Navigating Google Ads as a merchant can be challenging. Here are the top 10 issues merchants face when trying to get the most out of their ad spend and how these challenges can hinder growth.
1. Time-Consuming Campaign Management
Managing Google Ads can be a full-time job. Merchants must constantly optimize keywords, adjust bids, monitor performance, and update creative assets. This is a huge drain on time, especially for small teams or merchants with limited resources.
Impact:
Merchants spend excessive time maintaining their campaigns, which can take them away from other important aspects of their business.
2. Fluctuating ROAS and Unpredictable Performance
Google Ads performance can be highly inconsistent. Some days or months bring strong returns, while others result in weak or even negative performance. This unpredictability makes it difficult to forecast results, plan budgets, or reinvest in advertising with confidence.
Impact:
Merchants face uncertainty in their revenue, making it hard to establish stable growth or predict long-term profitability.
3. Google Exceeding Budgets
Google’s automated systems, such as Smart Bidding, can sometimes push ad spend beyond set budgets, resulting in unexpected overspend. Even with strict limits, Google may spend more than planned, leading to surprises when reviewing monthly ad bills.
Impact:
Merchants experience budget overruns that can hurt profitability, especially if they don’t notice the overspend in time to adjust the campaigns.
4. Limited Control Over Ad Placements
Google decides where your ads appear, often prioritizing expensive, high-competition placements to maximize its own profits. Merchants have little control over these placements, making it difficult to ensure ads appear in cost-effective spaces that drive real results.
Impact:
Merchants may pay premium prices for placements that don’t convert well, leading to wasted ad spend on irrelevant traffic.
5. Complexity of Google's Algorithms
Google’s algorithm is notoriously complex and regularly updated, meaning merchants need to constantly adjust strategies to stay competitive. Without a deep understanding of the algorithm, merchants risk losing out to competitors who are more attuned to how the system works.
Impact:
Merchants struggle to keep up with the algorithm’s changes, leading to wasted time, poor performance, and difficulty maintaining consistent results.
6. Poor Conversion Tracking and Attribution
Accurately tracking conversions through Google Ads is challenging, especially for businesses with longer sales cycles or multi-channel marketing strategies. Google’s platform may claim credit for conversions that originated elsewhere, distorting true ad performance.
Impact:
Merchants may overestimate the success of their Google Ads campaigns and allocate more budget than necessary, leading to inflated ad costs with questionable returns.
7. Risk of Wasting Ad Spend
Merchants take on the full financial risk of funding ad campaigns upfront, with no guarantee of seeing returns. Poorly performing campaigns can quickly eat into a budget, especially for small businesses that cannot afford significant losses.
Impact:
Merchants face financial uncertainty, risking valuable resources on campaigns that might not deliver the expected results.
8. Limited Bidding Strategies
Google Ads offers a limited range of bidding strategies, leaving merchants with either manual or automated options. This restricts flexibility, making it difficult to tailor campaigns to specific goals or maximize ad spend efficiency.
Impact:
Merchants often struggle to find the right balance between manual control and automation, resulting in inefficient bidding that drives up costs without necessarily improving performance.
9. Paying Agencies a Fixed Monthly Retainer
Many merchants rely on agencies to manage their Google Ads, paying a fixed monthly retainer regardless of campaign performance. This leads to a disconnect between cost and results, as merchants are locked into paying even if their campaigns fail to deliver.
Impact:
Merchants may end up overpaying for agency services without seeing a corresponding improvement in ad performance, leading to unnecessary expenses.
10. High Cost of Competition and CPC Inflation
As more advertisers compete for the same keywords, the cost-per-click (CPC) in Google Ads continues to rise. Merchants are forced to bid higher just to stay visible, which significantly increases advertising costs without guaranteeing better results.
Impact:
Merchants face inflated CPCs, making it harder to maintain profitability, especially in highly competitive industries where costs can spiral out of control.
Key Takeaways:
Merchants face a range of challenges when using Google Ads, from fluctuating performance and time-consuming management to rising costs and limited control over ad placements. These pain points can significantly impact profitability, especially for smaller businesses with limited resources. However, by recognizing these issues and adopting a smarter, more strategic approach, merchants can regain control over their ad spend and optimize their campaigns for success.
Order Legend takes away all these pain points by managing your Google Ads with no upfront costs or retainers. We fund the ads and provide a locked-in ROAS, ensuring you only pay for actual performance. Our solution delivers consistent results while freeing you from the stress of managing Google Ads yourself.
Ready to eliminate the headaches of Google Ads and maximize your return on ad spend? Try the Order Legend app for Shopify today and take control of your campaigns.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How does Order Legend eliminate the risk of upfront ad spend?
We fund the ads with our own money, so you don’t have to risk your budget upfront. You only pay us a fixed percentage on the orders we generate, ensuring a risk-free approach to Google Ads.
2. What happens if Order Legend doesn’t generate any orders?
If we don’t generate any orders, you don’t pay anything. Our performance-based model ensures you only pay for real, measurable results.
3. How does Order Legend manage my Google Ads differently than traditional agencies?
Unlike agencies that charge a fixed monthly fee, Order Legend works on a performance-based model. We only get paid when we generate results, and we use advanced strategies to target low-cost, high-value ad placements.
4. Does Order Legend work with both manual and automated bidding strategies?
Yes, but we go far beyond traditional bidding strategies. As a CSS (Comparison Shopping Service), Order Legend taps into Google Shadow Orders, uncovering hidden ad inventory that Google's automated algorithms often overlook. This allows us to target low-cost, high-value placements with minimal competition, delivering better performance at lower costs. Additionally, we benefit from a 20% discount in Google Shopping, passing those savings on to you. Our approach gives you more flexibility and efficiency compared to standard manual or automated bidding.
5. How does Order Legend help stabilize ROAS and reduce fluctuation?
We use our Google Shadow Orders strategy to outsmart Google’s profit-driven algorithms, focusing on underutilized ad spaces that offer consistent, cost-effective traffic. By limiting the data we share with Google, we prevent unnecessary cost increases and maintain tighter control over ad spend. Our method targets long-tail keywords and overlooked inventory, resulting in more predictable ROAS and reduced performance fluctuations, so you can expect steadier returns without the usual spikes and dips.
