Guides · Online stores
Why Are My Sales Down? Five Checks to Run Before You Change the Ads
By Josh Croom · October 27, 2026 · 10 min read
When online sales drop, check your store first and your ads last. A broken checkout, a sold-out best seller or a slow season can each look like an ad problem, so run five checks in order before anyone rewrites a single ad.
Three guesses before coffee
Monday, 8:05 AM. Sales were down last week, and the Monday meeting turns into a round of guesses around the table. One person wants new ads, another blames the new website theme, and the owner thinks it's the weather.
Nobody has checked a thing yet. By Wednesday the ads have new headlines, a sale is running and the theme is half rolled back. Sales come back a week later, and nobody on the team can say which change helped or whether anything had broken at all.
What a normal week looks like
Before you hunt for a cause, find out how much sales move in an ordinary week. We read six months of ad sales on three of our store accounts, and five store feeds in Merchant Center, to see how often sales dip and how often stock runs out.
- 33%of weeks, ad sales fell 20% or more below the week beforethree store accounts, March 30 to September 27, 2026
- 7%of products were marked out of stockfive store feeds, read October 13, 2026
One bad week is normal, and two or three in a row are worth a closer look. Run the five checks either way, since a broken checkout or a sold-out best seller costs you sales every day it waits, but hold off on changing the ads until you know the cause.
Why online sales go down
A drop in online sales can start in six places, and only the last one is the ads.
- A broken checkout stops buyers at the last step, whether a payment app updated, a discount code stopped working or a shipping rate went wrong.
- A sold-out best seller drops out of Shopping ads, so one of the products you sell most stops showing to the people searching for it.
- A change in season moves demand for what you sell up and down through the year, and when every source drops at once while the checkout still works, the calendar is the first suspect.
- A change in the store can change what buyers do, whether it's new prices, a new theme, a new app or a new shipping rule. A checkout change can also stop the ads from counting sales at all.
- A product Google switched off in Merchant Center stops showing in Shopping ads, and Google turns off an item when the price or stock in your feed doesn't match your store's page.
- A change in the ads can lower sales too, whether it's a budget cut, a paused campaign or a new bid setting, and each one shows up in the change history inside Google Ads.
The five checks, in order
The first checks are fast, and they catch the problems that cost the most. Write down what you find as you go, so the next person who looks at the drop doesn't have to start from zero.
Check 1
Place a real order
Use your phone and a real card, and try a discount code too, because a broken code stops a buyer at the very last step. Then refund the order and note the time, so you can check that Google Analytics recorded the sale and your ad tag fired on the thank-you page.
Check 2
Check stock on your top ten sellers
Open your ten best sellers and check that each one is in stock in the sizes and colors people buy most. A product marked out of stock drops out of Shopping ads, so one sold-out best seller can look exactly like an ad problem.
Check 3
Compare every traffic source
In Google Analytics, compare sales from email, social, search and ads with last week and with the same weeks last year. When every source fell together, the season is the likely cause. When only the ads fell, move on to the next check, because the problem sits somewhere between your store and Google.
Check 4
List what changed in your store
Write down every change your team made in the last month to prices, apps, the theme, checkout or shipping. A checkout change can stop the ads from counting sales, which means your real sales may be fine while the report says they fell.
Check 5
Open Merchant Center
Look for products Google flagged or switched off, and read the reason Google gives next to each one. Fix the price, stock or link in your store, and your feed carries the fix to Google on its next update.
What the first check can turn up
A test order on your phone can turn up a broken discount code in a few minutes, before anyone touches the ads.
Sales were way down last week. Should we change the ads?
Not yet. I just placed a test order on my phone with the fall code.
The code throws an error at checkout. Fixing it now, then I'll check stock.
Check the checkout before anything else
Buyers leave at checkout for reasons you can usually see and fix yourself. Baymard Institute surveyed US online shoppers about why they left an order. Leaving out the ones who were just browsing, 40% left over extra costs like shipping, tax and fees, and 17% left because the site had errors or crashed.
A shipping rate that jumped would turn away buyers from every source at once. So would a discount code that fails or a payment step that won't load, and the ad report can't tell you about any of them until someone tries to buy. Place the order on a phone while you're logged out, so you see the store the way a new buyer sees it.
Guessing, or checking first
What guessing looks like
- New ad headlines go up on Monday.
- A sale starts on Tuesday, before anyone knows the cause.
- The theme gets rolled back on Wednesday.
- Nobody can tell which change helped.
What finds the cause
- A test order goes through in the first ten minutes.
- Stock and Merchant Center get checked the same morning.
- Every source gets compared with last week and last year.
- One fix goes in at a time, once the cause is clear.
Fill this in each week
Keep this table next to your weekly numbers and fill it in every Monday. Two or three weeks of it will show you whether a drop is a blip or a trend, and it gives everyone in the meeting the same facts.
| Check | This week | Last week |
|---|---|---|
| Orders in your store | ____ | ____ |
| Orders from email, social and search | ____ | ____ |
| Top sellers out of stock or flagged | ____ | ____ |
| What changed in the store | ____ | ____ |
When the store checks out
Start with the season. Look up what you sell in Google Trends, which scales search interest from 0 to 100 based on each topic's share of all searches. If interest in your products dips at this time every year, give it a few weeks before you change anything in the ads.
If the season doesn't explain it, open the change history in Google Ads. It lists the changes made to your account, campaigns and ad groups over the past two years, like a paused campaign or an earlier budget, and it shows who made each one. A budget cut from two weeks ago can explain a drop that feels sudden.
Then read the search terms report for your Shopping and search campaigns, because new searches from people who will never buy can soak up the budget. Our search terms study shows what we learned from the search terms in our own accounts, and our PPC audit checklist walks through tracking, search terms and settings one at a time.
Is it the store or the ads?
Answer four quick questions about your store this week. Your answers stay on your screen.
Did a test order go through this week on a phone, with a discount code?
Are all of your top ten sellers in stock?
Does Merchant Center show no new flagged or switched-off products?
Has your store stayed the same for the last month, from prices to checkout?
Your store checks out, which means the season and the ads are next. If last year shows the same dip, give it two or three weeks before you change anything, and if it doesn't, open the change history in Google Ads.
Something in your store needs a closer look. Start with the first question you answered No, because that's the most likely place the drop began.
Fix the store before you touch the ads. Place a test order first, since a broken checkout stops every sale from every source at the same time.
The Monday-morning checklist
Tick each one off as you go. Your ticks stay on this device.
0 of 7 done
How we help when sales drop
When we run a store's Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, we set up or fix your product feed in Merchant Center and set up tracking, so you can see which orders came from your ads. Open Spots Store is $997 every 4 weeks, plus a $1,997 build paid once, or $0 on the 13-cycle plan. You'll find every fee we charge on our pricing page.
If your sales dipped and you'd like a second set of eyes, book a call with Miguel. He'll ask what changed in your store and talk through which check to run first.
Questions people ask
Why are my online sales down all of a sudden?
Start with the store, because a broken checkout, a sold-out best seller or a store change can each cut sales overnight. If the store checks out, compare every source with last year to see if it's the season, then read the change history in Google Ads.
How do I know if a sales drop is seasonal?
Compare every source, like email, search and ads, with the same weeks last year. If they all fell together and last year shows the same dip, it's likely the season, and Google Trends shows whether searches for what you sell dip at this time each year.
Can out-of-stock products hurt my Google Shopping sales?
Yes. A product marked out of stock drops out of Shopping ads, so a sold-out best seller can cut the sales your ads bring in. Fix the stock in your store, and your feed carries the change to Google on its next update.
Should I run a sale when sales are slow?
Not until you know what caused the drop. A sale changes the very numbers you need to find the cause, and buyers who get used to discounts learn to wait for the next one before they order.
How long should I wait before I change my ads?
Give it two or three weeks unless a check turns up something broken. On our store accounts, ad sales fell 20% or more below the week before in about one week in three, so one bad week doesn't prove anything broke.
See how we run ads for online stores
Read next
- AI for Contractors: Get the Quotes and Texts Off Your Kitchen TableHow a trade business can use AI for quotes, texts and job notes while keeping every price its own.
- AI for Ecommerce: What an Online Store Should Hand Off FirstWhere AI saves an online store real hours, what stays with a person, and Google's rule for AI titles.
- AI for Small Business: Give It the Busywork, Keep the PeopleHand AI the follow-ups, quotes and call notes that fill your week, and keep a person on every final send.