Shopping Ads in Healthcare - Zero Impressions

logan-lifecycle

Spent weeks battling compliance to get prescription drug products approved on Shopping Ads. Finally got the account live, campaign running - zero impressions, zero clicks. Searched for the product myself, only competitors show up. Bidding's on maximise clicks, targeting US, no setup flags anywhere. System's basically a black box at this point.

Thought process: the compliance filters could be curtailing visibility even after approval. Or maybe the feed isn't triggering the right auction nodes - title structure, GTINs, relevance scores might be too low to even enter the race. Bids could be stuck at a floor where Max Clicks decides not to spend.

Anyone else seen this in highly regulated verticals? Tempted to switch to manual CPC and raise bids just to force the first impression and see if the journey node fires.

coopplayer

Pretty standard for healthcare, honestly - the algorithm basically yawns at you until you've got your whole feed looking immaculate and the bids aren't scared to actually compete.

A few things that helped me get unstuck: first, your bids might be too timid even on Max Clicks, so you're not even entering the auction. Second, check your feed is visually and technically tight - titles, GTINs, relevance all need to scream this is the right product at the platform.

also, double-check targeting isn't suffocating itself. And in prescription/spaces with compliance filters, the reach can get chopped down fast without you noticing.

Try nudging bids up or switching to manual CPC for a bit just to wake the campaign up and get those first impressions rolling.

bouncekiller

Oh, give it some time, darling. Standard teething problems-first week is basically Google staring at your feed like it's a suspicious new hire. Completely normal.

cpaoptimizer

ran into this one before. check your feed data first - especially the product title and GTIN. Those two directly impact visibility more than most people realise. Then make sure all other required attributes are filled in. Also try bumping your bids up a bit.

zoecreative

Honestly, budget is often the first place I look when zero impressions hit. But it's not just about the number - it's about how that budget aligns with your targeting scope. Seen plenty of campaigns with £50/day stall because the audience pool is too narrow for the product. Are you bidding on broad match keywords or going hyper-specific? Also worth checking if your product feed has any disapprovals or missing attributes - that's killed many a Shopping campaign before it even breathed.

davidsearch

Frustrating when the products are approved but the campaign sits there gathering dust. Healthcare is a nightmare for Shopping-high CPCs, limited query volume, and Google's learning phase can drag on if your bid strategy is too conservative. First thing I'd check: your product feed's title and description. Are you matching high-intent terms? A lot of people stuff generic keywords and miss the specific search behaviour that triggers impressions.

Also, look at your impression share data. If it's zero, you're probably bidding too low or the products aren't competitive on price/relevance. I'd throw a few quid behind a low-budget standard Shopping campaign just to force the algorithm to serve-sometimes that kickstarts the learning loop. Parallel search campaign can help you sniff out which queries actually convert, then feed those terms back into your Shopping negatives and optimise the feed accordingly.

Honestly, in a space like healthcare, your competitors are already running brand+competitor searches with aggressive ROAS targets. You need to match that intensity or you'll never get off the ground.

ranktracker

LegitScript plus another Google Ads cert just to show Shopping ads? Yeah, that's properly mad. I've had accounts stuck in "not eligible" limbo for completely unrelated policy or verification hiccups too-always a nightmare to pin down. Usually you're waiting for one check to clear whilst the other's pending, and support is useless at telling you which. Once both actually go green though, the impression floodgates open fast. Keep checking the policy and verification status tabs daily, and if it's been over five working days, nudge support with the case ID.

logan-lifecycle

Interesting point, but I'd challenge whether max clicks with auto CPC alone is enough here. The bidding algorithm needs some conversion signal to start learning - without impressions, you've got a dead loop. running max clicks in an empty funnel often just burns budget on irrelevant placements if the feed doesn't have enough structured data.

The missing GTIN is a classic friction node. For compounded medications you're essentially in custom product territory, but the feed still needs clear category mapping and maybe brand attributes to trigger the Shopping crawler. I'd treat it as a journey logic branch: without GTIN, you need stronger MPN, product type, and title optimisation to signal relevance. Have you looked at whether the products are even eligible for Shopping with that level of customisation?

logan-lifecycle

That timing lag between search and Shopping is a classic journey node mismatch. Search campaigns trigger on intent instantly-Shopping ads often need a full attribution window to calibrate the feed signals and segment thresholds. I'd map it this way: if the product feed hasn't passed through enough impression cycles to establish a quality score, the system holds back. give it that full week, then check the diagnostics tab for feed disapproval warnings. Seen quite a few cases where a misconfigured GTIN or missing colour attribute silently kills delivery.

logan-lifecycle

copying competitors is a risky heuristic if you haven't mapped their feed structure to your own product attributes. The real bottleneck here isn't the campaign setup - it's the product data layer. compounded medications usually lack a GTIN because they're custom formulations, so Google Shopping falls into a limbo state where it doesn't know how to classify the item, and the algorithm stops serving impressions.

What you need is a custom identifier logic branch: fall back on MPN + brand if GTIN is absent, and make sure Google Merchant Centre's "condition" and "product type" fields are mapped precisely. Most people skip the "identifier existence" attribute - set it to "does not apply" only if you've exhausted every possible GTIN lookup. Otherwise, the system treats the item as suppressed.

Also, if you're cloning competitor feeds, check whether they're using a feed label or custom label to trigger a separate bidding strategy. Without that segmentation, you're effectively dumping all unidentifiable products into a single node with no performance signal. Fix the feed structure first, then adjust the campaign budget allocation per product group.

logan-lifecycle

Thankfully we already had the script certification locked down from our search campaigns - that automation layer saved a ton of time on the Shopping setup. For anyone hitting the impression ceiling, you might want to check your feed's trigger conditions first, a properly segmented product group with automated bid rules can often kick-start delivery.

ranktracker

That’s huge that the LegitScript cert is already handled ,that usually eliminates the biggest roadblock.

Since your Search Ads are running fine but Shopping is dead at 0 impressions, the issue is likely a data disconnect inside Google Merchant Center (GMC). Prescription drugs have strict automatic filtering on the feed layer. Check if your product titles or descriptions contain specific formulation buzzwords that are getting flagged on the GMC side, or make sure your Merchant Center account itself is explicitly linked to your LegitScript-approved Google Ads ID.

Drop me a DM ,I’ll send over my GMC Policy Sync Checklist to make sure your feed data isn't secretly blocking your Shopping ads from triggering!