Google Ads Optimization Guide for Beginners
Use this Google Ads optimization guide before you change bids or increase your budget. It walks you through the key campaign, tracking, data and account settings to review so you can find problems that may quietly waste your advertising spend.
Google Ads has become increasingly complicated. My core opinion is simple: beginner optimization should start with a full account audit, not an isolated bid change. Settings can quickly burn your advertising spend, especially when Google is optimizing toward the wrong goals or working with incomplete purchase data.
Quick Answer
Audit the full account before changing bids. Review campaign targeting, Shopping and feed settings, purchase conversion hierarchy, Shopify and Analytics connections, customer-data options, negative keywords, app and device exclusions, billing and attribution. Keep one purchase action primary and backup purchase tracking secondary. Treat my 50–100-sale bidding threshold as a recommendation, not a universal platform rule, and verify current menus, eligibility, consent and provider terms.
How to Audit Your Google Ads Account Before Changing Bids
Start with the account as a whole. You want to understand the existing performance, find missing information and identify where spend could be going before you touch the bidding strategy.
The Core Areas to Review in Your Google Ads Account
Use this audit overview as a practical part of the guide. Work through each area in order before deciding that bidding is the main problem.
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Audit area
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Complete when
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First check
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Account and campaigns
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Performance and configuration have been reviewed before bids change
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Spend, revenue, return, campaign structure, CSS terms and feed label
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Bidding and targeting
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Bidding reflects sales history and targeting matches the market
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Purchase objective, location presence, languages and eligible devices
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Purchase measurement
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One purchase action is primary and backup tracking is secondary
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Account-default goals, duplicate purchases and micro-conversions
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Data and exclusions
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Eligible first-party connections are configured and weak intent is filtered
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Enhanced conversions, Shopify, Analytics, Customer Match, negative keywords and placements
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Account protection
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Billing and attribution controls are configured
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Backup payment method, final URL suffix and irrelevant calls from ads
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Check the live account interface:
Google Ads and Shopify menus, CSS terms, device inventory, app categories, integration options and Customer Match eligibility can change. Use the audit order in this guide, but verify the current settings and provider terms before applying it.
Audit Performance, Campaigns and Shopping Setup Before Changing Bids
My first move would be to open the campaigns and review the current spend, revenue, return and configuration. Do not start by assuming that a different bid strategy will solve everything.
In the account shown in the video, the advertiser had spent €139,000 and reported €280,000 in return, giving the account a ROAS of about 2. The main campaign was operating at €1,600 per day. I said that a ROAS of 2 left some profit for that specific partner, but the account still needed a full audit to find missing data and inefficient settings.
The First Campaign Checks
Check 1
Shopping CSS participation
Check which Comparison Shopping Service is being used and whether the store is eligible for another option with better current terms.
Check 2
Country feed label
Use the appropriate feed label so the products and intended target country are clearly organized.
Check 3
Campaign objective
For an e-commerce campaign, make sure the objective and optimization setup are aligned with completed purchases.
The first specific change I considered in the example was its CSS setup. In the source video, I described an eligible option such as Producthero as offering a stated 20% advertising-spend benefit. That is not a universal guarantee. CSS benefits, markets, provider terms and eligibility can change, so verify the live offer before switching.
Next, check the feed label for the country you are targeting. A correct label helps organize which product data applies to which market. Do not treat it as a guaranteed cost-per-click reduction, but make sure the feed structure and campaign country agree.
Align Purchase Bidding With the Account’s Sales History
Use purchases as the campaign objective, then choose the bidding strategy according to the account’s sales history. For a new account, my recommendation is to begin with maximize conversions.
After the account has generated roughly 50–100 sales, I would consider switching to maximize conversion value. The reasoning is that purchase history can give value-based bidding more evidence about differences in conversion value.
That range is my practical recommendation, not a universal Google requirement. Check the quality and consistency of the purchase data as well as the number of sales. Fifty unreliable or duplicated conversions are not a sound foundation for value bidding.
The mistake I want you to avoid
Do not move a brand-new account to maximize conversion value just because it sounds more advanced. First establish reliable purchase volume, then assess whether value-based bidding fits the account.
Check Location, Language and Device Targeting
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Location:
use the presence-based option for the chosen country rather than an option that also includes people who are merely interested in that country. Confirm the exact wording in the current account.
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Languages:
I generally select all languages because you do not want to restrict the algorithm unnecessarily. In the demonstrated Dutch account, however, I left the existing Dutch setting unchanged.
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Devices:
keep computers, mobile phones and tablets enabled. Exclude TV screens where that inventory is available and unlikely to produce purchases for the store.
These controls decide who can see the ads and where. If they are wrong, changing bids will not stop spend from reaching unsuitable locations or devices.
Keep One Primary Purchase Conversion and One Secondary Backup
Open the Goals area and review the conversion summary. A primary conversion action is a conversion action used as a default goal for campaign bidding and optimization. A secondary conversion action is retained for observation or backup measurement rather than default bidding.
For the e-commerce setup taught in the video, purchase should be the only account-default primary goal. Google may prompt you to add other goals or label a narrow setup as misconfigured, but that prompt should not override your actual business objective. Purchase is the only account default in this setup because completed purchases are what the store needs the campaigns to optimize toward.
Page views, site searches, product views, add payment information and begin checkout can help you understand customer behavior. They should remain secondary when your campaign needs to generate completed purchases.
Wrong move: two primary purchase actions
If two trackers record the same order as primary, reported purchases and revenue can be inflated.
Fix: one primary, one secondary
Keep the main purchase tracker primary. Retain another purchase source as a secondary backup so you do not lose all purchase measurement if the main implementation changes or fails.
“Always make a second pixel as a backup” is the useful principle from the video, but the exact implementation matters. A secondary action can preserve another measurement source for comparison and recovery. It is not automatically used by default bidding, and you should not assume that it necessarily improves campaign learning.
Use
this guide to audit Google Ads conversion settings
if you need the detailed configuration. Google’s
conversion measurement overview
explains how conversion tracking connects ad interactions with valuable customer actions.
