Shopify ads is a red ocean — every app bids on the same store searches, and prices keep climbing. Google is the blue ocean: bigger volume, cheaper clicks, and most of your competitors aren’t there. Here’s the playbook we run at Convert2x.
Shopify prohibits apps from bidding on its brand. The clean solve: don’t. Run a comprehensive negative-keyword list of every other ecommerce platform, and generic queries like “inventory app for ecommerce” resolve to overwhelmingly-Shopify searchers without you ever bidding the word.
AI bidding needs ~30 conversions before it works. Start on manual CPC with your top 15–20 keywords. Accelerator: report three funnel events per merchant — install, subscribe, payment — instead of payments only, and you hit the threshold three times faster.
Optmyzr’s research across thousands of accounts: Maximize Conversion Value campaigns ~575% ROAS versus ~137% for manual CPC. The catch: the AI is only as good as the values you feed it. Send per-keyword conversion values with click IDs — installs, subscriptions, payments, each with its revenue — via Prys. Then expand into PMax and AI Max.
Some keywords can’t run to the Shopify domain. Build a compliant landing page; attribution survives end to end if your tracking covers it.
Plan on a 3-month test: M1 manual launch, M2 conversion reporting + first Maximize Conversion Value test, M3 scale what returns. We expect to return at least the media cost within the test window — past result, 563% ROAS at $0.07 average CPC.
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