Custom labels in Optimise
What custom_label_0-4 are, how Optimise can populate them from margin, price and lifecycle signals, and how they feed campaign segmentation in Google Ads, written to a supplemental layer, not your store.
Custom labels are five free-text tags you attach to each product so you can slice your catalogue the way your business actually thinks about it, by margin, price band, seasonality or lifecycle. They don't change how Google shows a product; they let you build smarter campaigns around it. Optimise can populate them consistently across your whole feed, in its own layer.
What custom labels are for
Custom labels (custom_label_0 through custom_label_4) are five free-text tags you attach to each product. Shoppers never see them. Their whole job is to let you group products the way your business thinks: by margin, by price band, by season, by how well they sell. Once products carry those tags, you can build Google Ads campaigns around them: bidding harder on your profitable lines, holding back on thin-margin ones, pushing seasonal stock at the right time.
They're the bridge between a healthy feed and a well-structured ad account. A feed with no custom labels forces you to bid on everything the same way; a feed with good labels lets you spend where it pays.
The five slots
You have five independent slots, and it's up to you what each means. Common, high-value schemes:
| Slot | Common use | Example values |
|---|---|---|
custom_label_0 |
Margin band | high-margin, mid-margin, low-margin |
custom_label_1 |
Price band | under-25, 25-75, 75-200, over-200 |
custom_label_2 |
Seasonality | spring-summer, autumn-winter, all-year |
custom_label_3 |
Lifecycle | new, core, end-of-line |
custom_label_4 |
Stock status | clearance, full-price, low-stock |
The scheme is yours: these are just the ones merchants get the most out of. What matters is that a slot means the same thing across every product, so a campaign filtering on it behaves predictably.
How Optimise can populate them
Optimise can derive labels from signals already in your feed and apply them consistently across the catalogue:
- Price bands straight from each product's price
- Margin bands where cost/margin data is available
- Lifecycle and stock cues from availability and catalogue signals
- Seasonality from category and product signals
Each derived label is written to the supplemental layer described in How enrichment works and served to Google. Your Shopify data isn't touched, and you can override any slot with your own scheme.
Deep dive Turning labels into campaign structure
Labels are only as valuable as the campaign structure you build on them, so it's worth seeing the payoff end to end.
Bid by profitability, not by revenue. Two products can pull the same revenue while one earns you three times the profit. Without a margin label, they share a bidding strategy and you over-invest in the thin one. With custom_label_0 = margin band, you can split them into separate ad groups and bid each on what it's actually worth.
Control spend on the long tail. Price-band labels let you treat a £15 accessory and a £400 centrepiece differently (different target returns, different budgets) instead of one blunt strategy across a catalogue with wildly different economics.
Push and protect by lifecycle. New products need exposure to gather data; end-of-line stock needs clearing; core lines need steady spend. Lifecycle labels make each of those a targetable segment rather than a manual guess.
Consistency is the make-or-break. A label scheme only works if it's applied the same way to every product. If half your catalogue has a margin band and half doesn't, any campaign filtering on it silently drops the unlabelled products: they fall into no segment and get default treatment. This is exactly the kind of catalogue-wide consistency that's tedious by hand and quick at the feed layer, and it's why complete, consistent labelling supports a healthy Feed Health Score even though the labels themselves are invisible to Google's ranking.
The mechanics of building the campaigns on top of these labels live in custom labels and campaign segmentation.
Where to go next
- Build campaigns on your labels with custom labels and campaign segmentation
- See custom labels among the full field set in The 20 enriched fields
Frequently asked questions
Do custom labels change how my product appears on Google?
No. Custom labels are invisible to shoppers. They exist so you can group and segment products inside Google Ads, for example, bidding differently on high-margin versus low-margin items. They affect your campaign structure, not your listing.
What can I put in them?
Anything useful to how you run campaigns, margin bands, price bands, seasonality, bestseller flags, clearance status. You get five slots (custom_label_0 through custom_label_4), each free text.
Does Optimise write labels into my Shopify products?
No. Like every enrichment, custom labels are written to the supplemental layer and served to Google through your feed. Your Shopify data is untouched.