0413 107 893Running Google Ads for an e-commerce store is a different challenge from running ads for a local service business. You're dealing with product feeds, Shopping campaigns, Performance Max, ROAS targets, and attribution across multiple campaign types — all at the same time. Get it right and it scales beautifully. Get it wrong and you're spending real money with no clear picture of what's working.
The single most important thing we've found in e-commerce accounts — more important than campaign structure, more important than bidding strategies, more important than ad creative — is having accurate purchase tracking with conversion values. Without it, every optimisation decision is a guess.
Conversion Tracking: Where It Has to Start
We took on an Australian e-commerce client in the hygiene products space in early 2026. They were running three campaign types: Search, Standard Shopping, and a Performance Max campaign. The PMax wasn't performing well, and nobody could explain why — because there was no conversion tracking in place. No purchase events, no conversion values, nothing. The campaigns had no signal to optimise from.
Before anything else, we implemented full purchase tracking with conversion values. This meant connecting Google Ads to the store's analytics properly, verifying that purchases were firing correctly, and making sure conversion values were being passed through. It's not glamorous work, but it's the foundation everything else depends on.
Rebuilding the PMax Campaign
Rather than trying to fix the existing Performance Max campaign, we created a new one with a specific brief: "Selected Products" only. By limiting which products were in the campaign and grouping them deliberately — rather than throwing the full catalogue at the algorithm — we gave Google's systems a tighter signal to work from and a higher-quality audience to learn against.
Alongside this, we tightened the audience targeting by excluding age groups that the demographic data showed weren't converting, built out a comprehensive negative keyword list to block irrelevant search queries, set up ad scheduling to concentrate spend during the hours conversions were actually happening, and worked through the product feed to sharpen titles, descriptions, and images.
The feed optimisation is something that gets overlooked by a lot of agencies. Shoppers compare products side by side in Google Shopping. If your product titles are unclear, your images are poor quality, or your descriptions don't match what the buyer is searching for, your click-through rate suffers even when you're bidding competitively. We follow a similar approach to what produced strong results in our first Google Shopping case study — the product feed is as important as the campaign structure.
The Results: Month One
The new PMax campaign went live in late January 2026. Within the first two weeks it was generating an 8.99 ROAS on A$487.64 spend, producing A$4,386.32 in conversion value. By the end of February, with all three campaign types running under the new structure, the full account results were:
- Total conversion value: A$9,632.73
- Total spend: A$1,452.24
- Account-wide ROAS: 6.63x
- PMax ROAS: 7.67x with a 6.07% conversion rate
- Standard Shopping ROAS: 6.34x with a 6.69% conversion rate
- Search conversion rate: 8.23%
Both primary campaigns ended the month constrained only by daily budget — not by performance. That's a meaningful signal. It means there's genuine room to scale by increasing spend, not by fixing structural problems.
| Campaign | ROAS | Conversion Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| PMax Selected Products | 7.67x | 6.07% | Rebuilt with product segmentation and audience exclusions |
| Standard Shopping | 6.34x | 6.69% | Feed optimised, policy issues resolved |
| Search | 3.89x | 8.23% | Capturing emerging search trends |
| Total Account | 6.63x | 6.38% | A$9,632.73 revenue from A$1,452.24 spend |
Standard Shopping vs Performance Max: Which to Use?
This is one of the most common questions we get from e-commerce store owners. The honest answer is that it depends on your account's data maturity and what you're trying to achieve. We've written about this in detail — see our blog post on Standard Shopping vs Performance Max — but the short version is that PMax performs best when it has strong conversion signals to work from, and Standard Shopping gives you more direct control over which search terms trigger your ads.
In most e-commerce accounts we manage, we run both. PMax handles the primary volume once it's properly fed with conversion data; Standard Shopping provides a more transparent, controllable layer that catches high-intent searches and gives us clearer performance data by product.
What We Do for E-commerce Clients
| Area | Our approach | What we commonly fix on takeover |
|---|---|---|
| Conversion tracking | Purchase events with conversion values, verified before any changes | No tracking at all, or tracking without values |
| PMax structure | Selected product groups, tight audience signals, ad scheduling | Full catalogue PMax with no signals, running at loss |
| Product feed | Titles, descriptions, images optimised for search intent and click quality | Default feed with generic titles and poor images |
| Audience targeting | Non-converting demographic segments excluded based on data | Ads serving to all ages and audiences without filtering |
| Negative keywords | Comprehensive list blocking irrelevant queries across all campaign types | No negatives, unqualified traffic consuming budget |
| Policy compliance | Product eligibility issues identified and resolved | Products suppressed with no explanation |
Why Choose Pitch Black?
We've been managing Google Ads accounts since 2016 and hold Google Partner status with certifications in Search, Shopping, Display, and YouTube advertising. Every account is managed entirely in-house from Perth, Western Australia — no offshore account managers, no outsourcing.
Management fees start at $499 per month per account. We don't charge commissions on your ad spend, and we build dedicated landing pages to support your campaigns at no extra cost. No lock-in contracts — you stay because the results are there, not because you signed something.
We hold a 100% 5-star rating on Google. Read our Google reviews.
"Communication was clear, turnaround time was fast, and the end result exceeded our expectations. Highly recommend Pitch Black for anyone looking for top-quality service with zero hassle!" — Stephanie G.
"Always transparent and managing my expectations without promising the world. Patient with all our questions and always wanting to help." — Mark W.
"In just a few months Pitch Black have significantly improved our position in the digital landscape. They are a pleasure to work with and a valuable asset to our business." — Adam C.
A$9,632.73 in tracked revenue from A$1,452.24 in spend, in month one — with both primary campaigns limited only by daily budget rather than by performance.
If your e-commerce Google Ads account isn't delivering the ROAS you need, or you're not sure whether your tracking is actually recording the right data, get in touch for a free audit. We'll go through the account in detail and give you a clear picture of what's working and what isn't.
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