Quick Answer
Set up your first e-commerce PMax shopping campaign by choosing Sales, keeping Purchases as the only primary goal, connecting the correct Merchant Center account, starting with Maximize conversions, and setting location targeting to Presence only. Publish with a daily budget you can keep steady for 7–14 days. After launch, confirm the correct feed is selected, clean up conversions, add a tracking template, enable conversion-based customer lists if appropriate, and connect Merchant Center, GA4, and Shopify in Data Manager.
If you want the wider context (beyond the shopping-first launch), follow our full guide on Performance Max campaign set up.
1.1 What you need before you click “Create” (feed + tracking checklist)
Merchant Center connected. Products approved. Purchase tracking test.
Before you build anything, make sure your store can actually run Shopping ads. Performance Max for retail uses your Merchant Center product data for Shopping inventory.
Pre-flight checklist
- Merchant Center is connected to the Google Ads account you will use.
- Products are approved in the Merchant Center (no big disapproval pile).
- Your Purchase tracking fires once per real order (no duplicates).
If you’re on Shopify and you’re not 100% sure your purchase event is clean, use this guide: Google Ads conversion tracking to Shopify.
Screenshot to include on the page
- Merchant Center link screen. Product status overview.
One-store basics: returns, shipping, and checkout working.
This is not “nice to have”. If checkout is broken or policies are unclear, your data gets messy fast.
Sanity check
- You can place a test order.
- Shipping and returns pages exist and are easy to find.
- Contact info is real and visible.
Secondary CTA placement (optional)
If you want a simple launch system you can follow every week, add a CTA block here for: Google Ads Foundation Strategy Training (€97)
1.2 Create campaign: Sales objective and Purchases-only goal (remove the rest)
Keep Purchases as the only Primary goal. Remove other goals.
When you create the campaign, pick Sales. Then look at the goals list.
Your goal is simple. Only Purchases stay. Everything else goes.
Why? Because Smart Bidding learns from your primary goals. If you feed it “add to cart” and “begin checkout” as primary goals, you can buy a lot of cheap actions that never turn into profit.
Screenshot to include
- Goals list with Purchases only (Primary).
Fix duplicates: one purchase action as primary, rest secondary.
If you have multiple purchase conversions, pick one to be Primary. Set the rest to Secondary so they do not steer bidding.
Rule of thumb
- One purchase action = Primary.
- Everything else = Secondary (or remove from the account default goal).
1.3 Choose Performance Max and connect the right Merchant Center
New to this campaign type? Read Google Performance Max explained first so the setup choices below make more sense.
Select Merchant Center account. Confirm correct product source.
Choose Performance Max as the campaign type.
Then connect the correct Merchant Center account. This matters because PMax retail pulls products from that source.
Fast check
- The store name matches.
- The product count matches what you expect.
- The target country feed exists for the market you want.
Campaign name rules to stay organized.
If you do not name it right now, you will hate your account later.
Name it so you can answer this in one second:
- What is it?
- What products?
- What bidding strategy?
- When did we launch?
Campaign naming template (copy-paste)
Naming template. Date format. Product scope naming.
Here is a clean template that matches the video flow:
RTM | PMax Shopping | All Products | Max Conversions | YYYY-MM-DD
If you are not using RTM, swap it for your own prefix:
BRAND | PMax Shopping | All Products | Max Conversions | YYYY-MM-DD
Screenshot to include
- Naming field with the template filled in.
1.4 Bidding: start with Maximize conversions (when to switch later)
Why Maximize conversions first. When conversion value makes sense later.
Start with Maximize conversions. This is the beginner-safe default because it helps you collect conversion data faster.
Then later, you can consider Maximize conversion value after you have enough clean purchases coming in.
Experience-based: switching after roughly 50 to 100 purchases is a practical checkpoint many stores use. It is not a guarantee.
Screenshot to include
- Bid strategy screen with Maximize conversions selected.
1.5 Location targeting: Presence only (avoid travel clicks)
Presence vs presence or interest. Exact setting to pick.
This setting is a silent budget killer.
Google’s location options include:
- “Presence or Interest” (can include people who show interest in your location)
- “Presence” (people in or regularly in your location)
For most e-commerce stores selling to one country, you usually want Presence to avoid “travel clicks” and low-intent traffic.
Needs verification: the exact UI wording and where the dropdown sits can change by account and year.
Screenshot to include
- Location options dropdown with Presence selected.
1.6 Shopping-first setup: asset group name + what to skip
Asset group “All products”. What to skip or keep minimal.
Google will push you to add headlines, images, and more.
In the video flow, you skip that part at launch. Then you rename the asset group to All products.
Here is why this is a common move:
- It keeps the first launch simple.
- It reduces “creative busy work” before you even have clean data.
Important: Google can also auto-generate assets from your Merchant Center feed, and it still recommends uploading more assets.
Screenshot to include
- Asset group name change to “All products”.
Important note: skipping assets does not guarantee shopping-only placements.
Performance Max is designed to access all Google Ads inventory from one campaign.
So even if your intent is “Shopping-first”, PMax is not a pure Shopping-only campaign type.
Needs verification: the exact behavior of “feed-only” or “minimal assets” setups can change over time and by account.
1.7 Signals and keywords: what to leave empty at launch (beginner-safe)
Why leaving signals empty can work at launch. What to add later.
In the video flow, you leave signals and keywords empty and publish.
That can work because:
- Your product feed already contains strong intent signals (titles, prices, categories).
- Your purchase goal tells Google what “good traffic” looks like.
Later, you can add signals if you want faster direction, like:
- Your past buyers list (if you have it).
- Top categories.
- High-margin products.
Hypothesis: add signals later when you know what sells. Otherwise you can bias learning with guesses.
