The App Collective Episode 60

Keyword relevancy in Shopify ads

Apr 09, 2025

Hello App Collective!

The Shopify world is buzzing. It’s so fun to experience podcasts from my friends in the industry, see photos of people from events in different countries, and know I will be seeing most of you soon.

Apparently, a lot of you like my music choices! It's cool to know that many of us share the love of EDM.

Here are 2 more sets I've been listening to from Ultra Music Festival from this past month:

Today, we're going to talk more tactically about factors that will help you optimize Shopify ads - to get better costs and positioning in the app store. I had a client ask me a question about relevance, and it made me wonder if some of you also wanted to know more about this stuff. So, we’re gonna dive into it a bit. If this interests you, keep reading, but I am not convinced this in the weeds is everyone's cup of tea. Let me know if you like this type of content.

What's inside:

Keyword relevancy in Shopify ads

Keyword Relevancy in Shopify Ads

The questions we will dive into today are:

Is there any weight or advantage for Shopify ads marketing programs when the keyword relevance is medium or high?
If a keyword is considered low relevance, is there a disadvantage?
Does keyword relevancy affect organic ranking or ad ranking/bids?

The short answer is: Keyword relevance does matter in Shopify ads, and it can impact your ad performance and cost-efficiency, similar to how relevancy works in platforms like Google Ads.

Let’s break this down

🔹 What Does "Keyword Relevance" Mean in Shopify Ads?

Keyword relevance in the Shopify app store context refers to how closely a keyword aligns with your app's metadata—specifically your:

app title
tagline
detailed description
reviews

Shopify classifies relevance as:

High
Medium
Low

✅ What If Relevance is High or Medium?

Shopify gives more weight to ads with high or medium relevance. Your ad is more likely to appear in top positions, giving your ads an ad performance boost.
Better relevance generally means lower CPCs, as the platform rewards relevance with more efficient bidding. Generally speaking, you are likely able to bid outside of the bid suggestion range or stick to the lower end without your page positioning suffering.
Like Google, Shopify's internal auction system favors relevant apps. So, even if you're bidding less, you might outrank a higher bid if your keyword is more relevant.

🚫 What If Relevance is Low?

You’ll likely pay a higher CPC, and your ad might not be shown at all, especially if you’re in a more competitive keyword group.
Shopify deprioritizes low-relevance matches, meaning fewer impressions or no exposure.
Low ad keyword relevance doesn't hurt your organic ranking, but if your ad doesn't generate clicks or installs, you're missing indirect organic benefits (like improved momentum, reviews, or visibility).

💡 Best Practices

Optimize Your App Listing: Make sure your title, tagline, and descriptions contain the keywords you want to bid on.
Use Keywords Strategically: Avoid spending on low-relevance keywords unless you're actively A/B testing or running a brand awareness campaign.
Leverage Medium-Relevance Terms: These might have lower competition, and you can often raise them to high by tweaking your listing content.

I hope this was interesting to you today and that you learned something new. I could talk about Shopify ads all day long, as I really enjoy managing them. Expect to see future episodes highlighting some performance from ad programs I’ve worked on.

See you next week in your inbox,

Deb

The App Collective