Case studyEcommerce6 weeks
Shopping revenue +41% from feed engineering, with bids untouched
We won auctions we were invisible in by fixing the feed, not the budget
- Shopping revenue
- +41%
- Absolute top impression share
- 38% → 61%
- Clicks
- +33%
- Ad spend
- Flat
Shopping is a feed channel, not a bidding channel
Here's what most people get backwards about Shopping. Google decides which queries your products are eligible for based on the feed. Bids only decide how hard you compete in the auctions you're already in. So if your titles are weak and your attributes are missing, you're not in the auction at any bid. You can raise CPCs all day and nothing moves, because the problem was never the bid.
This account had a healthy budget and an absolute top impression share of 38%. It was invisible on roughly half the catalogue. Not because it was outbid, because Google didn't have enough information to show those products against the right searches.
The state of the feed
An invisible catalogue
- Titles written for the website, not for search
- Missing GTINs, colors, sizes, and product types
- Absolute top impression share stuck at 38%
- Bids raised again and again with no movement
Engineered to win auctions
- Titles leading with brand, type, and the attribute buyers search
- Every required and recommended attribute filled
- Absolute top impression share at 61%
- A priority funnel routing every query to the right bid
The feed rebuild and the priority funnel
Two moves: make every product eligible, then control which query hits which bid.
How we rebuilt eligibility
01
Rewrote titles on a formula
Brand, then product type, then the key attribute, then the variant. Most important words first because titles get truncated and the front carries the most weight. Written the way a buyer searches, not the way a catalogue is named.
02
Filled every attribute
GTIN, brand, color, size, material, product_type, and google_product_category on every SKU. Missing attributes are missing auctions. This alone pulled a chunk of the dark catalogue into the light.
03
Fixed availability, price, and shipping accuracy
Mismatches between the feed and the site suppress products and erode trust. We aligned them so Google stopped throttling the disagreeing SKUs.
04
Built a supplemental feed
Rewrote titles and added custom labels without touching the source export. The safest way to engineer a feed, because you never risk breaking the primary.
The title formula in practice
| Weak title | Engineered title |
|---|---|
| Aurora Throw | Nordica Aurora Wool Throw Blanket — Charcoal, 130x170cm |
| Pro Series Bottle | HydraPro Insulated Steel Water Bottle — 1L, Matte Black |
Same product, completely different eligibility. The right side matches dozens of searches the left side never could.
The three-tier priority funnel
| Priority tier | Bid | Negatives | Catches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low priority | Highest bid | Brand + generic negatives | Specific, high-intent queries |
| Medium priority | Mid bid | Generic negatives | Mid-specificity queries |
| High priority | Lowest bid | None | Broad, cheap, generic queries |
Priority is inverted on purpose. Google checks high-priority first, so the cheapest bid catches the broad generic searches, and the specific high-intent searches fall through to your aggressive low-priority bid.
Six-week results
Before and after
| Metric | Before | After (week 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Shopping revenue | Baseline | +41% |
| Absolute top impression share | 38% | 61% |
| Clicks | Baseline | +33% |
| Ad spend | $40K / month | $40K / month |
Same bids, same budget, same competitors. We just stopped being invisible.
“We kept raising bids and nothing moved. The problem was never the bid. Half our products didn't have the attributes Google needed to even show them.”
Questions we get asked about this
Do bids or the feed matter more in Shopping?
The feed, by a wide margin, until it's clean. Google decides which queries your products are eligible for based on the feed, then bids decide how hard you compete in the auctions you're already in. If your titles and attributes are weak, you're not in the auction at any bid. Fix eligibility first, then bid.
What goes in a Shopping title?
Lead with what people search: brand, product type, then the attributes that matter for that category (size, color, material, model). Put the most important words first because they carry the most weight and titles get truncated. Don't stuff keywords, write the title a buyer would recognise.
What's a supplemental feed for?
Overriding or adding fields without changing your source feed. It's how you rewrite titles, add custom labels for margin tiers, or patch missing attributes when you can't easily edit the store export. It's the safest way to engineer a feed because you never risk breaking the primary.
Does the three-tier priority trick still work alongside Performance Max?
Yes, for the catalogue you keep in standard Shopping. Run feed-engineered standard Shopping with the priority funnel for the products and queries you want tight control over, and let PMax cover the rest. The priority structure routes generic queries to cheap broad coverage and specific queries to your aggressive bids.
Frameworks behind this case study
Where these numbers come from
Illustrative example. The feed work and campaign structure shown are the exact build we deploy. The figures are representative of what it produces for accounts in this spend band over a six-week window, not an export from one client's account.
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