Two years of Google optimising for Add to Cart on $3,000 furniture

The situation

A DTC furniture brand selling sofas and beds at $2,500-$6,000 average order value had been running Google Ads for 2 years. Their media buyer set "Add to Cart" as the primary conversion — reasoning that people rarely buy furniture immediately. Monthly spend: $35K. Revenue attribution from Google: unclear.

The problem

High-ticket furniture has a 2-8 week consideration cycle. Customers add to cart, leave, research competitors, come back weeks later. The last touch before purchase was often direct or organic. Google Smart Bidding was trained to find "Add to Cart" people — an abundant, cheap signal. Purchase events existed in GA4 but were set as secondary (non-bidding) conversions. Smart Bidding had never seen the actual revenue signal.

What we did

1. Promoted Purchase to primary conversion action with transaction value included
2. Demoted Add to Cart to secondary (informational only)
3. Extended Google Ads conversion window to 90 days to capture the furniture consideration cycle
4. Set up offline conversion import from Shopify via Zapier for any orders placed by phone (~15% of high-ticket orders)
5. Gave Smart Bidding 8-week learning period — purchase signal initially low volume but high value

Why it worked

High-ticket, long-consideration products require extended conversion windows and purchase-level signals. Add to Cart on a $3,000 sofa is a weak proxy — purchase intent, yes, but far upstream of the actual revenue event. Google Smart Bidding with a 90-day purchase window can connect the ad impression to the eventual purchase weeks later, even across multiple sessions.