When you launch a Google Performance Max campaign with Adwisely, you might notice that it initially runs mostly on Google Shopping, without any custom ad copy or images. You might also notice that when you click "Edit campaign," your daily budget is the main setting you can change directly.

This is not an error—it is a deliberate, data-driven strategy designed to set your store up for long-term success. Here is everything you need to know about our Phase 1: Shopping-first approach.

Google Performance Max is a powerful tool that can display your products across multiple channels, including Search, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Shopping. However, launching across all these channels simultaneously can dilute your advertising budget and make it difficult to measure true performance.

To prevent this, Adwisely uses a Phase 1 approach that focuses your initial budget on Google Shopping. Most of it goes there, but Performance Max has no setting that limits a campaign to Shopping only, so a small part can also run on other Google channels, such as YouTube, Display and Gmail.

During this phase, your campaign uses only your product data (pulled directly from your store) to generate ads. This means no custom text, images, or logos are required from you at this stage.

There are two main reasons why Adwisely starts your campaign on Google Shopping:

Google Shopping is the most scalable and highest-intent channel for eCommerce. By focusing on this segment first, we can quickly verify that your Google Merchant Center (GMC) is set up correctly, your product feed is syncing properly, and Google is approving your products. If there are any GMC issues, it is much easier to identify and fix them when we are mostly looking at Shopping data.

When you add custom images, logos, and ad copy to a new Performance Max campaign, Google automatically begins testing those assets across YouTube, Discover, and Search. While these channels are valuable, they often require a larger budget and a longer learning phase to become profitable. By focusing on Shopping initially, we keep most of your budget on shoppers with the highest purchase intent, keeping your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) clean and easy to measure.

Because Phase 1 relies entirely on your automated product feed rather than custom creatives, the main variable you adjust yourself is how much you want to spend.

Adwisely handles the complex bidding algorithms, audience targeting, and product selection in the background. You simply set your comfortable daily budget, and our system optimizes the rest.

On the same page, you can review the locations your campaign targets and ask for a change, and prepare draft ad text. Your Ad Expert reviews both, and draft ad text isn't used in your ads yet.

The Shopping-first setup is just the beginning of your advertising journey with Adwisely.

Once we have validated your Merchant Center setup and established a profitable baseline on the Shopping network, the foundation is set for scale. From there, your Ad Expert expands the campaign when it's ready. This means adding ad copy, images, and other ad assets to your campaign and testing performance across additional Google channels such as Search, YouTube, and Discover.

For now, keep your campaign active and let it learn. Monitor your ROAS and adjust your daily budget as your sales grow.