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Founder & Lead Strategist · $25M+ managed · Updated for 2026
These are the questions store owners ask us most before, during and after launching Google Ads, grouped by topic. Short answers first, with links to the deeper guides where a topic needs more room.
For most stores with solid margins and a product people already search for, yes. Google is where shoppers go with intent: they type the product, compare listings and buy. The channel stops being worth it when margins cannot cover the cost of acquiring an order, when the store cannot convert the traffic, or when the account is run on numbers nobody has checked. The test is simple: does non-brand, new-customer revenue clear your break-even ROAS once costs are counted?
It can, but low order values leave little room per sale. If a $20 product has a $7 margin, every order has to come in under $7 of ad cost. Stores in that position usually do better by raising order value with bundles, multipacks or free-shipping thresholds, focusing on long-tail searches with cheaper clicks, and counting repeat purchases in their targets.
They do different jobs. Google captures people already searching for what you sell, which makes it the natural first channel when that demand exists. Meta creates demand by showing products to people who were not looking, which suits new categories, impulse buys and strong visual products. Many stores run both: Meta builds awareness and Google catches the searches that follow. If the product solves a problem people already search for, start with Google; if nobody knows to look for it yet, Meta often comes first. Our Meta ads management runs alongside Google for exactly this reason.
Enough to give one or two campaigns a steady flow of conversions, which for most stores means a focused test over about three months. The full breakdown by store stage and category is on our e-commerce Google Ads cost page.
Yes. Shopping ads and the product side of Performance Max both run on a Merchant Center product feed. Merchant Center holds your product data, checks it against Google policies and makes it available to Google Ads once the two accounts are linked.
Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and most other major platforms offer an integration or plugin that sends products to Merchant Center. If yours does not, a scheduled feed file or a third-party feed tool works. For Shopify specifics, see our e-commerce Google Ads strategy, which covers the Google & YouTube app in detail.
You should. Create both accounts under your own business login and grant access to any agency or freelancer working on them. If a partner owns the account, you can lose years of history and conversion data when the relationship ends.
A working purchase conversion with correct values, a Merchant Center account with approved products, clear shipping and returns policies on the site, and break-even ROAS worked out from your margins. Launching without these makes the first weeks of spend hard to learn from.
Usually a brand Search campaign plus either Standard Shopping or a feed-only Performance Max campaign on your best sellers. Shopping gives you more visibility into which searches trigger your products; Performance Max reaches more placements with less detail. Our Shopping ads management page explains when each makes sense.
In most cases, yes. Brand clicks are cheap, competitors and resellers may bid on your name, and a brand campaign lets you control the message and landing page. Keep it in its own campaign so it does not blur the results of prospecting campaigns.
Usually not. A new campaign has no conversion history to bid from. Starting on Maximize Conversion Value lets it gather data; once results are steady over a few weeks, switch to Target ROAS set near what the campaign has actually achieved.
Not at the start. Video becomes useful once search demand is well covered and you need new people entering the funnel. Performance Max can serve video if you supply it, and dedicated YouTube or Demand Gen campaigns give more control when you are ready to prospect.
One that clears your break-even point with room for profit. A 3.0 ROAS is strong for a store with 50% margins and a loss for one with 25%. Use the ROAS calculator to find your line, then set separate targets for brand, prospecting and new-customer campaigns.
They count differently. Google Ads credits conversions to the date of the click and can include view-through and cross-device conversions. GA4 uses its own attribution model, and your store simply records orders. Some gap is normal; a large or growing gap usually points to duplicate tags, missing tags or mismatched values.
Separate brand from non-brand results, track new-customer revenue using customer lists or the new customer acquisition goal, and watch whether total store revenue rises when Google spend rises. If spend grows and only branded revenue follows, the campaigns are mostly harvesting demand you already had.
When Google Ads is a meaningful sales channel and nobody in-house has the time or depth to manage feeds, tracking and bidding properly. Very small budgets are often better served by a focused DIY setup or a freelancer until the numbers justify more.
Most use a flat monthly fee, a percentage of ad spend, or a hybrid. Ad spend is paid to Google separately. At More Than Scaling, the fee is quoted after a free audit, flat or as a percentage of spend, and every engagement is month-to-month.
Ask who will actually work on the account, how they set targets, how they handle Performance Max and branded traffic, and what they would change in the first 30 days. Our guide to choosing an e-commerce Google Ads agency lists the criteria and red flags in full.
Key takeaways
Directional ad spend by store stage and CPCs by product category.
Read it →A step-by-step growth plan with a full Shopify setup section.
Read it →See how we run Shopping, PMax and feeds for online stores.
See the service →Have a question about your own account?
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Get a Free Audit →Quick answers to the questions we hear most.
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