€39margin 52 %
Rising, 57 % of spend
Rises: title now leads with "Merino wool beanie, black".
Google Shopping and Performance Max that protect your margin
Clean product feeds, margin-based product groups, asset groups with real creative and clear exclusions so budget goes to products that pay. For online stores of any platform. From €690 a month plus ad spend.
from€690per month excl. VAT. Ad spend paid by you to Google; you own the Ads and Merchant Center accounts.
shopping results shelf, sample storeillustrative, imaginary products
€45margin 41 %
Sinking, 21 % of spend
Sinks: no GTIN for a branded product.
€59margin 24 %
Sinking, 21 % of spend
Sinks: main image has promotional text on it.
€24margin 14 %
Excluded
Excluded: 14 % margin is below your 15 % floor.
€79margin 33 %
Excluded
Excluded: out of stock, so clicks would land on a sold-out page.
€129margin 9 %
Excluded
Excluded: 9 % margin is below your 15 % floor.
3 of 6 products advertised. Spend-weighted margin 44 %. Nothing is spent on sold-out pages.
Review my feed and marginsmargin 30 % or morethinner marginwasted on sold-out pages
Each tile rises or sinks with its feed quality and is greyed out when the margin floor or stock rule excludes it. Real visibility also depends on bids, competition and Google's auction.
Inside a Performance Max asset group, and what to keep out
Performance Max decides where ads show across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Discover. You control what goes in and what stays out. Pick a part to see its specification.
campaignPerformance Max, high-margin products
asset group
Listing group
Which Merchant Center products this asset group may show. I split it by the margin band in a custom label and exclude the bands that cannot pay.
Exclude these
1 of 6 closed5 still open: thin-margin products spending freely, clicks on sold-out pages, traffic sent to pages that cannot sell, searches like "manual" buying clicks, budget in games and parked domains.
From feed to profit, in five steps
Ads start after the feed and the margins are right, not before.
- 1
Feed audit
Merchant Center diagnostics, titles, GTINs, images and prices checked; fixes listed by revenue at stake.
- 2
Margin labels
Each product gets a margin band in a custom label, so bidding and exclusions can use it.
- 3
Structure
Standard Shopping and Performance Max split by margin band, with brand kept separate.
- 4
Launch
Purchase tracking with values tested on a real order, budgets capped, exclusions on.
- 5
Read and move
Profit after ad cost by product group each month; budget moves to what pays.
Not sure which products pay for their clicks? That is the first thing the review answers.
Get a Shopping ads reviewPackages
Proposed prices in euros, excluding VAT 25.5 %. Ad spend is paid by you to Google and is never part of my fee. All prices are on the pricing page.
Feed and account review
A written answer on what to fix first.
from€390one-off, excl. VAT owner to confirm
- Merchant Center diagnostics
- Margin and product group review
- Brand and search term check
- Prioritised fix list
Recommended
Shopping management
Shopping and Performance Max run on margin.
from€690per month, excl. VAT
- Margin labels and product groups
- Asset groups with real creative
- All six exclusions kept closed
- Monthly profit report by group
Management with feed care
When the catalogue changes every week.
from€890per month, excl. VAT owner to confirm
- Everything in Shopping management
- Feed rules and supplemental feeds
- New products labelled on arrival
- Meta and TikTok catalogues kept in sync
You own Google Ads and Merchant Center from day one. No lock-in: 30 days' notice, and every feed rule and label stays with you.
When I would not run Shopping ads yet
Fix these first; it costs less than paying for clicks that cannot convert.
- 01A small range of low-price, thin-margin products. If a click costs more than the margin on a typical order, check the numbers in the break-even ROAS calculator before spending.
- 02The feed is broken at the source: missing GTINs for branded goods, unstable product URLs or prices that change by hand. Start with product feeds or the store itself.
- 03Purchases are not tracked with order values. Performance Max optimises towards whatever it is told is a sale, so tracking comes first.
Questions about Shopping and Performance Max
Shopping or Performance Max?
Most stores do best with both, in clear roles. Standard Shopping gives search-term visibility and tight control for testing. Performance Max reaches Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Discover from one campaign and learns faster with good conversion data. I usually start with a split by margin and move budget to what earns profit.
Why is Performance Max spending on brand?
Because people searching your brand name convert cheaply, which flatters the campaign's results. Many of those buyers would have found you anyway. I add a brand exclusion list to Performance Max, run brand search in its own small campaign and report new-customer sales separately, so you see what the campaign really adds.
How do I know which products are profitable?
By advertising on margin, not revenue. I put each product's margin band into a custom label in the feed, set a break-even ROAS for each band and report profit after ad cost by product group. Products that cannot pay at any realistic ROAS are excluded instead of quietly draining budget.
Get a Shopping ads review
Send your store URL and, if you can, read-only access to Google Ads and Merchant Center. You get a written review plan and a fixed price within one working day.
Or email hei@pikselipolku.fi
Pikselipolku is an independent studio and is not affiliated with Google.