We recently ran a pretty uncommon experiment on Google Shopping for a brand.

It’s something I haven’t seen anyone talk about before.

We've never come across a single brand testing it in any of our audits.

But it ended up delivering 2.5x higher ROAS for one of our products.

Now before I explain what we did...

I should mention that this is a little technical. And it can sound confusing at first.

But stick with me. The idea behind it is very simple.

And once you understand it, you'll see why it can make a big difference to your Shopping performance.

Sounds good?

First, let me give you a bit of context.

When you upload your product feed, Google automatically assigns each product a category

It looks at the title, description, and other attributes to decide where the product belongs.

For example…

A weighted blanket might be placed in:

Home & Garden > Linens & Bedding > Blankets.

What many people don't know is…

Product categories do more than just keep things organized.

They influence:

So while it might seem like a small detail...

It can have a noticeable impact on performance.

The thing is, a lot of products can fit into more than one category…

And depending on which category Google picks...

You can end up competing against a different set of products and advertisers.

Which can lead to a big difference in CPC, conversion rates, and ROAS.

The good news is:

You don't have to accept Google's choice.

There's a feed attribute called "google_product_category" that lets you manually assign a category.

And when a product could belong in multiple categories, we'll often test them against each other.

Which brings us to the experiment I was talking about earlier.

For an apparel brand, we tested sports bras in 2 different categories.

The original products sat in: Apparel & Accessories > Clothing > Underwear & Socks > Bras.

The second version sat in: Sporting Goods > Exercise & Fitness.

The fitness category ended up getting us:

It was the same product with the same landing page and offer.

The only difference was the category.

If you find this a bit confusing, think about it like putting products on shelves in a supermarket.

For a sports bra, you could put it in the underwear section.

Or you could put it in the fitness section.

It's the same item.

But the products around it and the shoppers browsing that section are different.

In that case…

Do you see how putting the same product on a different shelf could potentially give you a different result?

The same principle applies to Google Shopping.

When you assign a different product category, performance can change.

Sometimes by a lot.

This is one of the more “nerdy” optimizations we look at when managing accounts.

There are quite a few others like this that don't look particularly exciting on the surface…

And unless you have a deep understanding of Google Ads, it's often hard to see why they'd make much of a difference…

But they can have a meaningful impact on performance.

And because very few brands (or agencies) would ever notice these things...

They can give you a big edge over competitors.

If you'd like us to review your account and see what opportunities are available...

Grab a call with us here.

Happy to take a look at your Google Ads and give you a roadmap to get the most out of it.

Jackson

Founder and CEO of Echelonn

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