by Austin LeClear
on June 27, 2025
If you’re running an eCommerce brand and feel like you’ve hit a wall with Google Ads — especially with Performance Max campaigns — this Google Ads feeder strategy could be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.
This Google Ads strategy isn’t about maximizing profit from seasonal spikes, trending products, or holiday traffic. This is a repeatable, systematic approach to scaling effectively that took one industrial eCommerce account from $50k/month to over $100k/month in just 22 days — with higher ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).
How did we do it? In this post, we’re reviewing the complete strategy we used in this client’s account to get real results, (including the mistakes to avoid and advanced optimizations most people miss). Prefer video? Check out our YouTube video I EXPLODED Sales +109% in 22 Days Using the Feeder Strategy (Full Strategy) below:
Still with us? Good, let’s dive in.
The Problem: When Performance Max Hits Its Ceiling
We hear this story time and time again: You’re running Performance Max campaigns for your eCommerce brand. Things start great — ROAS is solid, sales are growing, and you’re feeling optimistic about continuing to scale and optimize your Google Ads account.
Then you hit a wall.
Every time you increase your Google Ads budget, your ROAS tanks. You try gradual increases, adjust bid strategies, optimize product feeds and audience targeting — nothing works. Bottom line: More spend doesn’t equal more revenue. It just means paying Google more for the same results.
Why Does This Happen?
Performance Max excels at two things:
- Remarketing to warm traffic (people who’ve visited your site, added to cart, etc.)
- Finding lookalike audiences based on your existing customers
However, once it exhausts these high-intent audiences, PMax starts spending on weaker Google inventory, like low-intent Display placements, YouTube ads that don’t convert, and Discovery ads that generate vanity metrics (but not sales).
The Google Ads algorithm doesn’t have infinite high-quality traffic to tap into. So when you force more budget into a plateaued Performance Max campaign, you’re essentially paying for lower-quality clicks. This can be an expensive mistake if you don’t keep a close eye on things.
The Solution: The Feeder Strategy Explained
The feeder strategy, pioneered by Google Ads expert John Moran, works on a simple (but powerful) principle:
Use Standard Shopping campaigns to “feed” high-intent traffic to your Performance Max campaigns in Google Ads.
Here’s the psychology behind it:
- Standard Shopping captures cold, high-intent traffic (people actively searching for your products)
- These visitors browse your business site, creating warm audience signals
- Performance Max then remarkets to these warmed-up leads with higher conversion rates
- The result: a flywheel of qualified leads and conversions
Think of Standard Shopping as your top-of-funnel prospector and Performance Max as your business conversion specialist, focused on turning leads into customers. Importantly, this doesn’t work for everyone but, when it works, it works very well.
Case Study: From $50K to $100K+ in 22 Days
There are several aspects to this client’s success to discuss. Before we dive into the details, here’s a quick contextual overview:
- The Client: Industrial products business (B2B eCommerce)
- Timeline: April 22 – May 13 (22 days)
- Starting Point: Stuck at ~$50K/month revenue for months (and in need of solutions)
The Setup
Their existing campaigns:
- Main Performance Max campaign (their top-selling brand) – 500% ROAS target
- Secondary PMax campaign (other brands) – 500% ROAS target
- Branded Search campaign
- Underperforming Shopping campaign – which was discontinued in favor of the new feeder campaign
Our feeder strategy implementation:
- Created new “Feeder” catch-all Standard Shopping campaign
- Included all products from all 10 brands (not just the top seller)
- Set target ROAS (tROAS) to 400% (more aggressive than Performance Max)
- Let it overlap with existing PMax campaigns to ensure the ads captured new audiences
The Mind-Blowing Results
By bidding more aggressively in our feeder campaign, we signaled to Google Ads to send the bulk of their Google Ads traffic into the Standard Shopping campaign. In this case, the results were exceptional:
- Revenue: +108% increase ($37K more in sales)
- Ad Spend: Only +$3K (54% increase in spend versus 108% increase in revenue)
- Conversions: +106% (due to more transactions, not just a higher Average Order Value (AOV))
- ROAS: +35% improvement (from 5.8x to nearly 8x)
Translation: The feeder strategy helped us get better results in this account. Not only did we increase sales by 100%, but we did it more profitably.
A Word of Caution
For this client, the feeder strategy has absolutely blown up their Google Ads results. But let’s be clear — this is an outlier.
We’ve held off on writing a post about the feeder strategy because it requires a higher risk tolerance than most. In many cases, we ask for access to the client’s back-end sales data so we can properly track impact. Sometimes we’ll even bring in third-party attribution tools like Wicked Reports. At the very least, we want to see what’s happening behind the scenes.
Why? Because this strategy isn’t as simple as launching a Shopping campaign with an aggressive bidding strategy and watching conversions double. It’s not a magic switch.
So here’s the bottom line: proceed with caution.
That said — if you’re an eCommerce business, your Performance Max campaigns have plateaued, and you’ve already tried stair-stepping budgets, tweaking bid strategies, and doing everything you can to scale your Google Ads account, then it may be time to test the feeder strategy.
No need to go all in. Start light. Give it a few weeks. Watch what happens.
You just might unlock more valuable traffic, and achieve more success in Google Ads.
When the Feeder Strategy Works Best
Ideal Scenarios:
- PMAX campaigns plateaued for 2+ months
- Budget increases consistently hurt ROAS
- You have diverse product catalog (not just 1-2 SKUs)
- Monthly ad spend of $5K+ (enough data for optimization)
- Strong organic/brand recognition (warm traffic to remarket to)
Less Ideal Scenarios:
- Brand new businesses with no traffic history
- Single-product businesses
- Highly seasonal businesses during off-season
- Very limited budgets (<$1K/month total)
Conclusion: Is the Feeder Strategy Right for You?
The feeder strategy isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s a proven method for breaking through Performance Max plateaus when implemented correctly.
Try it if:
- Your PMAX campaigns have been stuck for months
- You have a decent product catalog (20+ SKUs)
- You can afford to test for 30+ days
- You have access to backend sales data
Skip it if:
- Your PMAX campaigns are still growing
- You’re a single-product business
- You can’t tolerate any ROAS fluctuation
- Your monthly ad spend is under $2K
Remember: the goal isn’t to replace Performance Max — it’s to supercharge it by helping you reach more potential customers.
