When Can I Expect To See Results From My Shopping Ads?

When you’ve launched your Shopping campaign and are now getting traffic, naturally you’ll want to know when you’re likely to see positive results from it.

This is important, considering that you’ll be spending money as people click your product ads. And the traffic and costs will continue to increase as your products become more visible.

The truth is, it’s important that you give your ads some time to run and get sufficient traffic volumes to see what results you’ll get. Many advertisers will run ads for a week or two and then check to see if they’ve made a profit or are getting a good number of sales. And this is fine.

But what is important too is to check the volume of clicks you’re getting for your products. A product that has had 10 clicks for example with no sales does not mean it has failed. Usually you should allow it to get up to 50 to 100 clicks as long as the cost per click is low. But of course this depends on your margins and the sale price.

One positive thing about Google Shopping ads as mentioned before is that they usually have higher conversion rates than other campaign types. And it’s very possible that you’ll start getting orders from day one and for them to be very profitable too. But that depends on many factors including the level of competition, type of products, your prices, your search terms and so on. These will all determine how quickly you’ll see results.

Another benefit of Shopping Ads is that you only pay for performance. So, you only pay for clicks that you get and nothing else. There are no hidden or extra costs and there are no commissions to pay to Google.

That means you can easily see what you have spent on a daily and monthly basis and that helps you to calculate your return on investment (ROI). So, this is what you can expect in the weeks and months after launching your Shopping campaign:

First Week

This is week one and you’re mostly gathering data. You’ll notice some searches that are not relevant when you check your search terms report. You will find this report under your Keywords tab in your Shopping campaign.

But don’t be alarmed. It’s quite common to see searches that are not related to your products or some that are too generic. Just select them and add them as negative keywords.

Also, your traffic will be increasing and you’ll be getting a few sales. But your spend will likely still be above what you’re making in sales. This is the time to really focus and make sure you’re monitoring the traffic in your Google Ads account.

First Month

At this point you’ll be actively managing the Shopping campaign and be blocking searches that are not relevant. You’ll have built a good list of negative keywords and your search accuracy will be at 95% or higher.

At the end of the month you’ll know if Google Shopping is working for you or not. And you can then take action to remove any products that have been receiving traffic consistently but are not converting.

Month Two

You’ll be now be getting far less searches that are irrelevant in month two if you’ve been proactive in your management.

If your ROI is good, now is the time to consider increasing your budget. And increase it by at least 25% to be able to see a decent increase in clicks and conversions.

Month Three

Your Shopping campaign is now highly profitable if you’ve done everything right and you’re now easily spending over £1000 per month. And you’re achieving a good return on ad spend.

But, if you’re in a competitive field, your campaign may still need a lot more work and testing of products and bidding strategies.

If the campaign is not working at all, then consider testing other campaign types like a Search campaign or other products that you may not have been advertising.

Also, consider getting help from a Google Shopping expert. They will be able to identify any issues in your Merchant Centre and Google Ads accounts when they carry out an audit.

Conclusion

One of the benefits of Google Shopping advertising is that you can see quickly if it’s working for you and three months is usually sufficient time to test it to see what you get. And if it’s setup and managed correctly within that time, you’ll see an impressive return on ad spend. And from then on you can keep updating the campaign as you manage it.

Get in Touch

Need help from a Google Shopping specialist to setup and manage your product ads? I’d be happy to help and if you contact me below I’ll send you a proposal and a quote.