Google Shopping ads not converting? Products with no sales

When Google Shopping ads are not converting, the cause is often a few products that take clicks and never sell. Open Products in the Campaigns menu, set the last 90 days, sort by cost, and look for products with many clicks and no conversions.

Where do I see sales for each product in Google Ads?

In Google Ads, open the Campaigns menu and select Products. At account level it shows your Standard Shopping and Performance Max campaigns together, with cost, clicks and conversions for each product. Set the date range to 90 days, because most products need weeks of clicks before their numbers mean anything.

Two things to know about the numbers. A product’s cost is a share of the campaign’s cost, not a separate budget. And since June 2026 the report includes all of Performance Max’s networks, including YouTube and Display, so Performance Max product numbers may have jumped once; don’t compare across that change. For where the rest of Performance Max’s money goes, see Performance Max spending on YouTube.

How many clicks without a sale is too many?

More than most people think. With 30 clicks and a 2% conversion rate (an example rate, not a typical one), a product still has about a 55% chance of zero sales by luck alone. At 5% the chance is about 21%. So 30 clicks with no sale usually proves nothing.

Cost is a better test. Compare a product’s cost with your usual cost per product sale: if it has cost three times that, it would normally have brought about three sales, and the chance of none by luck is around 5%. That’s the rule SpendCanary uses: over 90 days, a product is flagged when it has at least 30 clicks, no sales, and cost of at least three times your usual cost per sale. It only runs once the account has at least 15 product sales in that time, so there’s a usual cost to compare with.

Here’s a worked example. Say a home goods shop’s products cost $3,000 over 90 days and brought 100 sales, so the usual cost per sale is $30 and the bar is $90:

Product	Cost	Clicks	Sales	Result
Linen throw, 3 colours	$100	135	0	Flagged: Shopify variants added up; no single colour reaches $90
Large ceramic vase	$126	140	0	Flagged
Candle gift set	$66	110	0	Not yet: 2.2 times the usual cost, still about an 11% chance it’s luck
Oak side table	$96	24	0	Not yet: under 30 clicks

Why can a product show no sales when it does sell?

• Variants. Shopify’s Google channel sends each colour or size as its own item. Each variant can look small while the product as a whole costs a lot, so judge the parent product. SpendCanary adds up variants for Shopify item IDs; for other feeds, add the variants up yourself.
• Tracking. If no product shows any sales, it’s your conversion tracking, not your products; see conversion tracking not working. Also check which actions count: each conversion action’s Include in “Conversions” setting decides what the report counts.
• Sales of other products. People sometimes click one product and buy another. If you send cart data with your conversions, Google can report what customers bought after clicking.
• Seasonality. A Christmas product judged over August to October will look dead.

Should I fix the listing, exclude the product or wait?

Wait if it’s under three times your usual cost per sale or under 30 clicks, if it’s new or out of season, or if you changed its price or photo during the 90 days.

Fix the listing first if it’s flagged and you want to keep selling it. Compare the price including shipping, the main photo and the title with other shops for the same search, check the landing page opens the right variant and that it’s in stock, and check its status in Merchant Center. Then judge it again after about as many clicks again.

Exclude it if it’s flagged again after the fix, or if it’s clearance, low margin, or a price you can’t match. The cleanest way is a custom label, such as custom_label_0 set to “no_sale”, excluded everywhere the product appears. Changing the label brings it back later.

How do I exclude a product from Performance Max?

1. Open the Performance Max campaign, then Asset groups, then Listing groups.
2. Click the green circle next to the product or group, and select Exclude.

Listing groups belong to each asset group, so a product excluded in one asset group can still show from another, or from a Standard Shopping campaign. Google recommends grouping products with custom labels and targeting the labels, which keeps this manageable.

How do I exclude a product from a Standard Shopping campaign?

Open the campaign and ad group, go to Product groups, subdivide by Item ID, and exclude that product’s group. Google says excluded products may still get impressions and clicks for up to 48 hours, and their past data stays in your reports.

What about products that get no impressions at all?

Those are sometimes called zombie products. They don’t cost money, so they’re a different problem: Google isn’t showing them. Start in Merchant Center under Products, then All products, and look at the Status column for products that are limited or not approved. Google’s own checklist for weak Shopping products also points to price mismatches, availability and missing product details.

If clicks come from the wrong searches rather than the wrong products, negative keywords work for Shopping and Performance Max too. The free SpendCanary scan runs the products check for you when you connect with Sign in with Google.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: Product reporting, Listing groups in Performance Max, Product groups in Shopping campaigns, Custom labels, About Shopping ads, Monitor Shopping campaigns, Conversions with cart data.
• Merchant Center Help: Product status.
• The probability figures, the three-times rule and the worked example are our own arithmetic, not Google figures.