Most ecommerce brands dump their entire Google Ads budget into one or two campaigns and let Google figure out the split. Google figures it out by spending most of the money on whatever converts fastest - which is usually remarketing to people who were already going to buy.
Your cold prospecting starves. Your new customer acquisition rate drops. Your blended ROAS looks fine while the business stops growing.
This planner gives you the exact budget splits, ROAS targets, and scaling triggers for a multi-campaign Shopping + PMax architecture. The same framework we use on accounts spending $5K to $500K per month.
Fill in your total monthly budget. The planner calculates the rest.
Total Monthly Budget: $________
Current Blended ROAS: ________x
Average Order Value: $________
Target Blended ROAS: ________x
Your Shopping allocation: $________ (________% of total)
| Campaign Type | Budget % (of Shopping) | Your Monthly Budget | ROAS Target | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Shopping - Core | 50-60% | $________ | 3.0-4.0x | Primary Shopping campaign. Full search term visibility. Manual bid control. BOFU segments. |
| Thief Campaigns | 10-15% | $________ | 2.0-3.0x | Competitor brand term conquest. Hero SKUs only (ROAS 2.0+ and 1+ conversions). |
| Protector Campaigns | 5-10% | $________ | 4.0-6.0x | Brand defense. All products at $1.2-2.5 CPC. Shares portfolio budget with Thief. |
Thief + Protector share a portfolio budget. Combined allocation: 15-25% of Shopping budget.
Hero SKU selection for Thief campaigns: Filter products where ROAS is 2.0+ AND conversions are 1.0+. Sort by conversion value descending. Take top 20.
Your PMax allocation: $________ (________% of total)
| Campaign Type | Budget % (of PMax) | Your Monthly Budget | ROAS Target | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feed-Only PMax | 50-60% | $________ | 2.5-3.5x | Product feed only. No creative assets. Shopping placements. Incremental reach. |
| Demand Gen | 25-35% | $________ | 1.5-2.5x | Cold audience video/image on YouTube, Gmail, Discover. New customer prospecting. |
| Remarketing PMax | 15-20% | $________ | 3.5-5.0x | 3 asset groups: site visitors (90-day), cart abandoners, past purchasers. |
Feed-Only PMax settings: Final URL expansion OFF. Brand exclusions ON. Automatically created assets OFF. Negative keywords: minimum 50.
Don't launch everything on day one. Follow this staging order:
| Week | Launch | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Standard Shopping Core + Feed-Only PMax | Establish baseline Shopping performance. Feed-Only PMax captures incremental reach. |
| Week 3 | Thief + Protector | Requires hero SKU identification from Week 1-2 data. |
| Week 5 | Demand Gen | Requires creative production completed during Weeks 1-4. |
| Week 7 | Remarketing PMax | Requires remarketing pools built during Weeks 1-6. Minimum 5K users in warm pool. |
| Phase | Weeks | Strategy | Threshold to Advance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Weeks 1-4 | Maximize Conversions (uncapped) | 30+ conversions |
| Phase 2 | Weeks 5-8 | Target CPA (set 20% below observed CPA) | Stable CPA within 15% for 14 days |
| Phase 3 | Weeks 9+ | Target ROAS (set 20% below break-even ROAS) | 50+ conversions, stable performance |
Never launch tROAS on a new campaign. The algorithm needs learning data first.
Review every Monday. Adjust once per week maximum.
| Signal | Action |
|---|---|
| Campaign ROAS above target for 14+ consecutive days | Increase budget 15-20% |
| Campaign ROAS between 50-99% of target | Hold budget. Refresh lowest-performing asset group. Review search terms. |
| Campaign ROAS below 50% of target for 14+ days | Pause weakest campaign. Audit feed quality (is score still 95+?). |
| PMax ROAS looks incredible (5x+) but total revenue is flat | PMax is cannibalizing Shopping. Run incrementality test. |
| Standard Shopping impression share drops 20%+ after PMax launch | PMax is bidding on same queries. Add brand exclusions or adjust segments. |
| Remarketing pool below 5K users | Reduce Remarketing PMax to minimum. Reallocate to Demand Gen. |
Run this on the first Monday of every month:
Pick one test per quarter:
| Quarter | Test | Duration | What It Tells You |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Geographic Holdout | 28-42 days | Is PMax genuinely adding revenue or stealing credit from Shopping? |
| Q2 | Budget Shift | 14 days | What happens when you move 30% of PMax budget to Shopping? |
| Q3 | New Customer Audit | Data pull only | What percentage of PMax conversions are actually new customers? |
| Q4 | Skip (peak season) | - | Run a pause test in January instead |
Incrementality formula: Incremental Revenue = Test Region Revenue minus (Control Region Revenue multiplied by Baseline Ratio). If Incremental ROAS exceeds 2.0x, PMax is genuinely adding revenue.
Fill this in after completing Steps 1-3:
| Campaign | Monthly Budget | % of Total | ROAS Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Shopping Core | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| Thief | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| Protector | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| Feed-Only PMax | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| Demand Gen | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| Remarketing PMax | $________ | ________% | ________x |
| TOTAL | $________ | 100% | ________x (blended) |
The brands that run all six campaign types with clear budget boundaries outperform brands running one or two campaigns by 40-60% on blended ROAS. Not because they spend more. Because every dollar has a defined job.
Plan the split. Launch in sequence. Scale what works. Test what PMax is actually contributing. The budget planner prevents the most expensive mistake in Google Ads: letting the algorithm decide where your money goes.