On this page
The short answer
Some searches ask for things the product feed never mentions. Each is small, but together they add up. Oppy groups the paid searches over recent months that share no word with your catalogue into themes, and asks whether the shop sells them.
Why it matters
On a shop, Shopping and Performance Max match searches to products by their own reading of the feed. That reading is loose, and a shop that sells garden furniture can end up paying for searches about garden sheds, a word that appears nowhere in its catalogue.
One such search at a few euros never shows up in a report. A theme of forty of them over three months does, once someone groups them.
How Oppy decides
The check only runs on accounts with a product feed it could read, and a catalogue large enough to compare searches with.
It reads the search terms of Search and Shopping campaigns. Performance Max searches are not part of this read yet, so check them in the search terms report.
Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.
When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.
| This check | |
|---|---|
| Step of the audit | Spend |
| What it reads | Search terms report |
| Needs trustworthy conversions | Yes. It stays silent when the tracking step fails. |
| What happens next | Reported in the audit with the rows behind it. The decision stays with you. |
Check it yourself in Google Ads
- In Google Ads, open Insights and reports, then Search terms, for the last 90 days, including Shopping and Performance Max.
- Filter on Conversions = 0 and download the report.
- Compare the searches with your product titles and categories in Merchant Center, and mark those that ask for something you do not sell.
- Group them by their main word and add up the cost of each group.
What to do about it
If you do not sell it, add the theme's main word as a negative, on Shopping campaigns and in the negative list attached to Performance Max.
If you do sell it, the feed is the problem: the product title or description does not use the word customers type. Add it, and the search becomes a match instead of a guess.
Terms on this page
Other checks in this area
The checks next to this one in Wasted spend, each with its own page.