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Learn Google Ads for eCommerce, in the order that actually helps.

Most people learn this backwards — campaign types first, margin maths last. Here is the order we would teach it in, with everything free.

Step one: work out whether ads can work at all

Before campaign types, before keywords: can your margin pay for a customer? This single number decides more than every tactic combined, and almost nobody starts here.

Read break-even ROAS, then run your own numbers through the calculator. If the answer is above 4x, fix pricing or product before you spend anything on ads.

Step two: make sure you can measure

An account you cannot measure is an account you cannot improve. Learn what conversion tracking is supposed to do, then verify yours: the Shopify double-counting problem.

Step three: understand what each channel is for

Google Ads is five campaign types with different jobs and prerequisites. Start with the channel breakdown, then go deeper on Shopping and Performance Max — the two that behave least like the others.

Step four: learn where money leaks

Negative keywords and brand versus non-brand. Between them they explain most of the gap between what an account reports and what the business feels.

Step five: learn to scale without breaking it

The learning phase, then how to scale. Mostly this is a lesson in patience and changing one thing at a time.


Stuck on a word? The glossary has thirty of them in plain english. Stuck on a question? The answers section is short and specific.

Rather skip the reading? Send us the account.

The teardown tells you which of these five steps your store is actually stuck on.

Free teardown10% of spend, publishedNo lock-in, no notice periodYou keep the account