Google Shopping and Performance Max Freelancer

For most online shops, the largest share of Google Ads revenue comes from Shopping and Performance Max. That is exactly where I work: campaign structure, product feed, Merchant Center and bids that follow the margin.

Where Shopping accounts lose money.

01.1

Everything in one PMax

A single Performance Max campaign for the whole range spreads the budget across the products that sell most easily, not those with the best margin. Bestsellers get everything, the rest stays invisible.

01.2

Brand hides weaknesses

Searches for your shop name often end up in PMax and make the ROAS look good. How much of that would have been bought anyway cannot be seen in the average.

01.3

Feed as an afterthought

Titles from the shop system, missing attributes, wrong categories. Google can only serve what it understands. The feed is Google's model of your product range.

01.4

One target ROAS for everything

A product with a 60 per cent margin and one with a 15 per cent margin need completely different targets. A shared target ROAS starves one and makes the other lose money.

How I build Shopping and PMax.

For each product group, I decide whether Standard Shopping or Performance Max fits better, and I separate by margin, sell-through and stock level. The logic behind this is in the article Performance Max or Standard Shopping: decide by product group.

Products get labels from real data: margin, price band, sell-through, season. This lets you steer budgets towards the products that earn money after all costs. Where possible, I separate out the shop name cleanly so that the figures are not flattered.

In the feed, I work on titles, product types, attributes and exclusions, if needed with rules in Merchant Center or a feed tool. I hold the Google certifications for AI-Powered Shopping Ads and AI-Powered Performance Ads and the Productsup Feed Management certificate.

When Merchant Center suspends you

Disapproved products or a suspension for misrepresentation bring Shopping and PMax to a complete halt. I check the cause, the shop pages and the feed, and prepare the review. What to bear in mind during the warning period is covered in the article Merchant Center suspended for misrepresentation: what to do now.

An example from practice.

For XXL-Parfum.ch, a Swiss perfume shop with over 17,000 products, I manage every product by its contribution margin. Automatic repricing keeps prices competitive, and the products are reassessed daily. After the restructuring, ROAS rose from 381 to 442 per cent, against a break-even of 310 per cent (January to mid-April compared with the period from 24 April 2026, Google Ads data). The full case is under Results.

This is a single client case and no promise for your account. Results depend on margin, market, product range and season.

Frequently asked questions.

Is Performance Max better than Standard Shopping?

Not across the board. PMax reaches more placements but shows less. Standard Shopping gives more control over search terms and bids. I decide per product group based on data, and often both run side by side with clear roles.

Do you also take care of feed maintenance?

Yes, as far as it can be done through Merchant Center, feed rules or a feed tool. Changes in the shop system itself are made by your tech team or your agency. I tell you exactly what is missing there.

From how many products does a split pay off?

The number of products matters less than the differences in margin and sell-through. Even with a few hundred products with very different margins, a split pays off. The audit shows this.

Do you also run Search campaigns?

Yes. Search for brand, categories and strong product terms is part of every shop account. The focus is on Shopping and PMax, though, because that is where most of the budget usually sits for online shops.

The entry point: a free audit.

You invite me as a read-only user into your account, two clicks, revocable at any time. I take apart structure, bidding, PMax, feed and tracking, build you a dashboard with your key figures, and give you a written roadmap plus a 30 to 45 minute call. Everything is yours, whether we work together afterwards or not.

Or write directly to stefan@stefanriemeyer.com or send a message on LinkedIn. You write to me, not to an inbox team. The roadmap arrives within a few working days.

Prefer to talk first? Book a 30-minute intro call.