Search Ads vs Shopping Ads: Choosing the Right Format for Your Products

If you sell products online through Google Ads, you have almost certainly faced the question: should this budget go to Search campaigns or Shopping campaigns? It is a fair question, and the answer is rarely one or the other.

Both formats serve different roles in the buyer journey. Search ads capture demand through text-based results triggered by keyword queries. Shopping ads present product images, prices, and merchant names directly in the search results, giving buyers a visual shortcut to purchase decisions. Understanding where each format excels, and where it falls short, is the key to building a paid search strategy that converts efficiently without leaving revenue on the table.

This guide breaks down the practical differences, walks through the performance benchmarks, and offers a framework for splitting budget between the two.

How Each Format Works

Search Ads

Search ads are text-based advertisements that appear above and below organic results on Google. They are triggered by keyword targeting. You write headlines and descriptions, choose which queries to bid on, and pay when someone clicks. The advertiser has full control over messaging, keyword match types, and landing page destinations.

Search ads excel when users are researching solutions, comparing options, or looking for specific information. They allow you to address pain points, highlight promotions, and direct traffic to tailored landing pages rather than product listing pages.

Shopping Ads

Shopping ads (also called Product Listing Ads) pull data from your Google Merchant Center product feed. They display a product image, title, price, and store name directly in the search results. There is no keyword targeting in the traditional sense. Instead, Google matches your product feed attributes to relevant queries.

Shopping ads work best for product-level searches where the buyer already knows roughly what they want. The visual format lets shoppers compare products side by side before clicking, which tends to pre-qualify traffic.

Performance Benchmarks: What the Data Shows

The performance differences between these two formats are well documented, and the results are not as straightforward as "one is better." Each format wins on different metrics.

Click-Through Rate

Search ads consistently achieve higher click-through rates. WordStream's 2025 benchmark data puts the average Search ad CTR at 6.66%, while Shopping ads average around 0.86%. That is roughly an 8x gap. However, this comparison needs context. Shopping ads appear alongside multiple competing products, so each individual ad receives a smaller share of clicks. The aggregate click volume across all Shopping placements can still be substantial.

Cost Per Click

Shopping ads offer a meaningful cost advantage. Data from Triple Whale shows Shopping ad CPCs averaging $0.50 to $0.95, which is 40 to 55% lower than equivalent Search ad CPCs. For ecommerce brands operating on tight margins, this cost efficiency matters.

Conversion Rates and CPA

Search ads convert at a higher rate on average: 2.81% compared to 1.91% for Shopping. But because Shopping CPCs are lower, the cost per acquisition often ends up comparable or even favourable for Shopping. DesignRush reports Shopping CPA at $38.87 versus $45.27 for Search, a 14% advantage for Shopping despite the lower conversion rate.

ROAS

Return on ad spend varies significantly by campaign type and industry. Across 18,000+ ecommerce brands, the average Google Ads ROAS sits at 3.68:1. Standard Search campaigns tend to outperform on ROAS (averaging around 5.17:1) compared to Performance Max campaigns (2.57:1), though Performance Max blends Search, Shopping, Display, and other placements together, making direct comparison difficult.

When to Use Search Ads

• High-intent branded queries: When someone searches for your brand name or specific product model, Search ads let you control the message and defend against competitor bidding.
• Service or solution queries: When the search is problem-oriented ("best running shoes for flat feet"), Search ads let you address the problem directly in ad copy.
• Promotions and offers: Search ads give you the headline and description space to communicate sales, free shipping, or time-limited deals.
• Non-product pages: If you want to drive traffic to a buying guide, category page, or custom landing page, Search ads are the only option.
• Competitive positioning: When you need to differentiate on service, warranty, or expertise rather than price, the text format gives you room to make that case.

When to Use Shopping Ads

• Product-specific searches: When someone searches for a specific product ("Nike Air Max 90 white"), Shopping ads let them see the product image and price before clicking.
• Price-competitive products: If your pricing is strong, Shopping ads put your price front and centre alongside competitors. This pre-qualifies traffic and reduces wasted clicks from price-sensitive shoppers.
• Large product catalogues: Shopping campaigns can advertise thousands of products simultaneously from your feed, without needing individual keyword lists or ad copy for each.
• Visual products: Categories where appearance matters (fashion, homewares, electronics) benefit from the image-first format.
• Discovery and comparison: Shopping ads appear in the dedicated Shopping tab and in Google Images, capturing browsers who are still comparing options.

A Framework for Budget Allocation

There is no universal split that works for every business. But here is a decision framework that works as a starting point.

Step 1: Audit Current Performance

Pull the last 90 days of data for both Search and Shopping campaigns. Compare ROAS, CPA, and conversion volume at the campaign level. Identify which format is driving more revenue per dollar spent, and where each format is underperforming.

Step 2: Map the Funnel

Search ads tend to perform better at the top (awareness, research) and bottom (branded, high-intent) of the funnel. Shopping ads sit in the middle, capturing shoppers who are comparing products. If your funnel data shows that most conversions come from product-specific queries, lean towards Shopping. If your customers need education before purchase, lean towards Search.

Step 3: Start With a 60/40 Split

For most ecommerce businesses, a starting split of 60% Shopping and 40% Search is reasonable. Shopping captures the higher-volume, lower-cost traffic, while Search covers branded defence, non-product queries, and high-intent long-tail keywords.

Step 4: Test Incrementality

The real question is not which format has better ROAS in isolation. It is whether adding more budget to one format produces truly incremental revenue. Run geo-based holdout tests or use analytics frameworks to measure whether Shopping and Search are cannibalising each other or lifting total revenue together.

Where Performance Max Fits In

Performance Max campaigns blend Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Discover into a single automated campaign. For ecommerce advertisers, PMax often acts as a replacement for standalone Shopping campaigns.

The trade-off is control versus reach. PMax automates targeting, bidding, and creative across all placements, which can drive incremental reach. But it also makes it harder to isolate which format is doing the heavy lifting. If you run PMax alongside standard Search campaigns, monitor for overlap by checking the auction insights and search term reports.

Many advertisers find that running standard Search campaigns for their highest-value keywords alongside PMax for broader coverage produces the best results. This approach protects your most important queries while letting automation handle the long tail.

Measuring What Matters

When comparing Search and Shopping, avoid relying on a single metric. A useful scorecard includes:

• Incremental ROAS: Revenue that would not have occurred without the ad, measured through holdout testing.
• Marginal CPA: The cost of each additional conversion as you scale spend. Diminishing returns hit both formats differently.
• Impression share: How much of the available market you are capturing in each format. Low impression share on high-intent queries is a clear signal to increase budget.
• Assisted conversions: Shopping ads often assist conversions that close through other channels. Check the conversion path reports in GA4 to understand cross-channel effects.

Bringing It Together

The Search vs Shopping question is not a contest. Each format serves a different part of the buyer journey, and the highest-performing ecommerce advertisers use both strategically. Search ads capture intent, Shopping ads capture comparison shoppers, and the budget allocation between them should be driven by your own data, not industry averages.

Start with a reasonable split, measure incrementality, and adjust quarterly. If you need help building a paid search strategy that gets the most out of both formats, or want to bring analytics rigour to your measurement approach, that is exactly the kind of problem we help solve.