Things worth knowing before you spend more.
No listicles written for search engines, no gated PDFs. What we actually find in accounts, written down.
Google Ads for dropshipping: the honest 2026 playbook
Google does not ban dropshipping. It bans looking like a business that cannot be trusted — and most dropshipping stores fail that test for reasons nobody explains.
Merchant Center suspended for misrepresentation: what it actually means
The email names a policy. It never names the cause. Here is how to find it before you spend another review.
Shopify conversion tracking: the double-counting problem nobody catches
If Google and Shopify disagree about how many orders you had, every decision built on top of that is decoration.
Performance Max is not the problem. Your feed is.
PMax gets blamed for a lot of things that are really feed problems, brand cannibalisation, or a conversion action set wrong three months ago.
Feed optimisation: the highest-return work in most eCommerce accounts
In Shopping there is no keyword list. The feed is your keyword targeting — which is why most stores are invisible for the searches that would have converted.
Break-even ROAS: the only number that decides whether ads can work
A 3x ROAS is excellent on a 60% margin and ruinous on a 20% one. Everyone quotes ROAS. Almost nobody quotes the number it has to beat.
Brand vs non-brand: the number your agency hopes you never split
If a big share of your "performance" is people typing your own name, you are paying an agency to take credit for demand you already built.
How to scale Google Ads without killing your ROAS
Most scaling failures are not scaling failures. They are structural problems that only became visible when more money went through them.
Nine Google Ads mistakes quietly burning your budget
None of these are exotic. They are just invisible unless somebody is actually looking at the account.
Google Ads management fees explained: retainer, percentage, or both
Agency pricing is usually built so you cannot compare it. Here is how the models actually work, including ours.
How to verify a Google Ads agency before you sign
Case studies can be borrowed. Screenshots can be cropped. Here is what actually verifies.
How to switch Google Ads agencies without losing your account
The bad time to find out you do not own your ad account is the week you are trying to leave.
Google Ads vs Facebook Ads for eCommerce: different jobs, not rivals
Google harvests demand that already exists. Meta creates demand that does not. Asking which is better is asking whether a fridge beats an oven.
The learning phase, explained without the folklore
Half of what people believe about the learning phase is forum folklore. Here is what is actually known and what is not.
Negative keywords: the cheapest performance work in any account
No extra budget, no new creative, no restructure. Just refusing to pay for searches that were never going to convert.
The five eCommerce PPC numbers worth reporting
A report with forty metrics is hiding something. Five numbers, read against your margin, describe an account completely.
What the first 90 days with a Google Ads agency should look like
If nobody has told you what month two is supposed to look like, you cannot tell whether it is going well.
Standard Shopping vs Performance Max: which to run, and when
PMax is not simply the newer, better Shopping. It is a different trade: more reach, far less control, and a strong appetite for your brand traffic.
How much budget do you actually need for Google Ads?
Everyone wants a figure. The figure that matters is not a budget — it is how many conversions that budget can buy.
Writing product titles Google can actually match
The title is the single highest-leverage field in your feed, and most stores are still shipping whatever the supplier wrote.
Why eCommerce accounts plateau, and what usually breaks the ceiling
Spend goes up, revenue does not. It is almost never a bidding problem, and it is usually visible in the account within an hour.
Your ROAS dropped. Here is the order to check things in.
The instinct is to change bids. The cause is almost always further upstream, and often not in the ad account at all.
Planning Google Ads for Black Friday and Q4
The accounts that do well in Q4 are the ones that stopped changing things in early November.
Google Ads for fashion brands: sizes, seasons and returns
Three things make fashion different on Google, and none of them are bidding.
Google Ads for jewelry: high margin, high scrutiny
The margin is there. So is the auction, and so is the policy edge.
Google Ads for home decor: discovery, images and freight
People do not search for a lamp they have never imagined. That changes which channel does the work.
Google Ads for pet brands: precise intent, repeat buyers
Pet buyers search with unusual precision. That is a gift, if the structure can receive it.
Google Ads for beauty: the claim decides everything
Most beauty suspensions are not about the product. They are about the sentence next to it.
Google Ads for furniture: low volume, long decisions
Few sales, large ones, decided over weeks. Almost every default setting is wrong for that.
Shopify feed apps: what actually matters when choosing one
The app matters less than how it is configured. Defaults are where catalogues go to hide.
Is server-side tracking worth it for a Shopify store?
It recovers conversions browsers block. It does not fix a setup that was wrong to begin with.
Why Google says 300 orders and Shopify says 190
Believe the store. Then work out which of these is inflating the platform.
How to read a search terms report properly
Sort by cost, not by clicks. Almost nobody does, and it is where the money is.
Account structure for eCommerce, without the dogma
Over-structuring starves the bidding. Under-structuring hides where the money goes. Both are common.
Five signs it is time to change agency
Most people leave too late, because the reporting was designed to make leaving feel premature.
The five mistakes new stores make on Google
None of these are subtle. All of them are expensive.
How Google actually decides which ad to show
Understanding this changes what you work on. It is rarely the bid.
What ad creative actually works on Google for eCommerce
Search barely needs creative. Demand Gen and YouTube are almost nothing else.
Is Google Ads dead for dropshipping in 2026?
The model is not banned. The sloppy version of it is increasingly unworkable.
Budget pacing: why your spend dies at 3pm
Budget exhaustion mid-afternoon is either a signal or a non-event, depending on whether the campaign is profitable.
Product images that pass review and still win the click
Two separate problems: being allowed in, and being chosen. Most guides only cover the first.
When manual bidding still beats Smart Bidding
Smart Bidding is usually right. "Usually" is doing real work in that sentence.
The landing page checklist for paid traffic
You can fix the account all you like. The page is where the click either becomes an order or does not.
Running Google Ads across several countries
Merged markets hide the truth. A strong country can carry a weak one for months before anyone notices.
Your change history is the best agency audit there is
Every edit, timestamped, in an account you own. Almost nobody opens it.
Why ROAS is a bad target and what to use instead
It ignores margin, ignores returns, and rewards shrinking the business.
Google Ads for high-ticket products
Few sales, large ones, decided over weeks. Most default settings assume the opposite.
How to test a new product on Google without burning cash
Most product tests fail because they were never big enough to conclude anything.
The Merchant Center errors you will actually hit
Diagnostics names the policy. Here is what each one usually means in practice.
What a real account audit covers
If an agency cannot tell you what they check, they do not have a process.
Scaling from €10k to €50k a month without breaking it
Most accounts break on the way up because the weaknesses were always there and the budget was too small to expose them.
Why your reports look great and your bank account does not
Nobody has to fabricate anything to make a mediocre account look good.
Google Ads for subscription and repeat-purchase products
If customers reorder, the first sale can run thinner. That is only true with real repeat data.
When you should not hire a Google Ads agency
We turn down more stores than we take on, and these are the reasons.
The twelve terms a store owner actually needs
You do not need to learn Google Ads. You do need twelve words.
Asset groups: the part of PMax you actually control
You cannot see much inside PMax. Asset groups are the lever you still have.
A Search campaign structure that survives scaling
Most structures either fragment the data or hide where the money goes. This one does neither.
Google Ads when your average order is €25
A €25 order at 30% margin has €7.50 to buy a customer. That is the whole problem.
What Google does differently with a brand new advertiser
New accounts get more scrutiny and less benefit of the doubt. Both are survivable if you expect them.
What to run while your Merchant Center is suspended
A suspension stops Shopping. It does not stop two thirds of Google.
Running Google Ads for a seasonal business
The accounts that win the season are the ones that stopped changing things three weeks before it started.
Your CPC doubled overnight. What to check.
It is usually something you changed, then something a competitor changed, then seasonality.
The most expensive habit in paid media
Every account we inherit in trouble has the same signature: many changes, close together.
Does a Google Ads certification mean anything?
It is a free multiple-choice exam. Treat it accordingly.
Why the cheapest clicks are usually the most expensive
There is always a way to get cheaper clicks. It is almost never a way to get cheaper customers.
Your first week on Google Ads, step by step
Seven days, in an order that produces an answer rather than a mess.
Is Google cheaper than Meta for eCommerce?
The comparison people make is the wrong one.
What to send an agency before the first call
Send these and you will find out in one call whether they are any good.
Google Ads with only five products
Fewer products means every one can get real attention. It also means fewer places to hide.
Auction insights: what it tells you and what it does not
It shows who you meet in the auction. It says nothing about whether they are making money.
Tracking orders that do not happen on the website
If a meaningful share of orders happen by phone or quote, the platform number is fiction.
Google Ads for sunglasses brands
Eyewear is scrutinised harder than most categories, for reasons that have nothing to do with your store.
Google Ads for perfume and fragrance brands
Almost all demand is branded, which means the trademark question comes before the campaign question.
Google Ads for sportswear and activewear
Most sportswear accounts we open are losing money inside their own feed.
Google Ads for accessories brands
The maths is the strategy. Everything else is downstream of it.
Google Ads for wellness and lifestyle brands
Plenty of entirely legitimate wellness products get blocked for enthusiastic copywriting.
Google Ads for kitchen gadget dropshipping
If the thing does something visible in eight seconds, you have a video channel whether you wanted one or not.
Google Ads for pet product dropshipping
Pet buyers search with unusual precision. A tight Search build usually beats automation here.
Google Ads for auto accessory dropshipping
Get compatibility wrong and you do not get sales, you get refunds and bad reviews.
Google Ads for fitness equipment dropshipping
January is real, but it is not a strategy — and freight quietly eats the margin all year.
Google Ads for home gadget dropshipping
Search has nothing to harvest when the category does not exist in people’s heads.
Google Ads for beauty tool dropshipping
The device is usually fine. The sentence next to it is what gets the account flagged.
Google Shopping for fashion: the variant problem
A fashion catalogue is mostly variants, and variants are where feeds go wrong.
Google Shopping for jewelry: materials and claims
Material accuracy is both a conversion lever and a policy requirement.
Google Ads for furniture: low volume, long decisions
Everything in the interface assumes lots of small, fast conversions. Furniture is neither.
Google Ads for home decor: discovery before capture
A lot of decor demand does not exist as a search yet. That changes the channel mix.
Google Ads for beauty: search by concern, not by name
Your product name is not what anyone types. The concern is.
Google Ads for pet brands: the cheapest long tail there is
Few categories give you search terms this specific. Most accounts waste them.
When Shopping beats Search, and when it does not
It depends on whether people search your product by name or by category.
Feed rules or supplemental feeds?
You rarely control the primary feed. These are how you fix it anyway.
When a winning product suddenly stops working
It is rarely the market. It is usually something specific, and usually findable in an hour.
The tracking checklist to run before you scale anything
Scaling on broken measurement is the fastest way to lose serious money on Google.
Account hygiene: the boring weekly routine
Accounts do not break suddenly. They decay, and the decay is preventable.
Your CPA target is probably wrong. Here is how to set it.
Most CPA targets are copied from a case study for a different business.
Google Ads or Amazon for a product brand?
The real difference is not traffic. It is whose customer it is afterwards.
Structuring Shopping campaigns so budget follows profit
A single Shopping campaign for the whole catalogue spends evenly across products that do not deserve it.
How we read an account in the first hour
Sixteen checks, but the first three explain most of what is wrong in most accounts.
The honest case against hiring an agency at all
At 10% of spend, there is a level below which we are not worth it. We would rather say so.
How to split budget between Search, Shopping and Demand Gen
There is no universal split. There is a sensible starting point and a rule for changing it.
Do you need dedicated landing pages for Google Ads?
For most stores the product page is right. For some offers it is the bottleneck.
Reading Shopping performance by product
Campaign-level Shopping numbers hide almost everything that matters.
What actually changes when you double your budget
More budget does not buy more of the same traffic. It buys different traffic.
Why we will not guarantee a ROAS
Anyone who promises a number before seeing your account is selling the number, not the work.
The five questions store owners ask us most
Every first call contains at least three of these.
Scaling a one-product store on Google
One product means one audience, one keyword set, and a very visible ceiling.
How to brief creative for Google campaigns
Most creative briefs describe the product. The ones that work describe the moment.
Five metrics people read backwards
Every one of these has convinced someone to make a decision that cost them money.
How long to give a new campaign before judging it
Two weeks means nothing. Thirty conversions means something.
Managing Google Ads when stock runs out
Out-of-stock handled badly wastes budget and invites a policy review at the same time.
Is Performance Max worth it for a small store?
PMax with no data is an expensive way to watch an algorithm guess.
Advertising a store with poor reviews
You can buy the click. You cannot buy past the reviews on the page.
Five Google Ads "wins" that are actually losses
Every one of these has been presented to a client as an improvement.
A monthly account review you can do yourself
You do not need to run the account to know whether it is being run.
Why accounts quietly get worse over time
Nobody breaks an account. It erodes, and the erosion is invisible month to month.
When to restructure, and when to leave it alone
Rebuilding a working account to look busy is vandalism with extra steps.
The first thing we check in every account, without exception
If the numbers are not real, every decision after them is decoration.
What to do when nobody searches for your product
Search cannot find demand that does not exist. Something has to create it first.
Google Ads and cash flow: the part nobody plans for
You pay Google now and get paid by customers later. At scale that gap is real money.
How to read an agency proposal
Proposals are written to be skimmed. Read the terms instead of the promises.
Running paid search when demand softens
Softening demand shows up as conversion rate, not as traffic.
Why automation punishes small accounts
Every automated feature assumes data you may not have.
What we actually do in the first 90 days
Published so there is no ambiguity about what you are paying for.
Cheap traffic and efficient traffic are not the same
There is always a way to pay less per click. It is almost never a way to pay less per customer.
Eight questions to ask before you sign
Ask these on the first call. The answers, and the speed of them, tell you everything.
When one product is carrying the whole account
A single product doing 80% of revenue is a business with one point of failure.
Planning a year of paid search
The accounts that win Q4 did the work in Q2.
What a feed audit actually finds
Most feed audits are a list of errors. The useful ones are a list of missed revenue.
How we decide what to cut
Cutting too early wastes a test. Cutting too late funds a loss out of the winners.
What a report should make you able to do
Most reports describe. A useful one enables a choice.
Running Google Ads when you also sell wholesale
Two price levels, one feed, and a policy problem if you get it wrong.
The five changes that actually move revenue
Most account work is maintenance. These five are the ones that change the number.
How the Shopping auction actually works
There is no keyword list. Understanding what replaces it changes where you spend your effort.
What good account structure looks like in 2026
Several structures that were best practice five years ago now starve the bidding.
Why your campaign suddenly stopped spending
A campaign that stops spending looks broken. Usually it is constrained.
Using GA4 alongside Google Ads without double counting
Two systems measuring the same thing will always disagree. The question is which one you act on.
Shopify app settings that quietly break Google Ads
The apps are fine. The defaults are what get you.
Testing landing pages when your traffic is paid
Most stores do not have the traffic for a clean test. That does not mean you cannot improve the page.
Price is a Shopping metric, not just a business decision
In Shopping your price competes before your ad does.
Google Ads for made-to-order and custom products
Custom products break most Shopping assumptions. They work fine on Search.
How often ad creative needs refreshing
Refresh when performance says so, not when the month changes.
What happens in your account when you change prices
A price change is a campaign event, not just a business one.
Managing Google Ads for several stores at once
Shared logins are fine. Shared accounts are not.
Why we ask for your margin before we quote a target
An agency setting a ROAS target without knowing your margin is picking a number.
Account security: the part nobody thinks about until it matters
The most common security problem in ad accounts is an old agency still having access.
Your first month advertising a brand new store
The goal of month one is information, not profit.
Impression share lost to rank: what it is telling you
Two very different problems that look identical in a summary report.
What a healthy Google Ads account looks like
Not a ROAS number. A set of conditions that make good numbers likely.
Twelve things agencies say, translated
Not all of it is evasion. Some of it is, and the difference is worth knowing.
What to do after a bad month
The worst response to a bad month is a busy one.
Why attribution will never be perfect, and what to do about it
Every platform overstates its own contribution. That is not a bug you can fix.
Advertising when shipping takes three weeks
Long shipping is not a policy problem. Hiding it is.
Custom labels: the most underused field in the feed
Google does not read them. You do — and that is the point.
What good looks like at €1k, €10k and €50k a month
The same account needs different things at different sizes.
Brand traffic in Shopping: harder to separate, just as distorting
Everyone splits brand on Search. Almost nobody does it in Shopping.
When more budget is the wrong answer
More budget amplifies whatever the account is already doing.
How to get more out of your media buyer
The best accounts we run have clients who do these. It is not a coincidence.
The real cost of a Merchant Center suspension
The lost revenue is the obvious part and usually the smaller one.
Do you need video to advertise on Google?
You can run Google with no video at all. You just cannot run all of Google.
How we arrived at 10% of spend
Every pricing model has a bias. Ours is worth stating plainly.
What actually happens in a free teardown
It is a real piece of work, and you keep it whether or not you hire us.
The questions we will not answer on a first call
Refusing to answer is sometimes the most useful answer available.
The pre-launch checklist
Everything here is free to fix before launch and expensive to fix after.
Why your first campaign should be boring
Exciting first campaigns produce exciting data that means nothing.
The two numbers that decide everything
Almost every argument about a Google Ads account dissolves once these two exist.
Can your product work on Google? Three tests.
Two of the three take ten minutes. The third is arithmetic.
Five things running accounts taught us that we did not expect
Most of these contradicted something we believed when we started.
Advertising a product nobody has heard of
Lack of brand is a disadvantage on some terms and irrelevant on others.
How to write an appeal that gets read
An appeal is a document, not a button.
The metrics that actually predict growth
Revenue tells you what happened. These tell you what is about to.
The problem with industry benchmarks
A benchmark describes a population you are not a member of.
Why we invoice weekly instead of monthly
Monthly billing gives an agency four weeks before anyone notices.
When Google support cannot help you
The rep on the phone is often not the person who made the decision.
A realistic view of automation in Google Ads
Automation is very good at the parts people were bad at, and bad at the parts people assumed it would handle.
Reading your competitors’ ads properly
A competitor’s ad tells you what they believe, not what works.
When the ads are fine and the page is the problem
Same traffic, worse outcome, is not an ads problem.
Running ads when you are short on stock
The instinct is to pause. Usually the better move is to redirect.
Why small account improvements compound
Nobody writes case studies about negative keywords. They should.
What a media buyer actually does all day
Far less exciting than the job title suggests, and that is the point.
Setting expectations properly at the start
Most agency relationships fail on unmanaged expectations rather than bad work.
How to read an ads report without being fooled
Not because agencies lie. Because context is easy to omit.
The case for doing less in your account
Most accounts would improve if half the changes made to them stopped.
Six Google Ads myths that cost stores money
Each of these has convinced somebody to make an expensive change.
Planning a yearly Google Ads budget
A flat monthly budget is wrong twelve times a year.
What actually happens when you turn Google Ads off
Turning it off is easy. Turning it back on is where the cost is.
Why margin beats traffic every time
You can fix traffic. You usually cannot fix arithmetic.
The simplest way to improve almost any account
If you only ever do one thing, do this one.
Five signs an account is being neglected
Neglect is quiet. Here is what it leaves behind.
In-house or agency for eCommerce PPC?
At a certain spend, hiring is straightforwardly cheaper. We would rather say so.
What to do with a product that almost works
The clear winners and clear losers are easy. Everything else sits here.
What happens when we get something wrong
Everyone makes them. What matters is what happens in the next hour.
How Google Shopping got to where it is
Several things that look arbitrary make sense once you know how they arrived.
The end of easy dropshipping, and what replaced it
The model is not dead. The version that required no work is.
Try a shorter word, or ask us directly — you get the same answer either way.
Rather we just looked at your account? That is free too.
Sixteen things checked, written up, yours whether or not we work together.