Ecommerce PPC Management Explained (+ 7 Expert Tips)

Ecommerce PPC management is the process of strategizing, building, and optimizing paid search campaigns for an ecommerce website. From setup to testing, these expert tips will ensure your campaigns succeed.

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) management, ecommerce has its own set of rules for success. While traditional search campaigns are powered by keywords, PPC for ecommerce is all about the product feed.

Whether your ecommerce business is new to pay-per-click advertising or ready to scale, it’s important to follow some PPC best practices to reach your business goals.

To get the inside scoop, we spoke withHawkSEM’s experienced search engine marketing manager, Jordan Fultz. Read on to find out what he had to say.

What is ecommerce PPC management?

Ecommerce PPC management is the process of strategizing, building, and optimizing paid search campaigns for an ecommerce website.

While typically outsourced to a PPC agency or a digital marketing agency that specializes in ecommerce PPC management services, PPC campaigns can be managed in-house by a dedicated member of the ecommerce team.

What does an ecommerce PPC expert do?

Whether an agency, freelancer, or in-house marketer, an ecommerce PPC expert will take care of every aspect of a PPC campaign.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Ecommerce PPC audit

First, a PPC expert will review your website and any existing campaigns for:

• Optimization opportunities
• Content gaps
• Additional assets for your campaigns
• Current bidding strategies
• Keywords
• Conversion tracking setup

2. Competitive analysis, market research, and goal setting

Using keyword research and data tools, a PPC expert determines your target audience and top competitors.

Your KPIs will help your digital advertising team craft a strategy to meet your goals.

3. Data-driven campaign strategy

A custom campaign strategy includes:

• Bid types
• Optimization objectives
• Creative recommendations
• Keywords
• Custom audiences
• Ad copy and assets
• Try new match types
• Check languages and locations

4. Campaign buildout

Once a PPC expert has a strategy in place, the buildout involves:

• Conversion tracking setup
• Ad groups with relevant keywords
• Negative keyword lists
• Bidding strategies
• Remarketing setup
• Appealing ad copy
• Optimized landing pages
• Strong calls to action (CTA)
• A/B testing setup
• Ensuring your product feed is robust, accurate, and connected to your Google Merchant Center (GMC) account

5. A/B testing

PPC experts will regularly test your ad copy, product page design, headlines, and assets to see what brings in the highest conversions.

6. Custom reporting

Regular reports should be easy to read and customized to the KPIs that matter most to you.

7. Ongoing optimization

After your ads run for some time, a PPC expert will:

• Refresh your ad copy, assets, and formats
• A/B test keyword variations, landing pages, and assets
• Update your negative keyword list
• Make conversion rate optimizations (CRO) to your ecommerce site
• Adjust your bidding strategy if needed
• Improve Quality Score
• Try new match types
• Check languages and locations

Do you need to hire an agency for ecommerce PPC management?

If your online store is maintaining a steady stream of revenue and you have the bandwidth to scale, hiring an agency is the best way to see growth.

However, if your business is still new or facing some budgeting issues, it may be best to wait to hire professional help.

Ecommerce PPC management in 7 steps

Looking to tackle your online advertising efforts in-house? Here are 7 steps to build, optimize, and manage a successful ecommerce campaign:

1. Set up your Google Merchant Center account

Many ecommerce store accounts are set up improperly, which can lead to tracking mistakes and faulty data.

So, how do you ensure you start off on the right foot?

• Go to Google Merchant Center
• Use the same Google account you use for Google Ads and Analytics to create your GMC.
• Fill out your business information.
• Choose whether customers will make a purchase from your ecommerce website, through Google, or at a brick-and-mortar location.
• Follow the steps to verify and claim your website to link it to your Merchant Center account
• Submit your products to GMC manually or by uploading a product feed.

Bonus: Enable automatic updates to avoid item disapprovals

Mismatched price and availability information can lead to item disapprovals (and general frustration for online shoppers).

Opting into automatic item updates allows Google to crawl your page and automatically update your ads using your most updated price and availability.

However, if you tend to change your prices frequently, want more control, or your site is structured in a way that might make it hard for Google to understand your pricing, it’s probably best to turn off the automatic price updates.

Pro tip: If your product list is especially large, Google’s file processor Centimani might be a great solution for you.

2. Update your product feed

Once you input products, they remain active for 30 days. After that, those products will expire if you don’t update their info, meaning they won’t be eligible to show potential customers.

You can update your products either by reprocessing your feed or setting up automatic processing on a daily or weekly basis, depending on how often your product inventory changes.

3. Set up your ecommerce ads campaign

It’s pretty easy to get started once you have GMC linked. It’s usually a good idea to start with a standard Shopping campaign:

Log into your Google Ads account and click “+ New Campaign”

• Select your goal (sales, leads, or website traffic)
• Choose your campaign type (“shopping,” GMC will feed product data to the campaign automatically)
• Select standard shopping as your campaign subtype
• Name your campaign
• Set your targeting locations and language
• Set your budget (how much you want to spend each day)
• Choose a bidding strategy
• Create ad groups
• Set your max cost per click bids
• Launch your campaign

Performance Max, (which replaced Smart Shopping campaigns at the end of 2022) is usually best fueled by a solid foundation of account data.

If you’re just getting started, you may want to run a manual cost-per-click (CPC) campaign first, then experiment with Performance Max down the road.

We helped furniture, decor, and design services brand Grayson Living grow ecommerce sales by 279% in the first year alone. Check out this case study to see how we did it.

Get granular

The more specific a product search is, the higher the purchase intent is likely to be.

Similarly, the more you segment your products, the more targeted your PPC ads will be. It makes sense: someone searching for a specific brand, style, color, and size of running shoe is probably more motivated to buy than someone just searching with the term “running shoe.”

You can split products into separate campaigns and ad groups that can then be split further into product groups.

If you have a small, manageable number of products, you can break everything out by single-product product groups.

An example: Let’s say your core products are sporting goods, but you also sell apparel as 20% of your business. It may be wise to put all of your apparel into a separate campaign to make sure you’re giving most of your budget to your core products.

You can also divide in other ways, like by devices. Take, for example, a 100% bid adjustment to separate desktop and mobile.

For your desktop campaign, you’d put in a 100% bid adjustment on mobile to show only on desktop, and vice versa.

You can separate traffic based on how specific the search is by setting up campaign priorities and then using negative keywords to segregate those searches. Google’s 2021 GMC updates include additional sizing attributes which may be helpful as well.

But that’s not the only way to get granular with your PPC campaigns. Fultz recommends being as specific as possible with shipping and return policies.

“You can set shipping expectations for the holiday rush, or you can set expectations by day of the week in normal sale times,” he explains.

“GMC has features to help with the specifics of the holiday rush, too.” For example, you can place something like ‘Free delivery by Sat, Dec. 24’ directly into your ad.

He also advises investigating whether certain products in specific states don’t collect sales tax. This is an opportunity to reduce your prices as low as possible. For instance, in New York and Connecticut, clothing and footwear priced under $110 are tax-free).

Pro tip: Google Shopping is unique because it has a priority system — you can set low, medium, and high-priority campaigns. If you have several Shopping campaigns, this system dictates which ones serve an ad first.

Include prices in your ads

Your GMC account isn’t the only place you want to make sure your prices are visible. Including prices in your ads can be a highly effective way to get more clicks than your competition.

Not only can this help qualify your traffic to ensure you get the right clicks, but it doesn’t take up a ton of valuable ad real estate.

Even if they don’t end up buying your product or service, you’ll have a higher chance of snagging them through remarketing, since they already know what your pricing looks like.

Pro tip: To help products stand out, use promotions and set up the feed to enable strikethrough pricing in Google Shopping ads. This is when original prices are crossed out to indicate temporarily lowered prices (creating FOMO).

Remember to optimize

Optimizing your PPC campaigns will help you better manage your budget by putting more spend where you see the most success.

There are two major KPIs to consider when optimizing a Shopping campaign. If you’re on a manual bidding strategy, pay attention to conversion volume and the result of conversion value over cost. That will calculate a rough idea of your return on ad spend (ROAS).

Many ecommerce companies optimize their bids by starting low, then adjusting accordingly. The more data you gather, the more informed your decisions will be.

After you’ve accrued some data, you can decrease bids on anything under your goal or average. You can also increase bids on items that are producing the most conversion value when compared to ad spend.

With Shopping, you can’t run a traditional experiment within Google Ads, but you can switch over for a time period and compare after a while.

Automatic bidding strategies are powered by data, so the longer you run them, the better they should get.

Other ways to optimize include:

• Experiment with different ad types (like product listing ads vs. text ads)
• Leverage ad extensions to give ads more context
• Add pricing to ads for a competitive edge
• Test different campaign structures and categories

If you’re planning a holiday sale, use Google Ads’ seasonality tool to optimize ad performance.

“If you expect conversion rates (CVR) to increase by 20% for a few days, such as during a Black Friday sale, signal to Google that the CVR will be higher,” Fultz says.

“This way, the algorithmic smart bidding doesn’t take more than one day to adjust. This prevents you from getting a slow start to holiday sales when most shoppers are active.”

Leverage dynamic remarketing

If you’re running Google Ads, you’re already paying for people to get to your ecommerce website.

But, as consumers ourselves, we know not everyone buys the first time they visit a site or product page. That’s where dynamic remarketing comes in.

While remarketing (also called retargeting) can be effective in various industries, it’s particularly useful for ecommerce PPC ads. It can help you land more recurring sales, increase your campaign’s clickthrough rate (CTR), boost your ROI, and more.

Dynamic remarketing is a great way to nurture your funnel. At its core, this method aims to show users specific products they’ve viewed on your site.

If they look at running shoes, you then show them that exact pair of shoes as a Shopping ad while they browse other sites on the web.

To set up dynamic remarketing, you generally have to add a bit of code to your site. This is powered by your GMC feed, so you have to make sure your account is set up and working if you want it to be successful.

A lot of people put things in their carts while shopping online, and then don’t end up following through with the purchase.

You can remarket these products to cart abandoners and, if you have the ecommerce settings set up correctly in Google Analytics, you should already have some audiences available.

4. Test your ads consistently

If you want high-performing ecommerce PPC ads, testing repeatedly is an important step.

You can A/B test elements like your imagery, verbiage, call to action (CTA), and more. After all, what works on your paid social media campaign might be a flop when it comes to SEM.

See how a flat-lay image of an item on a white background performs against an image of a real-life scenario.

You may think you know what your target audience wants, but the results could end up surprising you.

Read our full guide to A/B testing here.

5. Expand to other networks beyond Google

If you’re seeing success in Google and topping your impression share, why stop there?

Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) 

With Microsoft Advertising, you could have access to 724 million unique searchers per month. And depending on your ecommerce product, you could see less competition than on Google, and a potentially cheaper cost per click (CPC).

If you already have a Microsoft Ads account, it’s easy to get a merchant center account set up right from the ad platform. Microsoft will process this data just like Google.

Once it reviews the product data, you can create a Shopping campaign within Microsoft or import a Shopping campaign from Google that’s already working well.

In Microsoft Ads, you can even import on a recurring basis. If you set up a recurring sync, you can optimize in one place and make sure it’s carried over easily, instead of having to manually optimize within each platform.

Amazon Advertising

If you have an online store on Amazon marketplace and want to drive more user clicks and sales, setting up an Amazon PPC ad campaign is your best bet.

This is particularly helpful if you’re new and need to compete for new customers, as Amazon PPC is one of the quickest methods for building brand awareness.

Similar to Google, you’ll find Amazon sponsored product listings at the top of its search page:

Amazon’s ecommerce advertising platform allows you to do everything Google Ads does, including setting the demographics and search terms to target.

The only difference is Amazon is where people go to shop, which increases the odds of growing conversions.

Like with any other campaign, you need to ensure your ad copy, images, and pricing are attractive to get clicks.

6. Use AI data analytics to enhance PPC campaign results

Lots of clicks = good. Low conversion rates = bad.

Using basic reasoning to determine the quality of your PPC ad campaigns will only take you so far. And only after wasting tons of money and time will you realize what truly works and doesn’t.

But what if there was a faster (and more efficient) way to identify the best search queries to bid on for maximum results? It’s possible when you add AI data analytics to your advertising strategy.

For example, ConversionIQ, HawkSEM’s proprietary marketing technology, offers actionable insights to improve results by pinpointing high-converting audiences and the search terms they use to reduce time spent on keyword research.

7. Create ad experiences with augmented reality (AR)

The best ecommerce PPC marketing doesn’t just attract customers — it also entertains them. And if you can do it in a helpful way, then products will practically sell themselves. This is one reason augmented reality (AR) is a game changer for online retailers.

Allowing customers to try on makeup and accessories or see a piece of furniture in their living room before buying improves the user experience.

By adding AR to your ecommerce PPC strategy, you can stand apart from competitors and give shoppers a glimpse of your product.

If you’re looking for a way to make your PPC advertising better, then consider augmenting the realities of prospective buyers.

Ecommerce PPC management: dos and don’ts

Ecommerce lead generation has its own twists and turns, especially when it comes to PPC management and structure.

Here’s a handy list of dos and don’ts for brands in this dynamic sector:

Ecommerce PPC: Dos

• Set up robust tracking – Extend your tracking beyond just purchases to include product views, abandoned carts, and other stages of the customer journey. These data points give you valuable data to analyze and help create targeted audiences for your campaigns.
• Upload offline data – If your purchases can be completed in-store or over the phone, that data is essential to understanding the true value of your campaigns. Today, most CRM software integrates directly with Google. For those that don’t, you can manually upload data or use workflow automation software tools like Zapier to do it for you.
• Add appeal with assets (like images and offers) – In the competitive race to attract customers, you want to immediately showcase what sets you apart. Visuals of special promotions, standout features, and competitive pricing. With only a few seconds to capture your audience’s attention, these assets are pivotal in getting your brand noticed by potential customers during the research stage.
• Optimize your merchant center settings – Take advantage of everything the Google Merchant Center offers. Set up both your paid and free ad campaigns,  and don’t overlook the free options, as they can provide additional visibility at no cost. Explore the Shopping Experience Scorecard under the Growth tab (a tool to evaluate and improve the customer experience). Meeting these criteria earns you a trusted store badge and boosts your ad placement.

Ecommerce PPC: Don’ts

• Focus on just one campaign type – Your first instinct may be to put all your eggs, err, money into Performance Max or shopping campaigns because they’re purchase-focused. But diversity is key. Setting up search, display, and YouTube campaigns allows you to touch potential buyers during every step in their journey and keep your brand top-of-mind.
• Prioritize ROI over purchases – Sure, purchases are important. But if it costs too much to get a purchase? Or if the CPA exceeds the value of the sale? It probably isn’t contributing positively to your business. Keep an eye on critical metrics like ROAS and ROI to ensure your campaigns aren’t just driving sales but doing so in a financially sustainable way.
• Expect to optimize every aspect of PPC campaigns – Go beyond the basics, like bid adjustments and negative keywords. Review product performance and consider removing those that underperform. Analyze geographical data and cut out locations draining your budget without significant conversions. And stay on the lookout for ways to enhance your landing pages and shopping carts.
• Forget to use first-party data – First-party data comes directly from your customers and subscribers, giving you valuable insights into their preferences, behaviors, and purchase history. It’s especially ideal for Performance Max campaigns, setting up Value-Based Bidding, and remarketing. So, make it a point to upload customer lists, subscriber lists, and other first-party data into your PPC platform.

The takeaway

Big brand. Little shop. Your size doesn’t matter on the web. If you can outperform established ecommerce businesses’ PPC ads, then you’re just as worthy of a thousand clicks. But to do this, you must learn the best PPC strategies and how to make your ads stand out.

Make sure your GMC account is set up properly, product info is fresh, experiments are consistent, and campaigns leverage all the avenues (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) at your disposal.

From there, you can build a strong digital marketing strategy that garners more clicks and sales, so your company continues to grow.

This article has been updated and was originally published in June 2020.