Most dropshippers test new products with expensive Shopping or PMax campaigns, spending $500-1000 before knowing if a product converts. At $1-2 CPCs and 2% conversion rates, that's 250-500 clicks to validate a product—a $500+ test. Meanwhile, seasoned dropshippers use advertorial strategies to test with $0.10-0.30 clicks, validating products for $50-100 before scaling with expensive traffic.
Example: Running PMax to cold traffic for a $29 product with 20% margin
Dropshipping requires knowing your true profit threshold per product before advertising. With 20% margins on a $40 product ($8 profit), your max CPA is $8—meaning you need 5%+ conversion rates at $1.60 CPCs to break even. Most stores don't calculate this, running ads for products that are mathematically impossible to profit on with Google Ads traffic costs.
Example: $15 product with $3 margin requiring 0.3% CPA that's unachievable
Google Ads success depends on customer lifetime value, but 14-30 day shipping times from overseas suppliers destroy repeat purchase rates. Customers who wait 3 weeks for delivery rarely return, making your acquisition costs unrecoverable through repeat business. This means each conversion must be profitable standalone—a much higher bar than branded stores.
Example: CAC of $25 on $40 AOV with zero repeat purchases
With a single asset group, Google optimizes for aggregate ROAS by heavily favoring your top 5-10 products. The rest of your catalog gets almost no impressions. Worse, low-margin products drag down profitability while appearing successful in aggregate.
Fix: Segment products by performance tier: Winners (scale), Potentials (test), Underperformers (cut or fix). Create separate asset groups for each.
PMax claims credit for brand searches that would've cost $0.30 through a dedicated brand campaign. Without exclusions, you're paying 3-5x more for customers already looking for you.
Fix: Add brand exclusions to PMax and run a separate Brand Search campaign with exact match keywords.
Missing GTINs, generic titles, no custom labels, and missing sale prices hurt your Shopping ad performance. Supplier product images (low quality/duplicated)
Fix: Only advertise products with proven conversion data from other channels first
Your 5x ROAS might look great until you realize 70% of sales are repeat customers who would've bought anyway. You're paying to acquire customers you already have.
Fix: Segment reporting by new vs returning customers. Set up customer match lists and analyze true CAC.
Not all campaign types work for dropshipping stores. Here's what to skip:
Too expensive for product testing at dropshipping margins
CPCs too high for thin margin products
Low intent traffic destroys dropshipping unit economics
Follow these best practices to maximize your Dropshipping Google Ads performance:
Budget: 30-40% • Target ROAS: 3-5x
Budget: 30-40% • Target ROAS: 2.5-4x
Budget: 15-20% • Target ROAS: 4-7x
Budget: 10-15% • Target ROAS: 2-3x