3 Secrets to Ecommerce Google Ads Success in 2026

Are you ready to outsmart your competitors in 2026? In episode 104, host Jyll Saskin Gales shares a recent presentation she did for ProductHero, discussing Google Ads Ecommerce tips for 2026. While the bells and whistles of PPC are always evolving, the path to ecommerce success in Google Ads fundamentally comes down to three things: maintaining a strong foundation, optimizing your inputs, and growing through new channels.

From the "Three Cs" of data integrity to the specific attributes in your product feed that matter most, this episode is packed with actionable advice for store owners and marketers.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Data Foundation: Why conversion tracking, consent mode, and customer match (the "Three Cs") are non-negotiable for 2026
• Feed Optimization: How to tweak product titles, types, and images in Merchant Center to train Google’s AI
• Performance Max: Why PMax is "end game" and how to prepare your account if it hasn’t worked for you in the past
• Demand Gen: Using lifestyle imagery and lookalike segments to reach users before they search
• YouTube Strategy: Why video is now table stakes and how to leverage the "in-feed" placement for search intent

Watch the full webinar here: https://producthero.webinargeek.com/best-practices-for-ecommerce-in-2026?cst=jyll-yoann

Do you have a question for Jyll? Drop a comment on Spotify, YouTube, or any of her social media posts, and she'll answer it for you in an upcoming episode.

You can get Inside Google Ads episode transcripts delivered to your inbox each week by signing up for free at https://free.jyll.ca/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104
 
Google Ads Coaching
Need some expert help with your Google Ads strategy or optimizing your campaigns? Book a call with Jyll! Learn more at https://jyll.ca/pages/google-ads-coach?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104

Inside Google Ads course
Join more than 400+ Google Ads practitioners in Jyll's Inside Google Ads membership course. You'll get exclusive access to JyllBot, and you can meet top industry experts at an exclusive live video call every single month. Learn more at https://learn.jyll.ca/iga?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104

Read more about this topic on Jyll's Google Ads Blog
What you need to know about micro-conversions in Google Ads https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-micro-conversions-in-google-ads?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104

The Future of Google Ads: PMax, AI Max and Broad Match https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/ai-max-broad-match-demystifying-google-ads-automation?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104

Performance Max vs. Standard Shopping: Which is better for ecommerce? https://learn.jyll.ca/blog/performance-max-vs-standard-shopping-which-is-better-for-ecommerce?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=episode104

Follow Jyll on social media
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https://www.youtube.com/@the_google_pro
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https://www.threads.net/@the_google_pro

Transcript

How are the best ecommerce businesses seeing success with Google Ads today?

I recently participated in a webinar with Producthero. And of course, I had to share some of those juicy tidbits with you right here on the Inside Google Ads podcast.

In this short presentation, I shared what ecommerce businesses need to do to maintain, optimize, and grow with Google Ads in 2026 and beyond.

You're about to see and hear a recording of our practice run. If you would like to see the full webinar, including market trends shared by Yoann Ferrand, I'll include the link for the full thing in the episode description.

I'm your host, Jyll Saskin Gales. I spent six years working for big brands at Google, and now I work for you.

This is Inside Google Ads: Episode 104, Ecommerce.

Although it's true that Google Ads and PPC are constantly changing, the fundamentals remain remarkably unchanged. And so today, I want to remind us first about some of the fundamentals that have not changed, but perhaps are more important than ever. And then we're going to move into some of the newer features and strategies you might want to be employing in your Google Ads account in 2026 and beyond.

So first, we're going to talk about how you can ensure you're maintaining a strong data foundation in 2026 and beyond because it has become more difficult, though no less important. Then I'll move into optimization and the importance of optimizing your product feed for performance. Then we'll talk about a few new growth opportunities. Like Yoann, I'm also very bullish on Demand Gen, so we'll be getting there as well today.

If my face is new to you, my name is Jyll Saskin Gales. I'm a Google Ads coach and the founder of the Inside Google Ads course, podcast, and bestselling book.

So first things first, at Google Ads, or honestly with any kind of marketing initiative at all, you need to have a strong data foundation. Your beautiful garden cannot grow unless you plant that seed properly and give it some tender loving care. And so these are the three "C’s" that I find at least one is often missing from Google Ads accounts I see.

And to put that in context, as a Google Ads coach, I'm meeting one-on-one with business owners, marketers, agencies, 8 to 12 times every week. And multiple times a week, I'm looking in a Google Ads account, whether it's a brand new account or one spending millions of dollars a month that is missing one of these fundamental “C’s.” 

So first is conversion tracking. If you don't know if your ads are driving results and Google Ads doesn't know if it's driving results, you will not be able to drive sustainable results and grow. A common mistake I see people make is tracking multiple things as conversions when all they really want is a purchase, or conversely, maybe you have a really small budget, you can only afford to drive a few purchases a month, and it's just not enough data to be able to drive the smart bidding algorithms, the optimization algorithms to drive sustainable results for your business. So implement conversion tracking, yes, but you want to make sure you have enough conversion data, enough signals to power your ads investment.

If you consistently get less than 15 purchases a month, you might want to start tracking something called micro-conversions, a step that happens before conversion in order to feed your bidding algorithms more data. And then conversely, let's say that you have 90 conversions a month or 900 conversions a month. You're going to want to make sure that that conversion tracking is properly implemented. You're bringing in dynamic values and using the most advanced form of Target ROAS bidding to drive the best results for your business. 

So without conversion tracking, nothing else works. 

Now, perhaps you've had conversion tracking implemented in your account for more than a decade, but you're seeing fewer conversions today than you used to. That's quite common because of all the different changes that have happened, especially in Europe. So choose consent mode. I know none of us like those little banners popping up asking us for consent, but it's really important that you implement a consent management platform so that you gather user consent in order to collect their data. And so that Google Ads can model any missing data needed to provide your account with the information it needs. In Europe and many parts of the world, it is the law. You must do this. And even in other places where it's not the law, it's still the right thing to do by your users. 

So for example, even though I am in Canada, where I'm not legally required to do so, I do use consent management on my website. 

And then the third “C,” is customer match using your own customer data. 

As Yoann mentioned, a lot of the thresholds for this have lowered. You used to need a thousand active matched records in order to show ads to your customer list. Now you just need a hundred on many platforms. But even if you're not going to be showing ads to your customers, it's still beneficial to upload this list into your account. Your customer list just existing in your account is used as a signal for Smart bidding. It's used as a signal for optimized targeting. That means if you're doing any kind of PMax or AI Max or Broad Match, the signals from your customer list will be used to drive better performance for you. 

So going into 2026, you may think you have all three of these things checked off. I encourage you to go check in your account. When was the last time you updated your customer list? Was it perhaps 2023? Maybe you need to do something about that. Or maybe you implemented consent mode a year ago, but you don't have consent mode V2. So go in there, check, make sure all your systems are running before you even think about optimizing and growing. 

Now, once we have our data foundation in place, the next step is to optimize. And as an ecommerce business, most of the optimization you're doing, I would say, may not even happen in Google Ads. It's happening in Google Merchant Center with your product feed. And so on screen here, I've put the three key parts of your product feed that you cannot ignore.

1. First is the product title. I see so many people taking their product feed straight out of Shopify, connecting it to Google Merchant Center into Google Ads and go. And you may be selling a beautiful necklace that you call The Jyll or a beautiful hat that you call The Yoann. But you know what? That's not telling people what they're searching for and answering their query. Is it the Jyll or is it a rose gold 18 inch pendant with gemstone?
2. So just because you have certain titles that work on your website, it doesn't mean that's what people are searching for. You want to optimize your product titles so that when people see it on the search engine results page, it's clear that that's what they're looking for. 
3. Next is an optional attribute called product type. This is something I only learned about recently, how important it is, but you want to make sure that you're categorizing your products according to product type so that Google can have a good understanding of what kind of products you're selling. Because again, it may not always be obvious just from the titles and descriptions. 
4. And then third, the product image. With a Shopping ad, whether you're placing it there via Search, via Demand Gen, via Display, via Performance Max, that image is the first thing people are going to see. You want to make sure it very clearly conveys what it is you're selling. Is it a single or a multipack? What does it come with?
   
   And you want it to stand out against all the other results next to yours that may be showing a similar or perhaps even the exact same product. 

Of course, Producthero has great tools to help you with these, but if you have never opened Google Merchant Center before, if you have never looked at your feed, I encourage you to go check these three things first, your product title, product type attribute, and then your product images. Because whether you're using a Shopping campaign or a Performance Max campaign, you don't get to pick your keywords. Your queries that you match to are chosen for you from this information. You don't get to create your ad. Your ad is created for you from this information. So optimize that source information in your product feed in order to actually optimize your Google Ads campaigns and how your ads appear to end users. 

Now, once we have maintained our foundation, we've watered our plant nicely, it is ready to blossom and grow. And as we know, the only constant in Google Ads is change. There are so many new formats and channels to explore.

Performance Max came out in 2022. And so at this point, I say Performance Max is end game. At some point, the ideal scenario, in my experience, is to get to a place where Performance Max is working for you.

Now that being said, Performance Max is not necessarily the best choice for you today. Maybe you don't have the right data foundation in place yet, so Performance Max can't work properly. Maybe you don't have products that are appealing enough to the target audience you're trying to reach, so you don't have good engagement with your ads. Your job is to optimize your offer, your website, your feed, your imagery, so that Performance Max can work well for you. And of course, it needs the right data and signals in order to do so. 

If you have not yet tested Performance Max, if you've been holding back, I encourage you to give it a try this year. You need at least $50 a day for it to work. But now you get the same level of transparency in PMax that you get in Search or Shopping: full asset reporting, full product reporting, full search term reporting, and full channel reporting. So even if you can't control all these things, you can see exactly what it's doing and use that information to adjust your inputs accordingly. PMax is end game. If it didn't work for you in 2023, now's the year to give it another shot. 

Next is Demand Gen. This is actually the newest campaign type in Google Ads, and it might just be my favorite. So if you've been scared of Demand Gen, you're not quite sure what it is, the easiest way to think about it is Meta ads on Google. If you advertise on Meta and it works well for you, Demand Gen will likely work well for you.

And even if you don't advertise on Meta, but you want to experiment with reaching people who may not be actively searching right now, but could be interested in what you offer, Demand Gen is a great way to do that. The easiest way to get started with Demand Gen is to start with image-based ads. I recommend using some lifestyle imagery, showing real people in real life scenarios using your products rather than just duplicating the images from your feed. And then you can get started with a really simple audience, something like the Google engaged audience, people who've clicked to your website before from Google search results, or a lookalike segment based on your customer list, or an in market segment of people who are in market right now for the products that you offer.

Even with just $20 a day, targeting a few cities, Demand Gen is a great way to reach people who are in your target audience and just are not actively searching right in this moment. So if you've never tested that before, I'd add it to your testing calendar for 2026 as well. 

And then third, you can run it as part of Demand Gen. You can run it on its own, but YouTube, table stakes, okay? We are in 2026 now. You cannot ignore video any longer. And I know creating video content can be intimidating. As Yoann shared earlier, there are lots of different tools and ways you can get into video that don't have to break the bank and don't require an extensive creative team.

And remember, YouTube isn't just about video. YouTube is the world's second largest search engine. One of the placements that I see working so well for businesses of all sizes is the in-feed placement. In-feed is when you're on YouTube, maybe on the homepage or in search results, and you see a thumbnail and a recommendation of a video you should watch next. So don't forget, YouTube isn't just about watching. It's also about searching and meeting people's intent through video creative rather than just text or image with Search and Shopping ads. 

So if you want to continue to grow your business through 2026, to outsmart your competitors, to continue to optimize and find new customers, Performance Max is end game. If it's not working for you today, figure out why, so it'll work for you later this year. Start testing Demand Gen even if it's image only on remarketing only, and don't discount YouTube. Your brand must be there because if you're not, I assure you your competitors are and they're going to love to take your customers instead. 

So to succeed with Google Ads in 2026 and beyond, make sure that you are maintaining your data foundation, optimizing your feed and growing through new and emerging channels. 

If you'd like more practical Google Ads tips like this, you can sign up for my free Google Ads newsletter at free.jyll.ca, J-Y-L-L dot C-A. Thank you.

I hope you learned something new about how you can maintain, optimize, and grow your Google Ads for ecommerce in 2026 and beyond. 

Again, this was a practice run from a webinar that I recently did with Producthero. You can watch the full webinar, including my presentation and Yoann Ferrand's great overview of market trends in Google Ads in 2026. The link is in the episode description. 

I'm Jyll Saskin Gales, and I'll see you next time Inside Google Ads.