Team Lead of Content for promodo.com
Team Lead PPC at Promodo
In paid advertising, just like in business in general, the Pareto principle applies: around 80% of profit comes from just 20% of products. Promodo’s PPC experience confirms that most ad revenue is generated by a small part of the product feed. At the same time, the rest stays in the shadows of Google Ads and turns into so-called zombie SKUs.
These products don’t get impressions, don’t drive sales, eat up budget, or are simply ignored by algorithms. But in reality, this category often hides untapped potential.
In this article, together with Yevhen Kolotylo, Team Lead of the PPC department at Promodo, we’ll break down what zombie SKUs are, why they don’t sell through ads, and how to turn them into an additional source of profit.
The term “zombie SKU” started being used back in 2013 to describe new products that failed to meet expectations and didn’t justify the investments made in them.
It gained the most popularity in 2019 after the high-profile Coca-Cola case. At that time, the company reviewed its product range and removed more than 700 items that formally existed in the system but barely sold. These products made up about half of the entire assortment, yet generated only 2% of total revenue. Within a few years, this product lineup cleanup resulted in a 34% increase in profit for the company.
A zombie SKU (SKU stands for stock keeping unit) is a product that exists in the feed and ad campaigns but is not actually being advertised. It gets no impressions — or very few — and, as a result, no clicks or sales. The system ignores it because the algorithms don’t see any potential in it.
In reports, such SKUs usually look like this:
“From our experience working with large retailers, up to 80% of products in ad accounts can be zombie SKUs. But you can’t just ignore them, even if your campaigns are performing well overall. Zombie SKUs need to be identified, the reasons for their lack of impressions should be analyzed, and only after that should you decide what to do with them next.”
Yevhen Kolotylo, Team Lead, PPC Department at Promodo
First, go to your Google Ads account and, in the top-right corner, select a date range.
It’s best to choose at least 30–90 days. If the account is old and active, you can take an even longer period. Make sure to consider seasonality and promotions so you don’t remove a product that’s simply not relevant right now.
In the left menu, open your Shopping or Performance Max campaigns. Then open the Products tab, or go into a specific asset group in PMax to see the product list.
Here you’ll see all SKUs participating in ads, along with their impressions, clicks, and spend.
Click “Add filter” and set one of the following options:
You can check these filters one by one or combine them, for example: Cost = 0 AND Clicks = 0.
Everything left in the list after filtering are products that Google doesn’t show at all. These are your zombie shopping candidates. And this is where it gets interesting — you need to analyze the products that fall into this category. You’ll be surprised how many insights you can find there.
“Working with large retailers, we regularly see how even the most popular products end up on the zombie SKU list — products that in reality sell well through other channels.
For example, I once had a case where the iPhone 16 Pro 128 GB in white was actively selling through ads, while the exact same model in black ended up among the zombies. In this situation, the company is clearly losing potential opportunities, and this is something that needs to be fixed.”.
Yevhen Kolotylo, Team Lead, PPC Department at Promodo
At Promodo, we have extensive experience working with zombie SKUs, and the strategy we recommend has already proven effective on more than 40 projects across various niches.
Once you’ve identified your list of zombie products, the first step is to remove them from your main campaigns. This won’t negatively affect the performance of your primary campaigns at all.
“We often encounter clients who are hesitant to invest in optimizing their ad accounts when campaigns are generally showing decent metrics and meeting KPIs. But since zombie SKUs in the feed aren’t contributing anything anyway, moving them to a separate campaign won’t affect the performance of the main campaigns at all. In fact, you’re not risking anything.”
Yevhen Kolotylo, Team Lead, PPC Department at Promodo
For zombie advertisement, it’s worth creating a separate campaign to test whether Google is correctly deciding not to spend money on these products. In such a campaign, use the Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value strategy — without tying it to ROAS or CPA.
This gives the product a chance to perform: you can see if it can generate impressions, clicks, and sales without restrictions on optimization for a specific profitability. In practice, a significant portion of these products will show a strong sales boost from ads.
Even if some products start selling after being moved to a separate campaign, you still need to regularly check for ad zombies, using the same method we described earlier. It’s important to look at the details.
Reasons a product might not sell aren’t always due to Google’s algorithms — they can also be in the ad or the offer itself. To give a product a chance, check:
Sometimes the issue is as simple as price. For example, a competitor might be selling a similar product 30% cheaper.
After analyzing impressions, clicks, conversions, and checking the feed content, you need to make clear decisions for each SKU. There are three main scenarios:
Even after selecting and optimizing products, zombie SKUs can appear again. That’s why a one-time check is not enough. On the contrary, regular monitoring of zombie campaigns is a must.
“It’s hard to say exactly how often you should track zombie SKUs. It depends on the type and size of the business. For some projects, we analyze zombie advertisements every 3–4 days, while for other businesses, once every two weeks is enough.”
Yevhen Kolotylo, Team Lead, PPC Department at Promodo
Manually finding zombie SKUs is time-consuming and inconvenient, especially when your feed contains thousands of products. That’s why automation is the logical next step. There are two practical options.
AdsHub is a custom-built Promodo solution that allows you to fully automate work with zombie SKUs.
Through the “Product Labels” module, the system automatically finds products with no spend over a defined period and assigns them a custom label. After that, these SKUs can be automatically grouped by any metrics: impressions, clicks, spend, conversions, ROAS — and the system will continuously update these groups.
If you work with Promodo, you get access not only to our experts’ expertise but also to our own technology products that provide a real advantage in ad optimization.
G-MOS is a self-service solution for eCommerce and marketplaces that allows you to:
This is a great option for in-house teams that want to manage the zombie SKU process on their own using a ready-made tool.
Important: Don’t hand over zombie SKU management to PPC automation systems like AdsHub right away. First, manually identify the products, analyze their feed structure, and understand the reasons for low performance. Only after that can a specialist configure the automated system with the correct parameters to manage zombie SKUs effectively.
EXIST is one of the largest online stores for auto parts. With such a vast assortment, the number of campaigns was constantly growing, but many of them lacked sufficient data for learning and further optimization.
During an audit, we identified a significant number of zombie products. Using the “Product Labels” module in AdsHub, we found SKUs in the feed that had no spend over the past 30 days. These products were automatically assigned a zombie custom label based on two conditions: spend < 1 UAH and clicks < 1.
Next, we created a separate campaign structure for these products: some remained in ads with controlled bids, while others were completely excluded.
Result: Thanks to this and other adjustments in the PPC strategy, revenue increased by 430%.
While working on increasing the channel’s profitability for ZooComplex, we also optimized the campaigns. To avoid wasting budget on unprofitable items, we divided the online store’s assortment into two groups:
— products that spent budget but didn’t generate margin (some pet food, toys, accessories);
— zombie SKUs — items with a minimal number of impressions or clicks.
By focusing specifically on zombie SKUs, we were able to scale spending without losing efficiency and increase the overall profitability of the account. As a result, this group started generating up to 20% of the total revenue.
Zombie stock keeping units can be a hidden opportunity for additional growth and profit generation.
It’s important to understand that there is no universal formula. Every business, product range, and ad account is unique, so working with zombie SKUs always requires an individual approach, in-depth analysis, and hands-on expertise.
At Promodo, there is a team of specialists who know how to find opportunities where algorithms don’t see them, and turn seemingly “dead” products in the feed into a source of business growth.
Team Lead of Content for promodo.com
Team Lead PPC at Promodo
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