Heroes, Sidekicks, Villains & Zombies: Collin Slattery on Google Shopping

Collin Slattery (Taikun Digital) joins Brad and Andrew for a no-fluff breakdown of why Google Ads breaks the brain of most DTC operators who cut their teeth on Meta. The core argument lands early and lands hard: your relationship with Google is structurally adversarial in a way your relationship with Meta isn't, because Google can't manufacture more search inventory the way Meta manufactures more feed inventory. The only lever they have to grow revenue is extracting more from advertisers, which means every default setting, every recommendation, and every "AI enhancement" is built to serve them first. From that foundation, Collin walks through the operational stack that actually works: ruthlessly segmenting brand from non-brand across both search and shopping, building a real product feed instead of plugging Shopify into Merchant Center and calling it done, structuring shopping into heroes, sidekicks, villains, and zombies, and treating YouTube Shorts as the only YouTube placement worth touching unless you're running holdout tests. Along the way he drops a study Tyken ran across roughly $20M in spend showing that hidden search terms cost advertisers about $0.85 of efficiency per dollar spent, the case for YouTube being the single most incremental channel in digital (87% net-new traffic for one of his nine-figure clients, plus 34 million Americans reachable nowhere else), and a hard truth that Google scaling is brick-by-brick, never one banger creative away. If you've ever wondered why your Google account "kind of works but never really scales," this is the episode that explains exactly why and exactly what to do about it. Key Takeaways How your "5x Google ROAS" is actually just brand search dragging a broken non-brand campaign across the finish line. How much of your Google spend is being skimmed by search terms Google won't let you see. Why your relationship with Google is fundamentally adversarial. How to reach 34 million potential customers that literally cannot be reached on Meta or TikTok. If you're not running holdout tests, 90% of your YouTube dollars are likely going to the wrong placement. The four shopping campaign buckets every brand over $1M should be using, and the one that is silently eating 80% of your budget. Could this one setting be making your entire Google account non-incremental without you knowing? Why Google scaling looks nothing like Meta scaling and what it actually means for your monthly growth curve. The $50/month tool that fixes the feed quality issue almost every Shopify brand is silently losing money on. When paying for brand search actually makes sense   This episode of the Scalability School podcast is sponsored by NorthBeam and they just launched Northbeam Incrementality. Northbeam Incrementality gives you easy, automated, self-service incrementality tests, while protecting you from the major mistakes so many people make while running incrementality tests. Your MTA handles the daily tactics, your MMM guides the long-term planning, and Incrementality provides the causal truth. It's a closed loop that allows you to scale what works and cut what doesn't. Right now when you head over to www.northbeam.io/incrementality, they're offering Scalability School listeners 50% off unlimited tests for a year when you join. Just tell them we sent you! To connect with Collin, send him a DM at https://x.com/CJSlattery or at: https://taikundigital.com/ To connect with Andrew Foxwell send an email [email protected] To connect with Brad Ploch send him a DM at https://x.com/brad_ploch To connect with Zach Stuck send him a DM at https://x.com/zachmstuck   Learn More about the Foxwell Founders Community at https://foxwellfounders.com/ Learn More about the The Hive Haus Creators Community at http://HiveHausUGC.com