If Google Ads receives revenue as conversion value, Smart Bidding maximizes revenue — not the money you keep.
For Magento merchants with uneven margins, free shipping and refunds, that is the wrong objective.
The problem with revenue conversions
Two Magento orders can both be €100:
- Order A: COGS €30, shipping cost €0 pass-through → healthy
- Order B: COGS €70, free shipping cost €9, high fee method → weak or negative
Google sees €100 = €100. It will happily buy more traffic that looks like Order B if that traffic converts easily.
What profit-valued conversions mean
Instead of uploading order grand total, upload a value closer to order gross profit after Magento COGS (and ideally after shipping cost / fees you can compute at upload time).
Then bidding learns:
> get more of the clicks that produce contribution, not just checkouts
This is still not perfect net profit after every expense — but it is dramatically better than raw revenue.
Magento prerequisites
Before upload quality matters:
- Reliable order + gclid / wbraid / gbraid capture (pixel Purchase matching)
- Honest COGS (watch bundle parents at €0 cost)
- A clear rule for refunds (do not keep valuing fully refunded orders as winners) — cash vs cohort
- Google Ads conversion action configured for upload click conversions
Without COGS coverage, you are just uploading a different vanity number.
A careful rollout
- Keep your existing purchase conversion for reporting continuity
- Add a new conversion action: e.g. Verid Gross Profit
- Upload profit values for recent click-attributed Magento orders
- Observe differences in campaign preference for 1–2 weeks
- Only then shift bidding primary to the profit action
Do not rip out revenue conversions on day one. Let Google learn the new signal. Context: POAS vs ROAS.
What Verid does here
Verid connects Google Ads via OAuth (why the consent text is scary), syncs spend into Magento-store-timezone P&L, and can upload click conversion values based on order gross profit when you enable it.
It does not edit campaigns, budgets or creatives — it feeds a better number into the account you already run.
Guardrails
- Exclude or reverse value for refunded orders when your process allows
- Cap extreme values so one wholesale B2B order does not distort learning
- Monitor zero-COGS share so uploads do not treat free kits as 100% margin
- Starter/Growth merchants: connect Google first, fix COGS second, enable upload third
Bottom line
Google will optimize whatever you measure.
If you measure Magento revenue, you grow revenue-shaped traffic. If you measure contribution, you grow contribution-shaped traffic.
For Magento brands paying real COGS and real carriers, that difference is the business.