1. Switch to a Third-Party CSS Provider

If you're still using Google's default comparison shopping service, you could be handing over up to 20% of your bids as a handling fee.

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That means if you bid £1, only 80p actually goes toward the auction.

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Switch to a third-party provider like Product Hero, and 100% of your bid goes to work. Or keep bidding £1 and start outranking competitors who are still paying the Google tax.

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Quick check - Search any product on Google. Look at the bottom of the shopping carousel. If it says "by Google," you're losing money.

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2. Implement the Heroes, Villains & Zombies Structure

Google will happily spend your budget on products that don't convert. Without intervention, your worst performers often eat the most spend.

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One account we audited had villains (low ROAS, high spend) taking 27.5% of budget while heroes (high ROAS, high revenue) only got 16% - despite heroes driving 51% of total revenue.

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The fix is to segment products into separate campaigns:

• Heroes - High ROAS, high spend. Give them aggressive targets so they get more budget.
• Villains - Low ROAS, high spend. Set stricter targets to throttle wasted spend.
• Zombies - No spend yet. Run a catch-all campaign to surface potential winners.
• Sidekicks - High ROAS, low spend. Consolidate into your heroes campaign.

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After restructuring, that same account flipped to heroes at 33% of spend and villains at just 13% - with revenue climbing significantly.

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3. Duplicate Your Hero Products with Title Variants

Your winning products might only rank for a handful of search terms because of limited keywords in the title.

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Cramming in more keywords can hurt performance. The workaround: duplicate hero products into a separate feed with different title variations.

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Same product, different titles targeting different searches.

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Example: "Five Piece Black Velvet Lapel Tuxedo for Boys" becomes a second listing with "Children's Black Formal Tuxedo."

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One campaign running this generated an extra £16k in incremental revenue from a small spend - sales that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

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The Bottom Line

• Third-party CSS - Stop giving Google up to 20% of your bids for nothing.
• Product segmentation - Control where your spend goes instead of letting Google burn it on villains.
• Feed duplication - Expand your heroes' reach with title variants.

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We're rolling this out across 90%+ of our accounts with brands doubling if not tripling their MRR as a result.

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