Blue42 Guides · Running the shop

Google Ads for coffee shops: what actually worked for ours

Matt Powers· Calioh CoffeeTen years operating · more than fifty locations assessedUpdated October 2026

I run Google Ads for our coffee shop, and I've learned that the way you run a campaign for a brand-new café shouldn't be the same way you run one for a shop that's been open for years.

People want to jump straight to conversions and return on ad spend. I understand that. But if Google doesn't have enough reliable data to know which searches turn into real customers, you're asking it to optimize for something it can't measure very well yet.

Here's how I'd approach it, using what we actually saw in our own account.

You need customers before Google can learn much about your customers

When a shop is new, Google can usually tell you whether someone clicked an ad. It may also have signals like calls or direction requests, if you've set those up.

What it may not have is enough useful conversion data to reliably connect those clicks to store visits, orders, or actual sales.

As the business gets busier and your tracking improves, you have more information to work with. That's when conversion-focused bidding starts to make more sense.

So I'd think about advertising in stages instead of assuming the most advanced campaign setup is automatically the right one.

Here are the numbers from our café

These are our Google Search campaign results during different periods:

Those are meaningful changes, but there's an important caveat: we added store visits as a tracked conversion in May 2026. That changes what's counted as a conversion, so you can't treat the before-and-after cost-per-conversion figures like they're measuring exactly the same thing.

And here's another distinction worth making: a Google Ads conversion is not automatically a sale.

I'd rather be clear about that than throw around impressive-looking numbers without explaining what they measure.

If you're opening a new coffee shop, start with your Google Business Profile

Before worrying about ads, make sure Google has a good reason to trust that your business exists where you say it does.

Don't rush to set up a profile for a shop that doesn't have the physical business information Google needs for verification. Get the basics in order:

• Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your signage. Don't stuff extra keywords into it.
• Have an actual entrance sign and posted hours.
• Put up a website or landing page with your name, location, hours, menu, photos, and ordering link.
• Choose an accurate primary business category, such as Coffee shop.
• Add useful photos of the storefront, entrance, menu, drinks, and interior.
• Make it easy for customers to find your review link, and train your team to ask for honest reviews without pressuring anyone.

Google may ask for video verification. That can mean showing the street and building, your sign, entrance, posted hours, and the inside of the business in one continuous recording. Check Google's current verification instructions before filming.

This stuff isn't glamorous, but it's foundational.

For the first 90 days, I'd keep the ads pretty simple

I'm not trying to reach every person on the internet. I'm trying to reach people nearby who are actively looking for something my shop sells.

For a new café, here's a conservative starting setup I'd test:

• Start with a Search campaign, rather than turning on every available campaign type.
• Keep Search Partners and Display expansion off initially so you can see what your core Search traffic is doing.
• Target a reasonably tight area around the shop and show ads during the hours that make sense for your operation.
• Start with a manageable budget. One campaign we launched began at $10–$20 per day.
• Use phrase and exact match keywords while you're learning which searches are valuable, rather than opening everything up immediately.
• Begin with click-focused bidding and cost controls, where the available campaign settings support it, until you have useful conversion data.

Think about what people are actually searching for: “coffee near me,” “latte,” “matcha,” “cold brew,” or coffee near a specific neighborhood or landmark.

And pay attention to negative keywords. You probably don't want to pay for someone searching for coffee shop jobs, commercial espresso-machine repairs, or free drink recipes.

One caution: negative keywords can sometimes block searches you actually want, especially if they were inherited from an old campaign or added without much thought. Review the search terms before you start adding exclusions everywhere.

At this stage, I'm trying to learn what brings relevant people to the shop without wasting money.

Once you've got data, stop paying for the wrong traffic

A few months in, I would spend a lot of time reviewing the search terms report.

Which searches are getting clicks? Which ones are actually leading to useful actions? Are you paying for people looking for something you don't sell?

Also make sure the language in your search keywords, ads, landing page, and Business Profile is consistent. You don't want someone searching for a nearby coffee shop clicking an ad that leads to a confusing page with no clear address, hours, or menu.

Once tracking is reliable and you have a meaningful, consistent volume of conversions, you can evaluate switching to Maximize Conversions or another conversion-focused bidding strategy. You'll hear rules of thumb around 20–30 meaningful conversions per month as a starting point, but that's not a universal eligibility rule or guarantee of performance. The quality of the conversion data matters at least as much as the count.

And don't count every little website interaction as an equally valuable conversion. Direction requests, meaningful calls, online orders, and eligible store-visit reporting are much more useful than a random page view.

Morning and afternoon are two different businesses

This was an interesting lesson for us.

Someone searching for coffee on their way to work may have a totally different intention from someone searching at 2 p.m. for matcha, cold brew, or a place to sit down.

We split our morning and afternoon campaigns so we could give them different keywords, budgets, and messaging. That lets us make decisions about each daypart instead of treating every hour as if the customer is the same.

I'm not suggesting everyone needs that exact structure on day one. But once you have enough traffic, it's worth looking at whether different times of day deserve different approaches.

Don't take Google's store-visit numbers as gospel

Google's reported store visits are modeled estimates, not a count of receipts at your register.

Eligibility depends on factors like location assets, sufficient traffic and visits, and the regions where the feature is available. Google doesn't publish a simple minimum number that guarantees you'll qualify. And those reports can lag, so a change you make today isn't something I'd judge tomorrow morning.

Use store visits as one signal. Just don't confuse a modeled visit with a verified purchase.

Look at your POS data before you claim the ads are working

At some point, you have to get past clicks and conversions and ask a simple question:

Are these ads actually bringing us more business?

Look at sales, transactions, average order, and new customers in your POS. Compare periods carefully, and account for seasonality, promotions, staffing, and anything else that changed.

Once a campaign is established and you're spending meaningful money, one way to test its incremental impact is a controlled holdout: reduce or pause spend for a defined period and compare what happens with an appropriate baseline or control. A simple before-and-after test is imperfect, especially in a seasonal business, but it can expose when you're paying for traffic that would have come anyway.

If you're spending more on ads without seeing a corresponding business benefit, something needs to change.

This guide and the Blue42 tools are operating tools, not financial, legal or tax advice. They organise the questions and run the arithmetic. Confirm code requirements with your local building and health departments, and financing and tax treatment with your lender and accountant.

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