Inside Google Ads podcast: Episode 73 - Shopping Feeds

Do ecommerce businesses need a Google Shopping feed in order to run Google Ads successfully?

Need? No. 

But recommended? Absolutely. Let's get into the details together. 

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you. 

This is Inside Google Ads; Episode 73, Shopping Feeds.

Our first question today comes from thisthatwhat on YouTube and they say, I have products on Amazon, Shopee, Lazada. I would like to showcase them in Google Shopping ads so they can be viewed at the top of a Google search page. How do I do that? 

In order to be in Shopping ads, you need a Google Merchant Center feed. And in order to have a feed, you need your own website. If you only have products on marketplaces like Amazon, then that marketplace is actually putting ads on Google Shopping for you, which is part of the reason you pay them such high fees. 

So to showcase your products in Google Shopping ads, launch your own ecommerce site, connect it to Google Merchant Center, connect Google Merchant Center to Google Ads, and then launch a Shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign with your feed connected.

I was recently a guest on the Top of Search show with Robyn and Abe. That's a podcast all about selling on Amazon. We talked about the pros and cons of Amazon versus your own store and Google Ads for Amazon. So I will put the link to that podcast episode in the episode description if you want to check it out. 

Our next question comes from Frank Seidel via email. I don't normally take questions via email, but Frank and I go way back. And he asked, are PMax campaigns a good idea for B2B ecommerce sites that cannot provide a product feed? If not, what would be an alternative way to go? And if yes, what conditions should the campaign meet?

I have quite a few B2B ecommerce businesses in my Google Ads coaching practice. So if you don't have a product feed, you have to choose whether you want to advertise as an ecommerce business - driving people to specific product pages without leveraging a feed, or by using something like Dynamic Search ads, or creating your own business data feed, et cetera. - or if you want to advertise as a lead generation business - driving people to contact you, fill out a form, et cetera, as the goal of the campaign.

And you don't have to choose just one. You can do both in your Google Ads account, but each campaign needs to just have one goal. So that's the first step. If we're not using a feed, are we launching an ecommerce campaign optimized for purchases, or are we launching a lead gen campaign optimized for contacting us?

That will then help you determine if PMax is a good idea or not. If the conversion action is still a purchase, a direct purchase that the user can make online, and you expect to be able to get at least one purchase a day, then you can give Performance Max a try, even without a feed and even for B2B. It may not be the best option, but it is a real option. 

If the goal is lead generation and you don't have full funnel conversion tracking implemented, which means some kind of Offline Conversion import, then I would not give Performance Max a try, B2B or B2C. What I would probably do instead is a combination of Search and Demand Gen in order to reach your target audience and capture intent. 

We recently covered Demand Gen for Lead Gen in Episode 70 of the Inside Google Ads podcast from May 29, 2025. Definitely check out that episode for inspiration if you're thinking of launching a Demand Gen campaign.

And if you're struggling with the right strategy for your business or what type of campaign to use, you can book a call with me. Learn more on my website, jyll.ca, that's J-Y-L-L dot C-A, or follow the link in the episode description.

Our final question today comes from abwun on YouTube and they say, so what do you recommend for Google Shopping campaigns? Maximize Conversions is not available. 

This is true. Google Shopping campaigns only give you three potential bid strategies: Manual CPC, Maximize Clicks or Target ROAS. Your only Smart Bidding strategy is Target ROAS. And in my opinion, that should be your goal, but it is not a good idea to start a brand new campaign on Target ROAS because you don't know what you don't know. The campaign doesn't have any data yet. 

Personally, I like to start Shopping campaigns on Maximize Clicks. If I'm very concerned about CPCs, I could put a bid limit in place. But as you know from previous episodes, I generally don't recommend that. Expensive clicks are not the enemy, low quality traffic is. 

Whether you choose to start with Manual CPC or Maximize Clicks, the goal will be to get to Target ROAS as quickly as possible. To do so, you're going to want to have ideally at least 50 conversions in 30 days. While that is not necessary for success with Target ROAS, it's going to make success a lot faster and easier. 

If you have nowhere near that many conversions, then you could try leveraging micro- conversions. This is where you take the step that happens before conversion and count it as a conversion action for optimization purposes.

So for a Shopping campaign, that might mean if a user clicks Begin Checkout, we count that as a conversion as well as the purchase to help give us a lot more data for optimization. Episode 39 of the Inside Google Ads podcast is all about micro-conversions. That's from October 24, 2024. So be sure to check that out to learn more about this topic.

All in all, Shopping feeds are a powerful tool for ecommerce businesses using Google Ads, whether you're B2B or B2C. While a feed is not required for Shopping success, it's a good idea to get one going if you want to have the most options and flexibility for your Google Ads campaigns. 

Today's Insider Challenge is this. Let's say you're running a Google Shopping campaign and it's not working well. It's not meeting your goals. What are three things you'd want to look into for potential optimization? 

The beauty of the Insider Challenge is there's no right or wrong answer, just an opportunity to stretch your brain on real life Google Ads problem solving. 

Last Episode's Challenge, Episode 72 was this. Let's say you're running a Demand Gen campaign, remarketing to a website visitors list. Do you add the Google-engaged audience? Why or why not?

As we talked about last episode, adding that Google-engaged audience is going to help me engage with more users who've expressed interest in my business, even if they haven't visited my website yet. Or they did visit my website from Google or from YouTube, but because of consent mode or cookie policies or issues with implementation or whatever, my Google Analytics or Google Ads tag failed to capture them. My Google-engaged audience, however, would capture them.

What about you? Have you tried the Google-engaged audience yet? In case you missed it, last episode I shared my brand new study about Google-engaged audiences. You can find that on my Google ads blog at learn.jyll.ca/blog. That's jyll.ca or follow the link in the episode description. 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.Sign up to get the Inside Google Ads episode transcripts delivered to your inbox each week, for free.