# Stop low-margin products eating Shopping spend

> Low-margin products can take a large share of your Google Shopping budget. Connect Shopify, Google Ads and Merchant Center, ask Claude to work out margin per product after cost and shipping and compare it with each product's share of Shopping spend. Label products by margin in your feed and bid less on the thin ones.

Type: Play (a chance to grow)
Run it: Quarterly
Source: https://gooseworks.ai/playbooks/stop-low-margin-products-eating-shopping-budget

## 1. Connect

Give your AI assistant read-only access to Shopify, Google Ads and Merchant Center.

## 2. Ask

```text
Using product cost in Shopify, work out the margin on each product after cost and shipping. Then show each product's share of Google Shopping spend for the last 90 days. Flag products with under 15% margin that take a large share of spend.
```

## 3. Act

Label products by margin in your feed and bid less on the thin ones.

## Steps

1. Connect Shopify, Google Ads and Merchant Center read-only through a Claude connector or MCP server, or export product costs and Shopping reports and upload them.
2. Ask the playbook prompt to work out margin per product and flag thin-margin products taking a large share of spend.
3. Check that product cost is filled in correctly in Shopify. Missing costs make the result guesswork.
4. Add a margin label in your feed and lower bids on thin-margin products in steps, with a review date.
5. Compare Shopping spend share and profit after the change with the prior period, and re-run each quarter.

## What it tends to find

22 products under 15% margin took 30% of Shopping spend. (Illustrative example, not a result from a named store.)

## Watch out

Product cost must be filled in correctly in Shopify, or this is guesswork.

## FAQ

### How do I label products by margin in Merchant Center?

Use a custom label field in your product feed, for example high, mid and low margin. You can then split Shopping or Performance Max campaigns by that label and set different targets.

### What if my product costs are not in Shopify?

Fill them in first, or supply a cost sheet. Without real costs, the margin math is a guess and may push budget the wrong way.

### Should I stop advertising low-margin products?

Not always. Some bring in new customers who go on to buy more later. Lower bids first and watch total profit, not just Shopping return, before cutting further.

### Can ChatGPT or Grok run the same analysis?

Yes. Any assistant that can read your product costs and Shopping spend can run this prompt, either through a connection or from exported product and campaign reports.