Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner

Google Ads for Ecom Brands.
$200M+ Managed Across 200+ Brands.
Explaining the Systems Behind Profitable Growth.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

I’m Chris, founder of ZenoX Media.

Over the last few years, my team and I have managed $200M+ in Google Ads across 200+ ecommerce brands throughout Europe.

One thing we've learned over the years is that most Google Ads advice online focuses on tactics, buttons, settings and "hacks."

In reality, the biggest wins usually come from understanding how Google's systems actually think.

That's what this account is about.

I'll be sharing:

The patterns we see across hundreds of ecommerce accounts.

The mistakes that quietly limit growth.

The frameworks we use to scale brands profitably.

No recycled advice, just lessons from doing the work.

If you're serious about growing an ecommerce brand, join our free Skool community below, or book a call if you'd like us to take a look at your account (only if you qualify).

Join 700+ eCom operators in our free Google Ads Skool Community: https://t.co/ZcfSOq0Srr

Book a call with ZenoX Media: https://t.co/4sZUdHCXYz

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Google Ads media buyers are getting replaced.

Not by agencies. By AI.

I run an agency and I’m the one building it.

New video: why the small stores we reject every day are the future, and what Scaley AI does for them.

https://t.co/eLJxbZqWtO

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@aksenHQ Both, but the database broke first.

Then the API limits showed up once the database stopped hiding them.

Lesson: test with 5x the load before you connect real clients.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Vibe coded a Shopify dashboard for our clients. Worked perfectly for 20 stores.

Connected 100+. Half of them broke overnight.

5 weeks of rebuilding later: Claude does what you ask. It doesn’t think about scale.

Vibe code the vision. Let real devs build the foundation.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Agents don’t see your ads. They read your product data.

Titles, price, stock, reviews. If the data is messy, you don’t get picked.

So the feed work you do for Shopping today is likely the same work agents will need tomorrow.

[Drew Cohen @DrewCohenMoney]

I’ve been thinking more about $GOOGL lately and I am coming more to the opinion that the real disruption to the search business could be around the corner.

With the proliferation of so many different AI chatbots, I would have thought that on its own would have weighed on their search business, but the reason it hasn’t is simple.

There are monetizable searches and non-monetizable searches.

What matters for Google’s profits is monetizable searches, and that is why Google can lose search activity and STILL be at an all-time high in search profits.

The non-monetizable searches are leaving, but not the monetizable ones… yet.

(Google will talk about search queries being at an all-time high, but that includes AI search queries and follow-ups, which aren’t comparable because it is a different product and monetized differently. Apple’s Head of Services, Eddie Cue, noted that Safari search queries were down for the first time in April 2025.)

I think this is just the first wave of AI, and it hasn’t negatively impacted Google’s search profits.

Chatbots are inherently a more informational product, but agents are about action, and with action comes encroachment on monetizable searches.

Booking travel with agents, which has already become a popular Instinct and Muse use case, cuts out Google’s opportunity to show sponsored search ads.

Ask Muse to find you the best running shoes and it will run its own search and give you options. There is no opportunity to show a Google search ad in that transaction.

This goes for essentially all high-intent shopping, where you know what you want but are still in research mode.

While agentic shopping is new and might take years to gain consumer adoption, Meta disclosed that over a quarter of engaged Muse users who shop through it have an average purchase size over $200. Instinct already has $1b in transaction volume, half of it going to travel.

In my conversation with @eric_seufert , he was of the opinion that agentic shopping is largely a mirage and that the commission Muse will charge will be a nonstarter for people.

After thinking about it more, I have two thoughts.

First, I don’t think it’s actually a problem if agents charge a small fee for completing purchases. I could see merchants ultimately bearing the cost of the transaction. Why would they do that?

Because they will get more sales from a new channel.

If we think about how online businesses get sales, it is either 1) through marketplaces like Amazon, 2) through online ads, or 3) direct to their website or app.

1) Marketplaces like Amazon have a commission that often ranges from 8-17% (this is just the sales commission, not including advertising or logistics). Companies accept this fee because they are getting sales they wouldn’t have otherwise.

2) Ads, whether through Instagram, Google search, etc., are usually significantly more than a couple % (if we think of the ad cost as a % of the sale).

3) Direct sales may not have any direct cost, but a lot of brand advertising is needed to build a brand that gets direct sales.

Taken together, I think the agentic channel, even with a business eating an additional ~2-4% fee, could be cheaper than most of their other channels. Said differently, if agentic shopping is bringing the business new sales, the ROI is still pretty high, even with the fee included.

Some businesses may fight this, but others will see the advantage of eating the fee and offering a lower price to win sales.

There is a historic parallel here with credit card fees. Initially merchants scoffed at paying ~3% credit card fees, but eventually they learned that accepting cards led to more sales and often higher tickets too. Most businesses today eat the fee.

Second, some small businesses already surcharge for card usage, and consumers by and large still opt to pay it rather than use a debit card or cash. Consumers have a preference for convenience, and I would imagine that translates to agentic commerce.

It’s the same with food delivery. When you order on DoorDash or UberEats, you can often pay less by ordering directly through the restaurant’s website or app (powered by ChowNow, for instance). Despite being cheaper, it’s still not that popular a way to order food.

While these two arguments point to different parties paying the fee, it doesn’t really matter which one wins out. (And it could be a mix of both). The point is that I don't think a take-rate to monetize agentic AI on its own is going to stop the ecosystem from growing, regardless of where that fee lands.

And for the threat to Google to be real, it doesn't actually matter how Agentic AI monetizes-- it could be through subscriptions or ad supported, but as long as the transaction is not through Google's agent it is still the same threat.

I think agentic shopping will be a real thing, and as adoption grows, we are likely to see more pressure on Google’s monetizable searches.

Google is responding with their own agentic capabilities, so they may be able to preserve some of the activity on their platform and some of the economics, but I still believe they are unlikely to end up with a business as good as their legacy search business.

*~*

This on its own is not a stock thesis on Google, since they still have many other businesses and initiatives that can make up for the shortfall, but I believe this will eventually be a notable headwind for them.

Happy to hear any push back and for more check out my latest video on Google below!

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

A cheap click and a cheap sale are not the same thing.

Google clicks cost more because people typed what they want.

Don’t judge the click. Judge what it costs to get an order. A $2 click that never buys costs more than a $4 click that does.

[Juan • Google Ads for Service Businesses @theppcdude]

Google Ads are expensive for a (good) reason.

If you run em right, your day is filled with qualified people interested in your service.

Other channels might get you cheaper leads but then you need systems, salespeople, and follow-ups just to filter out the junk.

With Google Ads you’re targeting people already looking for your service.

You go straight for the kill.

That’s why we have clients closing 30-60%+ of their leads.

I prefer to pay more for leads ready to buy than less for leads I have to chase every day.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Cost per search is a great metric. Here’s the Google side of it.

Open your site search report. Those words are what shoppers type when they want something.

Put them in your product titles. Your feed then matches what people already say.

[Mason Littlejohn @wearetheselect]

Here's why most brands kill their best top-of-funnel ads.

They grade them on CPA.

A cold ad reaching new people almost never shows a great CPA up front. Those purchases land in your retargeting and bottom-funnel campaigns later. So the ad looks like a loser and gets turned off, right as it's filling the funnel.

You need different metrics for different jobs.

For upper-funnel ads I look at cheap clicks, cost per add to cart, cost per checkout, cost per email signup, and two that almost nobody watches.

Cost per content view. How much does it cost for someone to view a product on your site? Under a dollar is good. Twenty cents is excellent. That means people are clicking through and actually browsing.

Cost per search. If someone lands on your site and searches for something specific, that's extremely high intent. Think about Google search, people only search when they're close to buying. Same thing on your site. A low cost per search means that ad is sending you a high-quality audience.

The goal of a cold ad isn't the sale today. It's getting people into your funnel in a meaningful way, at a cheap price, so the rest of your campaigns can close them.

Carve out a small slice of budget, say 3 to 5%, for ads that drive these metrics even if CPA looks soft. Then watch your other campaigns pick up. That's the feedback loop that scales the whole account together.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

You can see the ceiling in Google.

Check your impression share. If you already win most of the searches for your product and sales are still short, ads aren’t the problem.

The market is. More budget just buys the same people again.

[Rok Hladnik @rokhladnik]

A lot of brands think they have a Meta problem when they actually have a product × TAM problem.

You can keep optimizing:

- hooks
- creatives
- offers
- landing pages
- campaign structure

But eventually you hit the ceiling.

If the market is too small or the product isn’t compelling enough, better media buying won’t save you.

Paid media can accelerate demand.

It can’t manufacture unlimited demand.

Product and TAM set the ceiling before the first ad ever runs.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@maxwellcopy Big swing is right. Do the math first.

A $15 credit only costs you money if they use it. Check that your margin still works after the credit.

If it does, send it. If it doesn’t, you just bought a sale at a loss.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@blvckledge Nobody posts the 11pm Slack message. The beach photo gets the likes. The churn call gets the sleep.

You’re right that it all scales together. The problems just get bigger.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

If you can build it, someone else can build it too.

So the product isn’t your edge.
The ecosystem around it is.
Every customer feeds the data. The data makes the product better. The better product brings more customers.

A copycat starts that loop at zero.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Anyone can copy your software.
Nobody can copy your data.
Features get cloned in a week.
Years of data from real stores don’t.

That’s the moat. Everything else is just a head start.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Had an ecom brand ready to launch. Samples, store, budget. Every number said go.

Killed it to build Google Ads software.

A year and 6 figures in, our dev agency gave us a product we couldn’t sell.

Hired our own devs. More progress in 3 months than the 9 before.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@ecomdiddy The PDP line is the best part of your post.

Same in Google. Before I cut a campaign, I check where the clicks land. Good clicks on a weak page look like a bad ad.

Fix the page first. Then judge the ad.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Spend more only works if the next dollar earns more than a dollar.

Check your break-even ROAS first.

Above it, spend more. Below it, you’re just buying a bigger loss.

[MarketingMax.com @MarketingMax]

If you want more money

Spend more on meta & google ads

It’s that simple. This tweet is for myself

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@pcshipp $150 is too small to judge Google. It’s just enough to learn what went wrong.

90% wrong people usually means the ads matched the wrong searches. Open your search terms report.

Fix that first. Otherwise you take the same mistake to Meta.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

@eCom_Amin Good list. One warning on the title tests.

Don’t clone the product to test titles. Same page, same images, two listings can get flagged as duplicates.

Change the title on the same product instead. Give it 2 weeks, then compare.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Google Shopping ads already show the price before the click.

So the people who click are the ones who accept it.

That’s why Shopping traffic often buys at a higher rate than a blind email click. Same rule. Show the price, get a better click.

[Max Sturtevant @maxwellcopy]

Here’s a random A/B test from the team...

- Top variation: standard campaign with the price sitting under each product
- Bottom variation: exact same email with no prices being shown

50-100% more sales were brought in on the version WITH prices.

Some people just want to know the price before they click... and if they can’t see it, they scroll past instead of tapping through to find out.

Can do this for your flows, campaigns, BFCM sends, abandonment, post-purchase emails, etc

Super effective and takes less than 5 minutes to set up.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Same trap in PMAX.

Ten asset groups with the same headline and new wording is not ten tests. It’s one idea shown ten times.

A real test is a different reason to buy. Price, gift, quality, speed. Not a new hook on the same angle.

[Rahul Issar @therahulissar]

We make creative for brands and also work with a large amount of creative partners.

We still notice one pattern that's really common, agencies are still making small iterations to statics that have no differentiation at all.

Small iterations are fine for brands that spend a smaller amount, but if you step into an account and think making small headline iterations are going to make an impact then I would try and shift that strategy asap.

Meta groups ads that look and feel alike under one Entity ID.

So 200 near-identical variations can be treated as one ad. They all fight for the same auction ticket and show to the same people.

That means you're not testing at all even if you are looking for a slight "direction" in the message that works. You're overlapping.

What actually gets you to new audiences:
→ Different personas
→ Different reasons to buy
→ Different formats (UGC, static, founder-led, demo)
→ Different visual worlds, not just new hook text

Each genuinely different concept gets its own Entity ID. Each one is another chance for Meta to find a new pocket of buyers.

Volume should come from angles, not edits of the same angle.

Question I'd ask your team:

How many of last week's ads were actually a new idea or a new format?

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

You need 300% ROAS in your shop. So you set 300% in Google Ads.

Problem: Google never tracks every sale. Cookie banners, ad blockers, delays.

Your real 300% shows as 240%. Google thinks it’s failing. Spend drops.

Set your target off ad ROAS. Not shop ROAS.

[Ecom Google Ads Growth Partner @ecomchrisxx]

Target ROAS used to be a floor. Google could beat it.

Since the last update it’s a ceiling. Hit it and you’re stuck there. Miss it and Google cuts your spend.

Same number in the account. Opposite result.

Most people still run the old play.