What's the best way to structure a Google Ads account for a DTC brand with 50+ SKUs?
We're running Google Ads for a DTC fashion brand with 52 active SKUs across 6 product categories. Currently everything is in one Shopping campaign with a single ad group, and performance is all over the place — some products are profitable, others are bleeding budget. I've read about segmenting by product category, by margin, by performance tier, but I'm not sure what the right approach is for our scale. We're spending about €15K/month. What's the best campaign structure for this situation? Should we use Performance Max or stick with Standard Shopping?
Answers (2)
Great question. At €15K/month with 50+ SKUs, you're at the sweet spot where proper segmentation starts to really matter. Here's the structure I'd recommend: **Tier 1: Performance Max (40% of budget)** Let PMax handle your top 20% of SKUs by revenue. Feed it strong asset groups per category. This is where Google's automation shines. **Tier 2: Standard Shopping by Category (40% of budget)** Create one campaign per product category. Use campaign-level negative keywords to prevent cannibalization with PMax. **Tier 3: Standard Shopping — Clearance/Low Margin (20% of budget)** Separate campaign with lower target ROAS for products you need to move but can't afford to overspend on. The key insight: don't let high-margin products compete with low-margin ones in the same campaign. Google's bidding algorithm doesn't know your margins — you have to tell it through structure.
Adding to Sofia's excellent answer — one thing I'd emphasise is the importance of custom labels in your product feed. Before you restructure campaigns, add custom labels to your Merchant Center feed: - Custom Label 0: Margin tier (high/medium/low) - Custom Label 1: Performance tier (hero/core/long-tail) - Custom Label 2: Category This lets you segment without creating dozens of campaigns. You can then use these labels to create targeted ad groups within each campaign. Also: at €15K/month, you have enough data to use Target ROAS bidding. Set it conservatively at first (maybe 20% below your actual ROAS) and let it learn for 2-3 weeks before optimising.