Ads running for winter coats in spring, summer dresses in fall. Your budget promotes products nobody's searching for while hot seasonal items get underbid.
Example: 35% of budget still going to fall collection in January
Advertising sizes that are sold out, colors that don't photograph well, and variants with poor sell-through rates. Each click costs money but can't convert.
Example: Ads showing for XXS and 3XL sizes that only have 2% of inventory
Competing against Shein, Zara, and H&M for generic fashion keywords is suicide. $3-5 CPCs for 'summer dresses' with 1% conversion rates.
Example: Paying $4.20 CPC for 'women's tops' against fast fashion giants
Fashion is visual-first, but your product images are flat, inconsistent, or don't show the product in context. Low CTR means high costs.
Example: White background images getting 1.5% CTR vs. lifestyle shots at 3.5%
Fashion has 25-40% return rates. Your 4x ROAS looks great until returns come back. You're optimizing for revenue that evaporates.
Example: Reported $50,000 revenue, actual $32,000 after 36% returns
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. Wrong google_product_category
Fix: Include season and occasion in product titles
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 fashion & apparel stores. Here's what to skip:
Can't compete with fast fashion CPCs
Pushes budget to any product that converts, ignoring returns
Attracts browsers, not buyers
Follow these best practices to maximize your Fashion & Apparel Google Ads performance:
Budget: 35-45% • Target ROAS: 3-5x
Budget: 10-15% • Target ROAS: 6-12x
Budget: 25-35% • Target ROAS: 2.5-4x
Budget: 15-20% • Target ROAS: 5-8x