual Shopify orders regularly. A significant discrepancy (more than 20%) means something is wrong with your tracking and your campaigns are flying blind.
Bidding Strategy
Start with Maximize Conversions to gather data, then switch to Target ROAS once you have at least 30-50 conversions per month in the campaign. Set your target ROAS above your break-even point but not so high that the campaign can't spend — if Google can't find enough traffic to hit your target, it just stops serving ads.
A common mistake is setting target ROAS based on platform-reported Google ROAS rather than the actual contribution Google makes to overall business performance. Use blended ROAS data to understand what Google is really delivering before you set targets.
Measuring Google Ads Performance
Inside Google Ads, track conversion rate, cost per conversion, and ROAS by campaign. These tell you how campaigns are performing relative to each other. But for overall business impact, you need to look at Google's contribution to blended ROAS — how does adding or removing Google spend affect your total Shopify revenue relative to total ad spend?
This is why having a tool that connects your Google Ads data with your actual Shopify orders matters. Metricx does exactly this — pull in your Google performance data alongside real revenue data so you can see what Google is actually contributing, not just what Google says it's contributing. Try it free.