Pay per click advertising is one form of Internet marketing that can help e-commerce businesses get new traffic to their sites to increase sales. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of types of pay per click advertising methods with mixed results. I’ve found that some simply aren’t worth either the high cost that you pay per click or that they take too much time out of your day when you consider how much you actually make with them.

That doesn’t mean that all pay per click advertising isn’t worthwhile. I’ve had great success with Product Listing Ads, which are also sometimes called Google Shopping Ads. In my experience, they work incredibly well, and my site has gotten a lot of business through them. Still, you can’t expect to just put up any Product Listing Ad and end up with clicks and sales. You need to be smart about how you create your ads and structure your campaigns. Here are some tips for success that I’ve used to make Product Listing Ads profitable:

1. Increase the Amount of Your Bid.

If you’re looking for the simplest, most surefire way to get more clicks on Product Listing Ads, you can simply increase the amount of your bid. When your bid size is higher, you’re more likely to rank in first place for your chosen keywords. That means that your product will be displayed more often, and you’ll have more of an opportunity to get clicks. Of course, not even small e-commerce business can afford to pay more per click for their Product Listing Ads, so you may need to try one of the other methods that I’m about to explain.

2. Incorporate More Products.

A lot of e-commerce store owners try to start with just one or two Product Listing Ads because they want to see how it works, but this isn’t always the best strategy. Including more products gives you more opportunities to appear in search engine results when users are typing in searches in Google. Try adding different types of products, so that you have a diverse assortment of items being advertised through Product Listing Ads. The more products that you have, the more chances you’ll have to show up in the listings.

3. Use Negative Keywords.

Do you find that you get a lot of clicks on your Product Listing Ads but not a lot of sales from those referrals? If this is happening to you, the problem is likely that you’re getting a lot of irrelevant search traffic. I’ve found that the easiest way to solve this problem is to use as many negative keywords as possible. A negative keyword is a term that keeps your item from showing in the search results. For example, let’s say that your site only sells socks for women. Maybe you’ve bid on the keyword socks, but you’re getting traffic from people looking for men’s socks and socks for kids. You could add negative keywords like “men,” “boys” and “girls” to keep your ads from being displayed when users are looking for socks in sizes you don’t sell.

4. Go Mobile.

More people are using mobile devices to buy products, so you should make sure that your campaigns are set up to display on mobile devices as well as computers. It’s usually not worth it to market a campaign only to mobile users unless you’re selling something that’s typically purchased and downloaded on a phone or tablet–like a web app or e-book, but having mobile ads lumped in with your Product Listing Ads could give you a small boost in clicks.