This article outlines different reasons for Shopping campaign fluctuations and changes. It explains why they may lead to changes in campaign performance over time, and how you can use the tools in your Google Ads account to understand what’s driving these changes.
Keep in mind: It’s normal for your campaign performance to vary.
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Before you begin
Assess performance based on your bid strategy and optimization goal
Before making conclusions about your campaign performance, it’s important to first consider whether the settings you're using match the metrics your campaign is optimizing towards. Updating your campaign’s bid strategy or optimization goal settings to align with your business and advertising goals will help to ensure that you're focusing on the relevant metrics when analyzing campaign performance to understand what drove fluctuations.
For example, Target ROAS helps you get as many purchase conversions as possible at or below the target ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) you set. In campaigns using Target ROAS, cost-per-conversion and other conversion-related metrics (conversion value/cost) can indicate performance better than cost-per-click and impressions.
Remember that your bid strategy takes time to learn
When your bid strategy is still learning, the learning period might be the reason for fluctuations. Conversion data is the primary factor for reducing the learning period. Learn more about the learning period and what affects it12 common reasons why your performance is fluctuating
1. Recent changes to account or campaign settings
Editing any Google Ads account or campaign setting or making changes to your Merchant Center account or feed can change your performance.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Changes to account or campaign settings.
2. Changes to product attributes in the feed
Check if your top performing products haven’t had any changes to them via Merchant Center feed attributes which would cause them from being excluded in the campaign.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Changes to product attributes.
3. Conversion tracking setup and conversion delay
If there’s a sudden drop or increase in global pings or tag fires for a conversion action that your campaign is using for Smart Bidding, this can result in a drop in serving and spending as Google Ads optimizes towards your set conversion action.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Conversion tracking setup and conversion delay.
4. Data Exclusions
Data Exclusions don't remove all automated bidding history, they only affect the predicted conversion rate. Your campaign will have fewer CPC fluctuations than if you hadn’t excluded the data for that affected date range, but you should still expect some performance fluctuations.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Data Exclusions.
5. Bids and bid targets
Your performance may fluctuate if your bids, bid limits, or bid targets are set without taking into consideration the historical data Google Ads will use to serve your ads.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Bids and bid targets.
6. Budget settings
Your campaign may be more likely to have performance fluctuations when its budget is limited.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Bids and bid targets.
7. Targeting settings and overlaps (products, audiences, keywords, location)
If your campaign targets a smaller group of users with very specific audiences, limited products, or location settings, it may also be more likely to have performance fluctuations. You may have multiple Shopping campaigns or ad groups in your account that are eligible to enter overlapping auctions due to similar targeting.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Targeting.
8. Ad and product policy review status
Changes to the review status of your ads or products can affect your performance.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Policy and product review status.
9. Other account issues
Issues with your payments, billing transfers, or other account level issues can affect the performance of your account and the performance of your campaigns.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Account issues.
10. Auction dynamics
The choices that other advertisers, who are participating in the same auctions as you, make can affect your campaign’s performance.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Auction dynamics.
11. Changing user interest and seasonality
Changing user interest and seasonality can't be controlled by an advertiser, but you may be able to make adjustments to your campaign to reduce performance fluctuations.
Learn more about Shopping campaign performance fluctuations: Changing user interest and seasonality.
12. External market shifts
Performance fluctuations, like budget overspend or underspend, sometimes result from external market shifts rather than major campaign settings. You can utilize Google Trends to analyze if specific search terms or products have experienced a sudden surge or decline in user interest and traffic.
Here's how to address overspending or underspending due to market shifts:
- To correct overspending driven by a demand spike:
- Implement negative keywords to block inefficient traffic.
- Adjust bid targets.
- Tighten budget caps.
- To correct underspending if interest drops:
- Broaden keyword targeting.
- Expand audiences.
- Shift budget toward other trending terms or products capturing active market demand.
