Creating visibility for your products in Google Shopping ads can be challenging, and it’s not uncommon for the majority of products within a catalog to receive minimal visibility.

Many merchants notice that even with catalogs containing hundreds or thousands of products, only a small portion gets regular impressions, clicks, or conversions. This is a result of how Smart Bidding works in combination with auction dynamics and external factors like pricing or seasonality. At Producthero, we refer to these underperforming items as Zombie products: technically active in your campaigns but practically invisible to shoppers.

In this article, we’ll explore why this happens, how Zombie products are identified within the Producthero platform, and what you can do to bring these products back to life and improve their visibility.

How does a product get labeled as a Zombie?

In the Producthero platform, products are automatically labeled based on the Labelizer strategy you’ve set. The Labelizer groups products into four categories based on their ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), number of clicks, and the selected date range.

To determine the labels, the platform calculates the average ROAS and the total number of clicks within the selected period. Based on these benchmarks, each product is assigned one of the following labels:

• Heroes: High ROAS and high click volume; your top performers.
• Sidekicks: Converted well with relatively few clicks; your lucky shots.
• Villains: Products that receive clicks but do not generate profitable returns.
• Zombies: Products with little or no clicks and conversions. These items are the most in need of optimization to boost visibility and performance.

Why do so many products end up as Zombies?

Seeing 60% (or more) of your catalogue labelled as zombies is quite common, especially with larger catalogues. This is often caused by a combination of factors that influence product visibility in Shopping ads on Google.

Understanding what’s affecting your products will help you decide which ones to optimize, exclude, or promote, so you can gradually shift more items out of Zombie status.

1. Budget and Smart bidding limitations

With Smart Bidding strategies like Target ROAS, control over which products are shown is limited. Google’s algorithm allocates budget based on performance signals and predicted conversion potential, prioritizing products with a strong history of clicks and conversions.

If a catalog contains, for example, 20,000 products but the budget only allows for 10,000 clicks, Google won’t divide those clicks evenly. Instead, it gives most of the exposure to a small group of top performers. Many other products (especially new ones or those with little data) might not be shown at all. These will be labelled in the Producthero platform as Zombies, not because they perform badly, but because they actually never had the chance to perform.

2. Seasonal demand

Some products perform well only during certain times of the year. For example, items like pools, sunscreen, or outdoor furniture may do well in summer but quickly shift to Zombie status as seasons change.

During colder months or rainy weeks, search volume and purchase intent drop, leading to lower demand. Google’s Smart Bidding algorithm picks up on these patterns and reduces ad spend and visibility for such products accordingly.

3. Limited demand for specific variants

Even in high-performing product categories, demand isn’t spread evenly across all variants. For example, in a sneaker catalog, popular sizes like 42 or 43 often get consistent traffic and sales. However, less popular sizes (whether very small or very large) appeal to a narrower audience. These less common variants may rarely be shown in search results, receive fewer clicks, and eventually get labeled as Zombies.

4. Auction Dynamics

The way the Google Shopping auction works has a big impact on which products get shown and how often. Visibility is influenced by multiple factors, both within your control and shaped by the competition:

• Pricing: Products priced above the market average are less competitive. Google takes price into account when ranking ads, so higher prices can push products out of top positions.
• Feed quality: Google relies on your product feed to match your items to user searches. Missing or unclear titles, descriptions, or attributes reduce relevance scores, and lower visibility.
• Sales and promotions: Competitors running promotions will often outrank you. Sale prices help improve ad ranking and increase click-through rates by displaying special annotations (like discounts or “on sale” tags), which can make your offer appear less attractive in comparison.
• Competitive bidding: If competitors raise their bids, they gain a larger share of impressions. You may find your products showing less often or only in low-visibility placements as a result.
• Reviews and seller ratings: Low product or store ratings can negatively affect visibility. Google factors in seller reputation when ranking Shopping ads.
• Brand recognition: Well-known brands often attract more clicks. Smaller or lesser-known retailers may struggle to compete, leading to lower engagement and reduced ad visibility.

How to reduce the number of Zombie products

Seeing a high percentage of zombie products in your account can be alarming, but it is actually quite common when working with large catalogs, limited budgets, and automated bidding strategies. The good news is that there are several ways to reduce them and give more products the opportunity to perform, depending on your specific goals and setup:

Adjust the Labelizer thresholds

Tweaking the settings in Producthero’s Labelizer can help reduce Zombie counts. Lowering the minimum click threshold, for example, will allow more products to qualify as Sidekicks or Heroes.

Note: Be careful not to set thresholds too low. This can result in more products being labeled as Villains, since they’ll need to meet your ROAS target with fewer clicks. Always check the label distribution in the Producthero platform after making adjustments to ensure your campaign structure remains well balanced.

Target specific product groups 

You can also reduce the number of Zombies by focusing on specific product groups. For example, consider creating a dedicated Labelizer strategy for a seasonal category that’s experiencing high demand, e.g. “pools” in summer. This approach lets you temporarily boost the visibility of products that are more likely to convert due to increased interest, without needing to adjust your strategy for the entire catalog.

Create smaller, more targeted zombie groups

Running a single campaign that includes all of your Zombie products is usually not effective. When too many products are grouped together, budget and bids are divided across too many products, making it difficult for all of them to gain visibility.

Instead, consider breaking your Zombie group into smaller, more strategic segments. You can do this by applying filters like brand, category, or profit margin, along with the Zombie label. This improves budget control and gives each group a better chance to gain visibility.

Optimize your feed attributes

Improving your product data is one of the most effective ways to boost visibility. Improve product titles, descriptions, and product types to match relevant search terms, just like keywords in search ads. Tools like Products AI can help automate this process by enriching your feed with data that matches shopper behavior, making your listings more competitive and visible.

Boost based on historical performance

If a Zombie product has performed well during previous peak periods, consider setting up a temporary boost campaign. For example, if you sell heaters that are currently labeled as Zombies during the summer, you can move them into a separate campaign with adjusted bids and budgets just before winter.

Temporarily excluding these products from the Labelizer logic gives them room to perform when demand rises, without being held back by their current label. 

Use GA4 or back-end data

Reviewing sales performance from other channels (such as organic search, direct traffic, or email marketing) can help you spot products that are performing well outside of paid campaigns. If any of these are currently labeled as Zombies in your Shopping campaigns, they may be worth a second look. These insights can help you prioritize which Zombies deserve more exposure and investment.

Exclude unsuitable products

Some products are simply not a good fit for Shopping ads. This includes very low-priced items (such as products under €1), custom-made furniture, or premium items that require personal consultation before purchase.

Removing these products from your product feed helps reduce clutter, simplifies campaign management, and allows Google to concentrate on products with higher commercial value. It also makes large feeds easier to manage and helps your campaigns move through the learning phase faster by focusing on products that are more likely to convert.

Review your pricing strategy

Since Google Shopping is a price comparison engine, your product’s price has a big impact on both visibility and click-through rate. Temporarily lowering the price of underperforming products (or using sale price annotations) can make your offer more competitive. This often increases click-through rate, which in turn can improve visibility and help lift zombie products into better-performing categories.

You can use Producthero Price Benchmark tool to identify Zombie products that are currently priced above the market average, and adjust your pricing accordingly to give them a better chance to perform.

Boost your shopping ads performance with Producthero

Having a large number of Zombie products doesn’t mean something is wrong with your campaign, it’s common when working with automated bidding and large product catalogs. Producthero Labelizer helps identify these low-performing items so they can be grouped, excluded, or given a better chance to succeed.
With the right approach, like smarter segmentation, feed optimization, seasonal boosts, and pricing strategy, many Zombie products can be revived and start performing again, even becoming Sidekicks or Heroes over time.