Google Ads built
around intent.

How should an ecommerce brand split budget between Search, Shopping and Performance Max?

Start with high-intent Search and Shopping on your best-selling products, because they give you readable query and product data. Add Performance Max once conversion tracking is clean and the account has enough purchases for it to learn. Launch it too early and it tends to spend on brand searches and remarketing you'd have won anyway.

I keep brand and non-brand spend separate in reporting, so a strong branded ROAS can't hide a non-brand program that's losing money. Products are grouped by margin and sell-through, rather than by category, so a low-margin bestseller doesn't eat the budget your profitable lines need.

Shopping performance depends heavily on the feed. Clear titles that start with what people search for, accurate prices, correct sizes and colours, and good images often move results more than any bidding change. I fix the feed before touching targets.

What should you check before you increase a Google Ads budget?

Check that the account is profitable at today's spend and that the numbers behind that are real. Raising budget on a leaky structure just buys more of the same waste. Before I recommend scaling, I go through a short list that catches most problems.

• Search terms: are you paying for queries that don't match what you sell?
• Conversion actions: is only a real purchase or qualified lead set as primary?
• Merchant Center: are products disapproved or missing prices, sizes or GTINs?
• Brand vs non-brand: what does ROAS look like with brand removed?
• Landing pages: do they load fast on mobile and match the ad's promise?

If any of these fail, fix them first. It's cheaper than finding out at double the spend. When they all pass, I scale in steps rather than one big jump, so smart bidding has time to adjust and we can see whether returns hold at each new level.