Is Google Ads worth it for a new brand? Not until people trust you.

I get asked this a lot by people launching something new.

Short answer: yes, eventually. Not on day one.

Running an online shop is a bit like learning chess. The moves aren’t the hard bit. Anyone can learn which way the knight goes. The hard bit is that you can do eight things well, and if two critical things are missing, you’ve got no chance.

Ads don’t fix the missing two. They just make you pay to find out about them.

A good-looking ad doesn’t prove anything any more.

Three years ago, a slick ad told you something. It meant the brand had money, which usually meant it had spent some of it on the product as well.

Now anyone in their bedroom can make elite-level ads. Same with the website. A decent Shopify theme and some nice photography gets you something that looks like a proper shop in an afternoon.

So the polish proves nothing. What’s left is trust. Is this real? Has anyone else bought it? Is it any good?

For a new brand, I’d say that matters more than anything else in ecommerce at the minute.

If you’re selling Nike, Nike’s done the work for you.

Selling other people’s brands and selling your own are different jobs.

Stock Nike and Adidas and they’ve already done the brand building. Everyone knows what the trainers are. All you’ve got to be is competitive on price.

Launch your own and nobody knows anything. Is it any good? Why does it cost more than the one on Amazon? Who are you?

Search your product on Google Shopping. If a cheap import comes up at a quarter of the price, your customer’s going to find it too. The only reason to pay you more is one you’ve given them.

Is a dropshipping test worth it before you launch?

“Test the market with dropshipping first.” It’s advice doing the rounds, and I get the logic. Don’t commit to stock until you know people want it.

The problem is what you’re actually testing. Put a generic, unbranded version of your product in front of people, with no reviews and no story, and you’ll find out whether people want a generic, unbranded product from someone they’ve never heard of.

Mostly, they don’t. That’s a false negative. It tells you nothing about the thing you’re actually going to sell.

Ecommerce and ads are hard enough with a genuine product. I’d skip the test and put that time into the real launch.

“Just copy the ads that are spending the most.”

The theory goes: find the competitor ads with the biggest budgets behind them, because they must be working, and make your own versions.

That might hold if you’re reselling the same stuff they are. If you’re building a brand, you’ve just made yourself look like the brand you’re trying to beat. It doesn’t work in 2026.

Same with the fake bits. “50,000 happy customers” on a site that launched last month. Reviews from people who don’t exist. People are smart. You won’t fool enough of them to get enough people through the checkout to make money.

And since April 2025, fake reviews and reviews that hide an incentive are banned in the UK outright.

Your story is the one thing nobody can copy.

Most new brands have something nobody else has. Where it’s made. Who makes it. Why it exists at all. The question customers keep asking that nobody’s answering properly.

I’ve built a million crappy landing pages over the years. Everyone in ecommerce has. The ones that worked had something real on them.

And by brand, I don’t mean the logo, the colours or the name. I mean everything that makes someone believe it. If you can’t say what makes yours different in one sentence, that’s the first job. Before the ads, before the website.

A brand specialist can help with that. So can a properly structured AI prompt. Asking a chatbot to “make me a brand” won’t.

Get 20 to 25 real reviews before you spend on ads.

You don’t need hundreds. 20 to 25 is enough to start.

Friends and family who’ll actually use it are the obvious first batch. Send them the product through your own shop with a 100% discount code, so it goes through as a real order and the review is tied to it.

Then label it. If you gave someone the product, the review has to say so. Hiding that is what the rules ban.

Use a proper third-party review app rather than a widget you fill in yourself. Reviews.io and Judge.me both do it, and both will email the customer a couple of days after delivery to ask what they thought. A photo or a video of the thing in someone’s actual house beats any amount of text.

After that, gifting to people you don’t know is the next step. There are networks that match products with creators who’ll post about them in exchange for the product. Last time I used one, about 70 in every 100 posted something. I haven’t done it for a couple of years, so treat that as a ballpark, not a promise.

Launch one product, not your whole range.

The instinct is to launch everything and see what sells. That means every product needs a page good enough to send ad traffic to, and on a launch budget none of them get there.

Pick one product. Make it one offer, ideally a bundle or a gift set. Build one page for it that answers every question a stranger would have. Send the ads there.

Once that’s selling, do the next one.

Don’t send strangers to your homepage.

Someone who’s never heard of you, arriving on a homepage with eight products, is lost. Which one? What’s the difference? What do I actually need?

For gift searches especially, I’d rather send them to a few questions. Who’s it for? What do they already like? Any pets or kids in the house? Three or four questions and they end up at one answer: “Right, you want this one and these two. £70. Checkout’s here.”

You’ve helped them make the decision, which is a lot easier than asking them to make it on their own.

Somebody searching “gifts for her under £50” isn’t looking for your About page.

Your first customers are the most expensive ones you’ll ever buy.

Ballpark, on one launch order:

Nobody knows who you are yet, so winning a customer costs the most right at the start.

It gets cheaper. Once people have bought and reviewed, the ads have something to show, and the next customer costs less to win.

But go in knowing the sums, and know what the second order is. A refill, a subscription, the next product. That’s where the money is.

So, is Google Ads worth it for a new brand?

Yes, once there’s something worth sending people to. One product, a page built for it, a reason to believe you, and some reviews from real people.

Before that, I could tell you to spend £30 a day and let me manage it. It won’t work. I’d rather tell you that now than take your money for three months and tell you then.

And leave yourself time. I plan Black Friday campaigns in July.

If you’re not sure whether you’re there yet, that’s what the free 20 minutes is for. If I think it’s too early, I’ll tell you. That’s a few hundred quid in ads you haven’t spent yet.