Understanding Shop Campaigns
Before you start creating Shop Campaigns, review this page to understand how one campaign reaches customers across placements, how optional segment overrides work, terminology, and best practices for your budget.
Conversions through Shop Campaigns ads aren't guaranteed. You pay only for successful customer acquisitions. Learn more about paying for Shop Campaigns.
On this page
Shop Campaigns ad channels
When you create a campaign, your ads are displayed on the Shop and Shopify Product Network channels by default. You can also opt in to ads on other platforms.
Ads on Shop
Ads on Shop include offers that give customers access to special pricing or the opportunity to earn extra Shop Cash as an incentive to purchase from your store.
After you create a Shop Campaign, the offer is displayed to customers on the Shop app and Shop on the web. You're opted in to ads on Shop automatically.
Ads on Shopify Product Network
Ads on Shopify Product Network display products on Shopify stores that publish ads on their store using the Shopify Product Network app. These ads might be displayed on a Shopify store's collections pages, search results, Thank you page, or Order status page.
When your products are advertised through another store, it's displayed as Sold by [your store name], and a customer can add that product to their cart on the Shopify store it's being advertised on.
Review the following considerations for when a customer checks out through Shopify Product Network:
- To ensure that customers can view your shipping and return policies on ads and at checkout, you must add policies to your store. Having your policies visible on Shopify Product Network ads can help with conversions by building trust with customers.
- Orders are attributed to the Shopify Product Network sales channel in your Shopify admin.
- Any checkout extensions that you've configured aren't compatible with Product Network.
- Subscriptions, bundles, and preorders aren't supported on Product Network.
Ads on other platforms
Ads on other platforms are optional. When you opt in, you're opted in to ads on all of the third-party platforms. Shop runs these ads only through Shop's own social media and ad accounts, and doesn't run ads through your own social media or ad accounts.
Review the following table to learn the platforms where your ads might be displayed. The Availability column lists the countries where each platform's ads are supported. Customers view these ads only when you advertise to those countries:
| Platform | Description | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Bing | Search engine from Microsoft | Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States |
| ChatGPT | AI assistant from OpenAI | United States |
| Search engine | Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States | |
| Meta | Social media platforms from Meta such as Facebook and Instagram | Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States |
| Microsoft Monetize (Open Web) | Advertising network that places ads on websites across the open web | United States |
| Visual discovery and social media platform | United States | |
| Snapchat | Social media and messaging platform | United States |
| X | Social media platform | United States |
Ad recommendation status
Your store's customer experience affects how often your ads are recommended to customers across Shop Campaigns placements. A strong customer experience can help your ads reach more customers, whereas a weak customer experience can limit your ad reach.
Depending on your store's customer experience signals, your store's status is one of the following:
- Good: Your store provides a strong customer experience, and your Shop Campaigns ads are regularly recommended to customers.
- Critical: Several customer experience signals are low, and your Shop Campaigns ad reach is limited.
Customer experience signals that affect your ad recommendation status
Your Shop Campaigns ad recommendation status is based on the following customer experience signals from your order activity over the last 90 days:
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Fulfill orders in 96 hours | The proportion of orders that you fulfill within 96 hours after customers place them, which is the recommended time for a strong customer experience. |
| Tracking on orders | The proportion of orders that include tracking information. |
| Deliver within 10 days | The proportion of orders that are delivered within 10 days after you fulfill them, which is the recommended time for a strong customer experience. |
| Orders not refunded | The proportion of orders that aren't refunded. |
| Orders not canceled | The proportion of orders that aren't canceled. |
| Review rating | Your store's average review rating on Shop. |
View and improve your ad recommendation status
If your ad recommendation status is Critical, then a banner is displayed on the Advertising page of the Shop channel. You can review your scorecard to view your overall score, the status of each customer experience signal, and which signals to improve.
If your ad recommendation status is Good, then no banner is displayed in the Shop channel, and no action is required.
Steps:
From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.
Click Advertising.
On the banner that reads Your ad reach is significantly limited, click View improvements.
Review your overall score on the scorecard and the status of each signal.
To receive suggestions for improvement from Sidekick, do either of the following:
- To review suggestions for improving an individual customer experience signal, click the signal that you want advice about.
- To review suggestions for improving all of your critical customer experience signals, click How do I improve?.
Branded keywords
Branded keyword searches are queries on Google or Bing that include your brand or store name. When Shop Campaigns bids on these searches, your ads can display in more places for customers already looking for your business. These searches are more likely to lead to an order, which can help increase order conversion and return on ad spend.
When you opt in to ads on other platforms, branded keyword ads are turned off by default. You can turn them on for any active campaign. With branded keyword ads turned on, you still only pay when a customer converts through Shop Campaigns. Your campaign budget, customer acquisition cost, and pricing don't change.
If you want Shop Campaigns to bid on your brand or store name on third-party platforms, then you can turn on branded keyword ads in your Shop Campaigns settings. You can turn branded keyword ads on or off at any time.
Customer targeting and optional segment overrides
When you create a Shop Campaign, you set a maximum cost per acquisition for the campaign. Optional segment overrides let you set a different maximum cost per acquisition for specific groups of customers. For example, you can set different customer acquisition cost (CAC) amounts for new customers and lapsed customers who haven't ordered in a defined period, so you can invest more where it supports acquisition or win-back goals.
Understanding Shop Campaigns budgets
When you create a Shop Campaign, you need to set a Daily budget. Your Daily budget is the total amount of money that you want to spend each day that your campaign runs.
If you don't reach your daily budget on a single day, then the remaining budget for the day is rolled over into subsequent days to optimize your offer spend.
Your budget rolls over from Sunday to Saturday each week, and the rollover amount is reset to $0 USD each Sunday. Some days you might spend less than your daily budget, and on others you might spend more, but you won't exceed your total budget for the calendar week. For example, if your daily budget is $100 USD, then your offer spend won't exceed $700 USD in total for the calendar week.
Shop Campaigns budget terms
Review the following table to understand the different parts of your Shop Campaigns budget:
| Budget term | Description |
|---|---|
| Customer acquisition cost (CAC) | The price that you pay when a customer converts. You're never charged more than this amount for a conversion. If you use segment overrides, then each segment can have its own maximum. Learn about best practices for setting your customer acquisition cost. |
| Return on ad spend (ROAS) | The order value divided by the acquisition cost. |
| Ad spend | The total budget that has or will be spent on a campaign. |
| Target order value | Your campaign's target average order value per conversion. |
Setting your customer acquisition cost
The Customer acquisition cost is the cost that you're charged for each customer who either places an order redeeming your offer, or places an order from your store after viewing a campaign ad. The minimum and recommended customer acquisition cost values are based on your store's average order value. Campaign setup focuses on your budget and maximum cost per acquisition decisions, rather than long-range spend or customer-count forecasts.
A higher acquisition cost creates a more compelling offer, and results in your Shop Campaign being ranked higher in the list of offers displayed to customers.
Your customer acquisition cost for a customer is the same amount whether a customer redeems an offer, or makes a purchase after clicking an ad. For some orders, you're charged only a portion of the customer acquisition cost, and on other orders, you're charged the full customer acquisition cost. You're never charged more than your maximum set customer acquisition cost for that customer's segment. Learn more about paying for Shop Campaigns.