Google Shopping Benchmarks by Industry (2026)
Shopping is the highest-intent inventory most retailers can buy, and its economics are decided upstream in the product feed. The ranges below assume a healthy feed; a poor one shifts every column in the wrong direction at once.
Last reviewed
Google Shopping in 2026 averages 0.7–1.2% CTR at $0.54–$0.96 cost per click, converting at roughly 1.0–2.8% for a non-brand ROAS of about 2.9×–5.1× depending on category.
| Industry | Avg CTR | Avg CPC | Conv. rate | ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apparel & Fashion | 0.92% | $0.62 | 1.90% | 4.10× |
| Beauty & Skincare | 1.05% | $0.71 | 2.35% | 4.60× |
| Home & Furniture | 0.74% | $0.88 | 1.15% | 3.20× |
| Electronics | 0.86% | $0.79 | 1.40% | 3.60× |
| Food & Beverage | 1.18% | $0.54 | 2.80% | 5.10× |
| Health & Supplements | 0.95% | $0.92 | 2.20% | 3.90× |
| Pet Care | 1.12% | $0.58 | 2.55% | 4.80× |
| Sports & Outdoors | 0.81% | $0.68 | 1.55% | 3.70× |
| Jewelry & Accessories | 0.69% | $0.96 | 0.98% | 2.90× |
Non-brand shopping inventory. Brand-term traffic typically doubles conversion rate and ROAS and should be reported separately.
ROAS by vertical
What the numbers mean
- 01Shopping ROAS clusters between 3× and 5× on non-brand traffic; anything above 8× almost always means brand terms are mixed into the reporting.
- 02Conversion rate tracks decision cost exactly as it does on-site — food, pet and beauty clear 2.2%, jewellery and furniture sit near or below 1.2%.
- 03Cost per click is the least controllable column. The lever that moves profit is feed quality: titles, GTINs, images and price competitiveness decide which auctions you enter at all.
- 04Missing or invalid GTINs and disapproved variants silently remove your best-converting products from the auction — audit the feed before rebidding.
Methodology
Aggregated from WordStream/LocaliQ retail benchmarks, Merchant Center documentation and Xeli beta retail accounts. Standard and Performance Max shopping inventory, excluding brand-term traffic where it could be separated.
The feed is the campaign
Shopping has no keywords, so the product feed is your targeting. Title structure decides which queries you match: front-load brand, product type and the two attributes shoppers actually search (size, colour, material, capacity). Images decide click-through: a clean, well-lit product on white with the product filling the frame consistently beats lifestyle imagery in Shopping units, even where lifestyle wins in social feeds. Identifiers decide eligibility: missing GTINs, mismatched MPNs and unsubmitted variants remove products from auctions entirely, which shows up in reporting as low impression volume rather than as an error.
Separate brand from non-brand before you judge anything
Brand-term shopping traffic converts roughly twice as well as non-brand and costs less per click, so a blended report flatters the channel and hides which products actually acquire new customers. Split it — through query-level exclusions on standard shopping, or by reading the brand-versus-non-brand breakdown on Performance Max — and set separate targets. The ranges on this page are non-brand, which is the number you should scale against.
Price competitiveness quietly caps performance
Shopping shows the price in the ad, so the click decision is made against visible competitors before anyone reaches your site. Merchant Center's price competitiveness and best-sellers reports tell you where you sit; products more than about 10% above the market median tend to collect impressions and few clicks, dragging account-level click-through down. The fastest fix is usually merchandising rather than bidding: exclude uncompetitive SKUs, or bundle them so the comparison is not like-for-like.
Worked example: is a 3.2× ROAS profitable?
Take a furniture retailer at a 3.2× ROAS with a 42% gross margin. Every $100 of ad spend returns $320 of revenue, of which $134 is gross profit, leaving $34 of contribution after the media. That is profitable but thin — a two-point margin change or a 15% cost-per-click rise erases it. The break-even ROAS at a 42% margin is 1 divided by 0.42, or about 2.4×, so the retailer has roughly a 33% cushion above break-even. Run your own numbers before you copy any target from a benchmark table.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good ROAS for Google Shopping?
On non-brand traffic, 3×–5× is a healthy band for most retail categories in 2026. Compare it to your break-even ROAS — one divided by your gross margin — rather than to a universal target.
Why is my Shopping CTR low?
Usually feed rather than bidding: weak titles that match the wrong queries, images that do not fill the frame, or prices materially above the market median shown next to yours in the same results unit.
Should I run standard Shopping or Performance Max?
Performance Max generally wins on reach and automation but blends shopping with other inventory, so keep a brand-versus-non-brand breakdown and a stable feed if you want to read the numbers on this page against it.
Do GTINs really matter?
Yes. Missing or invalid identifiers reduce eligibility for many Shopping surfaces, and the loss appears as missing impressions rather than as a visible error, which makes it easy to overlook.
Sources
- 01Google Ads Benchmarks for Retail — WordStream / LocaliQRetail CTR, CPC and conversion-rate baselines.
- 02Product data specification — Google Merchant Center HelpTitle, identifier and image requirements referenced in the feed section.
- 03About Performance Max campaigns — Google Ads HelpInventory blending and reporting breakdowns.
- 04Ecommerce Market Data — IRP CommerceSector conversion rate used to sanity-check the table.