Key takeaways
- Feed quality and product availability can explain poor outcomes.
- Product-level volume needs enough data before comparison.
- Purchase and refund evidence should be reconciled over time.
- Provider-filtered and first-party findings remain separate.
Check commerce causes before fraud
Price competitiveness, stock, shipping, feed mismatch, mobile experience, landing-page errors, and query relevance can reduce shopping performance. Review these conditions alongside campaign and invalid-click reporting.
A high-click product with low sales may reflect demand research or an offer problem rather than abusive traffic.
Build product-aware cohorts
Segment by campaign, product group, item, query, device, location, schedule, network, landing response, session behaviour, cart, purchase, cancellation, and return. Keep denominators and product availability aligned across the comparison.
- Preserve click identifiers through product redirects.
- Check tracking on variant and checkout routes.
- Canonicalize purchase occurrences.
- Wait for the relevant return window before final outcome claims.
Protect with bounded actions
Use campaign refinement, feed correction, monitoring, provider investigation, or supported exclusions according to the evidence. Verify provider state and assess whether legitimate product discovery changed after action.
Limitations
What this guide does not claim
Shopping campaign types and provider controls change. Commerce outcomes can arrive late, and privacy controls may limit journey-level analysis.
Evidence
Primary sources
- About invalid trafficGoogle Ads Help
- Clicks and sessions discrepancy troubleshootingGoogle Ads Help
- Consent mode overviewGoogle for Developers
Read how we source, review, update, and correct content in our editorial standards.