In September 2019, I had the privilege of speaking on Shopping Ads at the world renown, massive search conference in Brighton, UK: BrightonSEO. While this was an honor in itself, I secretly enjoyed my time at the Search Advertising Show the day before even more!

The Search Advertising Show is a precursor event (to the main BrightonSEO show) put on by Kelvin Newman and the BrightonSEO crew and was really a fabulous environment. Great attendees, speakers and location. I hope to be back someday!At the Search Ad Show I spoke on Google Shopping (shocker there huh 😉) and you can hear the recording here, plus follow along with the slides below if you like. It's as good as being there!

Listen to PPCKirk on Shopping Ads:

View PPCKirk's Shopping Ads Slides:

‍

In 2019, I had the privilege of speaking on Shopping Ads at the world-renowned BrightonSEO in the UK. While the main event was massive, I’ll let you in on a secret: I enjoyed my time at the Search Advertising Show the day before even more.

It was a precursor event put on by Kelvin Newman and the crew, and the environment was just fabulous—great attendees, top-tier speakers, and a killer location. I even got a crash course in British "biscuits" and was forced to eat two Magnums on the way back to the hotel. (Apparently, I hadn't lived until I'd had a Magnum).

At the show, I spoke on the future of Google Shopping—shocker, right?—and how to stay relevant as the "robot overlords" take over. You can hear the full recording and follow along with my slides below.

The Three Pillars of the "Human" Search Marketer

As automation and machine learning (hello, PMax and Smart Shopping) take the wheel, you might be wondering if you still have a job. The answer is yes, but only if you lean into these three areas:

1. Strategy: Machines can bid, but they can’t think. Data analysis and high-level marketing strategy are still 100% human territory.
2. Feed Management: We might be headed toward a "feedless" era with structured markup, but someone still needs to troubleshoot the Merchant Center when the CMO is angry and the "Engine" is stalling.
3. Campaign Setup: Machines are great, but they have to be pointed in the right direction. A bad setup leads to automated disaster.

Merchant Center Hacks: Taking the Reins Back

During the talk, I shared three common scenarios where you can use Feed Rules and Supplemental Feeds to fix problems without waiting 18 months for your dev team to respond.

1. Testing Product Titles

CMO wants to test titles? Great. Use a Feed Rule to apply your new title logic to a specific segment. But remember: Shopping isn't a clean A/B test. You have to watch Click Share and Impression Share to see if your changes actually moved the needle.

2. The "Emergency" Find and Replace

CEO hates a specific word in your ads? Don't panic. Use the Modifications section in GMC (Feed Rules 2.0). It has a "Find and Replace" feature that acts like a surgical strike across your entire feed.

3. Identifying and Pushing Top Products

Want to bid higher on your best-sellers?

• Pull your product performance from Google Analytics.
• Match your top SKUs to their IDs in a Google Sheet.
• Upload that sheet as a Supplemental Feed to add a "Top Product" Custom Label.
• Target that label in its own campaign with a higher budget.

The "Smart Shopping" Black Box

We’ve done about a million dollars in testing on Smart Shopping (the predecessor to what we now know as PMax). While the ROAS is often great, the data transparency is non-existent.

You don't get search terms. You don't get audience insights. You don't even know if your money is going to YouTube, Gmail, or Display. My biggest caution? We’ve seen a 60% drop in new users in some accounts because the machine over-indexes on remarketing to hit its ROAS target.

My Advice: Treat Smart Shopping (or PMax) like a sweet pastry with your coffee. The "Coffee" is your core legacy campaigns—they hold the universe together. The "Pastry" is the automated stuff—it's great for reaching far and wide, but it shouldn't be your entire meal.

Listen to the full talk here: [Listen to PPCKirk on Shopping Ads]View the slides here: [View PPCKirk's Shopping Ads Slides]

Are you struggling to balance manual control with Google's automation? ZATO can manage just your Shopping Ads alongside your in-house team to ensure the robots stay in line. Let’s chat.

‍