The $18.8M Google Ads eCommerce Guide
Today I’m sharing exactly how I made $18.8M for one of our eCommerce clients.
Purely using Google Ads.
Before we get started…
Here’s the proof:
What follows…
Is the exact 7 step growth system I used to achieve it.
Let’s get right into it.
Here’s a quick overview of the 7 steps:
Why Does This System Work So Well?
Before we dive into it:
It’s important to first (briefly) understand why this system works so well.
It comes down to 3 simple reasons:
- It targets the entire funnel
- Performance focused
- Nurtures customers
In summary:
It’s a full-funnel performance approach to Google Ads…
Specifically for eCommerce brands.
It’s Not A Copy and Paste Strategy
Super important note here.
If you’re planning to use this system for your brand…
The foundations are the same BUT:
It needs to be customised to your brand.
With that being said, let’s jump right into it.
Step 1: Performance Shopping Campaigns
The foundation of your account success is here.
It’s where the bulk of your new customer acquisition will come from.
4 targeted Standard Shopping performance-based product grouping campaigns were used:
- Superstars
- A Players
- Reserves
- Benched
This is a summary of how this looks:
Important pointers:
- The recommended bid strategy for all campaign types is tROAS
- If you’re just starting out, set your tROAS to 150%
- You don’t need to use all these campaigns
On the last point, if your brand has <500 products, you’d be better off with 2-3 campaigns instead.
Here’s how this would look:
- Top performers
- Mid performers
- Poor performers
On the other hand, if you stock 20,000+ products, you may want to segment this structure on a category level.
Again, based on your brand will determine the best way to set this up.
When it’s all done, this is how it should look in your account:
Step 2: Branded Search Campaign
Branded campaigns are bottom of funnel and have the highest ROAS.
Generally speaking, a large portion of your branded traffic audience know who you are and want to transact when searching for you on Google.
This simply consists of a Search campaign containing:
- Your brand name as an exact keyword (and related variants)
- Your brand name as a phrase keyword (and related variants)
You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned broad keywords here.
That’s because they can sometimes drive unqualified traffic at higher costs and that’s not the intent of this campaign.
In any case, you can also include these and test them for 2-4 weeks before leaving them active or pausing them.
Branded Search Campaign Bid Strategy
Super important note for branded Search campaigns:
Your bid strategy needs to be target impression share.
It will:
- Reduce your branded CPCs dramatically
- Increase your ROAS significantly
Here’s how to set this up:
Adjust the maximum CPC bid limit as required keeping in mind:
- Average CPC
- Search impression share
Step 3: Branded Shopping Campaign
Similar to branded Search, however, this is for Shopping inventory only.
What you want to do is:
- Set up a Standard Shopping campaign
- Campaign priority set to “Low”
- tROAS set very high:
- Depending on your brand strength, this could be 2-5X your non-branded Shopping campaign tROAS
- Create a negative keyword list:
- Apply it to this campaign
- Exclude any non-branded keywords as they appear
Here’s an example of how this looks:
Step 4: Non-branded Search Campaigns
These are great for expanding your account’s reach and potential.
However, there’s a trick to getting this right.
You want to focus on your Superstar and A Player products only.
To do so:
Leverage your Shopping campaign data to build them out.
In particular, your “Product” reports:
Using the following data to confirm your product selection:
- Conversions
- Conversion value
- Conversion value / cost
- Profit metrics (if you have them)
Here’s an overview of the Search campaign structure which was built for the client:
Please note, they don’t sell mattresses, this is purely for you to visualise the structure.
In total they had 5 key categories in which this structure was applied.
Step 5: Dynamic Remarketing Campaign
I leveraged this campaign type to ensure we were maximising all opportunties.
To collect data, it started off as:
- Audience:
- Product view
- No purchase
- Last 30 days
- Frequency:
- 7 per day per user
To help determine the initial audience window, use the conversion lag report:
It’ll show you how many days it took for your customers to convert:
Their remarketing campaigns are now a lot more refined.
For your own brand however, leverage the data you have to create the initial audiences.
Step 6: YouTube Remarketing Campaign
As our client had incredible Meta and TikTok video creative:
I used them to also build out YouTube remarketing campaigns.
I took their best performing video assets:
- UGC (user generated content)
- Product demos
And started with these audiences:
- Abandoned cart and
- Product view last 30 dats with no purchase
Step 7: YouTube Shorts Campaign
This campaign type is purely top of funnel.
I strategically used it to target a new audience.
Essentially a cold awareness campaign.
These are great to implement once:
- You’ve maxed out middle and bottom of funnel
- You’re willing to invest in acquiring new customers (at a higher cost)
- Have sufficient budget to do so
In doing so, you increase your overall audience size.
Creatives used:
- UGC
- Product demos
Also, this one optimisation really helps:
I used their product feed to advertise their Superstar and A Player products only.
You do this within the settings by applying the respective product filters:
This is great as you’re showing your top performers to a new audience…
Increasing the chances of conversion.
Bonus: Get Started Today
All of this can be a lot of work, it also requires time and expertise to get it right.
If you need a hand with your Google Ads management, reach out and we’d be happy to help.