Shopping Product Group Structure

What AdGradr checks

AdGradr evaluates how your Shopping campaigns segment products. Using a single “All Products” group across all campaigns is the most significant finding. Partial segmentation (some campaigns subdivided, others not) is a moderate flag. Having very few product groups in a campaign is a minor flag.

Why this matters

A single “All Products” group means one bid controls your entire product catalog. Every product, regardless of margin, price point, or conversion rate, competes with the same bid. Your $500 high-margin item gets the same bid as your $10 accessory with razor-thin margins.

This is the Shopping equivalent of running one keyword with one bid for your entire search account. You lose all ability to allocate budget toward profitable products and away from unprofitable ones.

The same logic applies as the Google Shopping product group check. If your catalog has more than a handful of SKUs, a single product group is always wrong.

What good looks like

• Products segmented by brand, category, product type, or custom labels
• High-margin products in their own groups with higher bids
• Low-margin or low-converting products in separate groups with lower bids (or excluded)
• At least 3 meaningful product groups per campaign, more for larger catalogs
• “Everything else” catch-all group set to a conservative bid rather than the same bid as top performers

Common mistakes

1. Leaving the default “All Products” group untouched. Microsoft creates this group automatically. Many advertisers never subdivide it, especially on imported accounts where the Google structure did not carry over cleanly.
2. Segmenting by brand only. Brand-level groups are a start, but they still lump together high-margin and low-margin products within the same brand. Add a second layer (category or product type) for real control.
3. Creating too many groups with too little data. Each product group needs enough traffic to make bid decisions. Splitting into 200 groups when you get 50 clicks per day leaves most groups with no data. Find the balance between granularity and statistical significance.

How to fix it

1. Review your product feed. Identify the attributes you can segment on: brand, category, product type, custom labels, price range.
2. Start with the highest-impact split. If you sell multiple brands with different margins, segment by brand first.
3. Add a second layer within each brand for category or product type.
4. Set bids per group based on margin and historical conversion rate. Higher bids for proven performers, lower bids for unproven or low-margin items.
5. Create a catch-all “Everything else” group with a low bid. This captures new products until you assign them to a proper group.

Note

Custom labels in your product feed are the most flexible way to segment. Use them to tag products by margin tier, seasonal relevance, or promotional status. This gives you segmentation options that built-in attributes cannot provide.

When to ignore this check

If your catalog has fewer than 10 SKUs with similar margins and price points, a single product group may be adequate. The value of segmentation scales with catalog size and margin variation. A 5-product store with uniform pricing does not benefit from complex group structures.

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Want someone to handle this? The Click Makers team manages Microsoft Ads accounts for companies spending $5K+/month. Get in touch to see if we are a fit.