Monitor and optimise your Shopping campaigns

After you get your Shopping campaign running, you need to check how it's performing to make sure that you get the results you want. You can monitor the performance of your campaign in a few key places in Google Ads:

  • Product groups page
  • Products page
  • Dimensions page
  • Auction insights report
  • Bid simulators

Bear in mind

Shopping ads are generated based on the product data that you've set up in your Merchant Center account. While you can define product groups within your campaigns, your ad performance is tightly linked to the data you've provided in Merchant Centre, so make sure that your product data is accurate and up-to-date. Find out how to check the quality of your Merchant Centre data feed.

Use the Product groups page

The Product groups page is the first place you can check to see how your product groups are performing. Customise the columns that you see and download reports with segmented options.

You'll be able to view these types of information:

  • Maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC)
  • Impressions
  • Click-through rate (CTR)
  • Conversion metrics
  • Benchmark click-through rate (CTR)
  • Benchmark maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC)
  • Impression share
  • Click share
  • Absolute top-impression share
  • Tracking templates
  • Custom parameters
  • % approved
  • % active
  • % ready to serve
  • Products submitted
  • Products approved
  • Products active
  • Products ready to serve

Learn more about these columns and what they mean.

Plus, you can download a report and add segments to the report to view your performance by days of the week, click type or device. Note that you can’t segment impression share, benchmark CTR or benchmark CPC by device or click type.

Here's how to download a report from the Product Groups page:

  1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon Campaigns icon.
  2. Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
  3. Click Campaigns.
  4. Click the campaign that you wish to run a report on.
  5. Click an ad group in the campaign.
  6. From the page menu on the left, click Product groups.
  7. Make sure that the table is displaying all of the columns that you may want to edit. Then, click the download button Download button.
    1. If you want to segment your data by device, day of the week or click type, click More options, then click the Add segments drop-down menu and choose the option that you want. You won’t be able to segment your impression share, benchmark CTR or benchmark CPC data by device or click type. You won’t be able to mark this segmented report 'Editable'.
    2. Click Email now to email the report to specific recipients. You can choose the file type as well.
    3. Click Schedule to email the report to specific recipients in your selected file type at a regularly scheduled time, whether 'daily', 'weekly' or on the 'first day of the month'.
  8. If you download an editable report, you'll be able to use it to make bulk changes to product groups, bids, tracking templates and custom parameters. Learn more about downloadable reports and bulk uploads. Keep in mind:
    • You can’t download an editable report using segments.
    • Make sure that you save your spreadsheet in one of our supported formats (.xlsx, .tsv or .csv).
  9. Click Download.
Use the Products page (Shopping only)

The Products page helps you understand the performance of individual products in your campaign. Here are the customisable columns that you can see:

  • Item ID
  • Title
  • Channel
  • Channel exclusivity
  • Merchant ID
  • Brand
  • Price
  • Condition
  • Language
  • Product type
  • Category
  • Custom label
  • Product status
  • Impressions
  • Clicks
  • Average cost-per-click
  • Effective maximum cost-per-click (effective max. CPC)
  • Conversion metrics
  • Absolute top-impression share

Learn more about these columns and what they mean.

Use the Predefined reports page

The Predefined reports page provides customised performance reporting at any level of granularity by any dimension that you choose, including:

  • Category
  • Product type
  • Item ID
  • Brand
  • Merchant Center ID
  • Store ID
  • Channel
  • Channel exclusivity
  • Benchmark click-through rate (CTR)
  • Benchmark maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC)
  • Impression share
  • Click share
  • Absolute top-impression share

Here’s how to view performance data from the Predefined reports page:

  1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon Campaigns icon.
  2. Click the Insights and reports drop-down in the section menu.
  3. Click Report editor.
  4. Click 'View all' in the 'Predefined reports (formerly Dimensions)' card.
  5. In the Shopping section, then choose the attribute you want to use to sort your performance data: category, product type, item ID, brand, Merchant Center ID or shop ID.

To customise the information that you want to see in the report that you just created:

  1. Click the edit row or column icon.
  2. To add a column to the report, click Add, then choose the type of metric (for example, 'Attributes', 'Performance', 'Conversions', 'Competitive metrics') that you’d like to add as a report column. Repeat this for each column that you wish to add.
  3. Click Add to select the columns that you want to view.
  4. To remove a column from the report, click the X next to the name of the column that you’d like to remove.
  5. To save your report settings, click Save as.

You can download non-editable performance reports from the Predefined reports page. Use segments if you’d like to view your data split into rows based on the options that matter to you most, such as days of the week, click type or device. Note that you can’t segment impression share, benchmark CTR or benchmark CPC by device or click type.

Here's how to download a non-editable report from the Predefined reports (formerly Dimensions) page:

  1. From the Predefined reports (formerly Dimensions) page, make sure that the table is displaying all of the information that you want to see. Then, click the download button Download button .
  2. Choose the format that you wish to download your report in (for example, .csv).
  3. Click Download.

Tip

You can also segment your performance data at the campaign or ad group level to compare traffic from the Google Search Network and Google search partners. Just go to the Campaigns or Ad groups page, click the Segment drop-down menu Segment, and select Network (with search partners).

Use the Auction insights report

The Auction insights report lets you compare your performance with other advertisers who are participating in the same auctions that you are. This information can help you make strategic decisions about bidding and budgeting choices by showing you where you are succeeding and where you may be missing opportunities for improved performance. This data is available from October 2014 to present.

Learn more about Auction insights for Shopping campaigns.

Use the bid simulator

Want to increase or decrease your bids, but not sure how it would affect your performance? The Bid Simulator can help bring clarity to how different product group bids might affect your traffic and conversions by estimating what your advertising results might have been over the previous 7 days, if you’d set different bids.

Learn more about using the Bid Simulator with Shopping campaigns.

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