What public Google case studies reveal about ecommerce growth

Key takeaways

• A campaign can create demand before it asks for a transaction; branded search, consideration, and re-engagement need different measures.
• First-party audiences become more useful when the landing path and product feed give people a relevant next step.
• On mobile, a lower-friction path to the right product or app experience can be as important as the media that brings a visitor there.

The useful question is not ‘what channel wins?’

The more useful question is where a customer loses confidence or momentum. A video campaign, a product listing, a retargeting audience, and a checkout flow can each play a role, but they should not be measured as if they solve the same job.

For an ecommerce team, this means documenting the decision path: how a person first encounters the offer, what helps them compare it, what brings them back, and what makes the final action easier.

Public example: Ounass and the full-funnel fit

Google describes Ounass as a regional luxury fashion and beauty ecommerce platform. Its public case study outlines a fall/winter campaign that combined YouTube formats, Demand Gen, Shorts, first-party remarketing audiences, and Shopping Campaigns. Google says the campaign reached a large regional audience, then used dedicated Shopping Campaigns to re-engage people who had visited or interacted with the video activity.

The strategic lesson is not to copy the media mix. It is to decide in advance which signals belong to demand creation, which belong to consideration, and which can justify a conversion-oriented follow-up.

• Separate reach and attention measures from sales or profit measures.
• Make re-engagement audiences specific to a meaningful action, not simply ‘all visitors’.
• Align product feeds, landing pages, and creative language before increasing spend.

Public example: Shopee and purchase-path friction

Google’s Shopee case study focuses on deep links: connecting a web destination to the matching place in an app. The source says that the share of shopping traffic landing in the app moved from about 20% to 50%, and Google reports a 126% increase in checkouts associated with the change. That figure is a case-specific relative result, not a forecast for another business.

The broader point is that a customer should not have to repeat a search or restart a journey after they have expressed intent. E-commerce teams should inspect every handoff between ad, landing page, product page, app, cart, and follow-up message.

• Check whether mobile visitors land in the most useful place for their task.
• Reduce duplicate search, login, and product-selection steps.
• Use controlled testing when possible before attributing business impact to a change.

A practical planning checklist

Before launching a campaign, make a one-page map that names the target audience, message, source of proof, landing path, primary conversion, and the post-click action that will be measured. Then identify the weakest link in that sequence.

If the store is unclear or difficult to manage, fix the digital foundation before expecting media to compensate for it. Our ecommerce setup and website management work is designed to connect those parts of the journey.

• What is the one job this campaign should help a customer complete?
• What proof belongs on the landing page before the customer is asked to act?
• What will tell the team that the journey, not just the ad, is improving?

Sources

1. Google / Think with Google: Ounass full-funnel marketing case study
2. Google / Think with Google: Shopee deep-link case study

Keep reading