Is Ad Management Alone Not Enough? What You Need to Do to Maximize Ad Performance on Your Shopify Store

If you could grow your business through ad management alone, scaling a commerce business would be easy. In reality, however, it is rare to consistently increase revenue while maintaining profitability through ads alone.

Many merchants believe that running ads well will drive more sales, but since both Google and Facebook have become increasingly accessible to operate, technical ad management skills are actually becoming less of a differentiator.

In this article, we introduce what you should focus on beyond ads in order to achieve real results from your advertising.

StoreHero leverages its proprietary growth platform to support business growth through granular operations that manual management cannot achieve, as well as the large-scale execution of growth initiatives.
If you are struggling to grow sales on Shopify, feel free to reach out. =>Download our free service introduction materials here

Conditions for a Store That Can Grow Revenue Through Ad Management Alone

There are several conditions for growing revenue through ad management alone, but the most important factor is having a high CVR (conversion rate) and high average order value.

Looking at the KPI tree we introduced previously, you can see that increasing visits from new and returning customers, CVR, and average order value are all critical to growing sales. While visits can be increased by raising your ad budget, if CVR and average order value are low, your ads become inefficient and ad-attributed revenue ends up falling below your ad spend (How to Monitor LTV and CAC on Shopify and Aggressively Improve Profitability).

CVR x average order value represents the expected revenue generated each time a customer visits your store. As a rough calculation, if this figure is ¥100, you can expect a customer to generate ¥100 per visit, and with a cost-of-goods ratio of 50%, that leaves ¥50 in profit.

If CVR x average order value is consistently close to ¥1,000, you may be able to grow revenue through ad management alone (though such stores are extremely rare).

On the other hand, if CVR x average order value is below ¥100, it is difficult to continue growing revenue through ads alone. As anyone who has run conversion-focused ads knows, the cost per click (CPC) for stable delivery often exceeds ¥100.

In other words, having a sufficiently high CVR x average order value is the minimum requirement for growing revenue through ad management alone.

Achieving Results Requires a Comprehensive Approach

To increase CVR x average order value, you need to execute a variety of initiatives beyond advertising. Below, we introduce some fundamental tactics for improving CVR x average order value.

LP (Landing Page) Strategy

Landing pages are a critical factor affecting CVR. The right LP varies depending on the type of ad — whether it leads to a dedicated ad landing page, a product detail page, a collection page, or a blog page.

Dedicated Ad Landing Pages

To reach potential customers who are not yet familiar with your brand, a content-rich dedicated ad landing page is effective. When creating a dedicated ad LP, base it on customer research and analysis to determine which products to present and how to frame the offer before building the page.

Dedicated ad LPs are easier to iterate on compared to dynamic pages like product detail pages, so we recommend continuously improving them through A/B testing using Google Optimize. For ongoing improvements, using a no-code page builder app such as Gempages or Pagefly makes the process much smoother.

Product Detail Pages

When leveraging Google Shopping ads, your product detail page becomes the landing page. Product detail pages tend to be loaded with various features — variant selectors, gift options, add-ons, upsells, cross-sells, and more.

Imagine visiting a store for the first time and being confronted with a dense array of features crammed onto the page. You would likely feel anxious about whether you can complete the purchase correctly. From a CVR perspective, we recommend keeping product detail pages and cart pages as intuitive as possible by minimizing unnecessary features.

As a side note, there is a design philosophy that UIs should be simple enough for a drunk person to use, and this concept has even been featured on the Shopify Blog.

Collection Pages

If you carry many SKUs, collection pages can also serve as ad landing pages. When used as an LP, simply listing products is not enough — surfacing best-selling products at the top and enabling filter functionality become important.

If a collection contains a large number of SKUs, consider displaying rankings or recommended products within the collection to make it easier for shoppers to find what they are looking for.

Upsell and Cross-sell

Increasing average order value through upselling and cross-selling is also an effective strategy. Shopify apps make it easy to implement upsell and cross-sell functionality. We previously introduced methods for upselling and cross-selling using Shopify apps.

While Shopify apps make upselling and cross-selling convenient, they can also complicate the purchase flow and add extra steps. As mentioned earlier, a simple UI is an important factor for CVR.

One alternative is to create bundle products that pair items frequently purchased together or in consecutive orders, enabling upsell and cross-sell without relying on apps.

By analyzing your Shopify purchase data, you can identify patterns of products and collections that are frequently bought together, and create bundle products based on those purchasing trends.

CRM Strategy

Driving repeat purchases and increasing LTV (Lifetime Value) through CRM initiatives is another effective strategy. If your ad CPA is ¥5,000 and your gross profit per order is ¥5,000, you break even on the first purchase — but CRM-driven repeat purchases generate real profit.

Repeat buyers generally have higher CVRs and average order values, so building CRM initiatives that encourage repeat purchases also helps improve the ROI of ads aimed at acquiring new customers.

Automated emails for both purchasers and non-purchasers should follow standard scenarios and be configured from the time of your store launch. They will provide a reliable lift to your revenue.

Additionally, by segmenting high-loyalty customer data through your CRM, you can use that data as audience data for Google and Facebook, helping to sharpen your ad targeting. Advertising and CRM are closely interlinked.

UGC Strategy

First-time buyers often feel anxious about making a purchase. Concerns about product quality, whether the site is a phishing site, or whether orders will actually arrive are just some of the many anxieties that accompany online shopping.

UGC (User Generated Content) initiatives are effective at alleviating these concerns. Representative types of UGC content include:

• Product and shop reviews
• Customer interviews
• Expert commentary
• Media coverage and press mentions

When third-party evaluations like these are made visible, shoppers feel more confident and are more likely to complete a purchase.

If UGC is difficult to gather organically, it is worth proactively seeking out friends, acquaintances, or people on social media who might appreciate your products and offering gifting in exchange for reviews or comments.

Beyond UGC, other strategies for building trust include free returns, refund policies, and warranty services. While they come with costs, they are worth considering for products where concerns about sizing or defects are common.

PR / Affiliate Strategy

Building a reputation outside of your own store is also an important strategy for improving CVR.

Regularly generating PR-worthy content and posting press releases to newswire services is never a bad idea. If you can produce interesting data from customer surveys, turn it into a research report and pitch it to media outlets. Creating infographics with tools like Piktochart or Canva makes the content more shareable on social media.

Acquiring affiliates is also important for building your reputation beyond your own store. As affiliates grow, they generate buzz and credibility outside your storefront, contributing not only to affiliate-attributed revenue but also to overall CVR improvement across your store.

Search for compatible influencers and bloggers on social media and Google, negotiate terms, and finalize partnerships. Shopify offers tracking apps such as Refersion and Affiliatly that provide everything you need to run your own affiliate program — from generating tracking URLs to handling payments.

Driving Growth with StoreHero

StoreHero supports merchants on Shopify who are looking to grow their sales through the thorough execution of growth initiatives.

By leveraging the StoreHero growth platform, we help merchants achieve continuous growth through granular operations that are difficult to execute manually — across advertising, storefront optimization, CRM, and inventory management — as well as through the large-scale deployment of growth tactics.

We are currently offering free store diagnoses. If you have challenges related to Shopify or growth strategy in general, please feel free to contact us. Learn more about our free store diagnosis here

Summary

We explained why landing pages, upsell/cross-sell, UGC, and PR/affiliate strategies are essential for scaling a commerce business through advertising. It would be great if ads alone could continuously drive sales and profit growth, but in most cases, it simply is not that straightforward. We hope this article serves as a useful reference as you work toward sustainable growth.