CSS Partner · Pay per sale
Extra shopping revenue.
Only paid when you sell.
No ad budget risk. No contract. No work for your team.
A specialised CSS partner brings additional sales via Google Shopping, Microsoft Shopping and its own comparison platform. You only pay a commission on confirmed sales. The partner fronts the ad budget. Traffic that does not buy costs you nothing. Someone else pays for the click — the customer still lands in your shop, with your customer data.
First things first
No extra ad budget risk for you
The partner fronts the ad budget. You only pay once a sale is confirmed. If the channel sells nothing, it costs you nothing. Whether it adds profit is something you judge afterwards from your own numbers.
Google explicitly allows you to work with several CSS partners in parallel. For the same products, only one bid enters a given auction — so you are not bidding against yourself.
What you gain
- Additional sales your own campaigns miss — long tail, product variants and auctions a single partner does not win.
- Payment only on confirmed sales. No sale, no cost.
- The partner fronts the budget. Your cash flow stays untouched.
- The customer lands in your shop — not on a marketplace. The order, the customer data and the repeat purchase stay with you.
What you don't take on
Upfront: €0
- No additional click budget
- No upfront cost
- No campaign management on your side
- No changes required to your existing Google Ads setup
Benefits
Why this works for you
You pay per sale, not per click
Connect your feed, the partner takes over traffic. Commission only on confirmed orders. Non-converting clicks are on the partner.
One lever: the commission rate
The partner works purely on a commission basis. You set the rate — that is all you need to steer. Ad budget, bidding and optimisation sit entirely with the partner. Every click goes straight into your shop, the customer data stays with you.
Additional revenue potential
Campaigns work where your setup leaves gaps: long tail, product variants and time windows where you have scaled bidding back. How much of that is genuinely additional is something you judge from your overall numbers — not from a promise.
The CSS model
More coverage in the auction — without bidding against yourself
Via CSS your products are represented a second time in the shopping auction — through a separate, independent channel. The share that would otherwise go to competitors shrinks. Your own campaigns stay untouched.
Standard Google Shopping campaign
With the CSS partner
Your own coverage stays at 30%. The additional 15% comes from the CSS channel — at the expense of competitors, not of your campaigns.
A different channel
The model runs through a separate, independent channel — apart from your Google Ads account.
A parallel auction
There is no bidding against your own campaigns. You never bid against yourself.
Additional yield
Merchants using the model report incremental sales compared with their own campaigns alone.
Quick activation
Live within a few days. No upfront cost, no hidden fees.
The coverage figures are a model example explaining the mechanics — not a guaranteed result. How large the additional share is in your category depends on assortment, price position and competition. The CSS model itself is a market standard and is also used by large retailers and marketplaces such as eBay.
The main objection
"Won't this drive up my own click prices?"
No. You are not bidding against yourself.
This is the concern we hear most: two parties bid on the same products, the price ratchets up, and you end up paying more for clicks you used to get cheaper. That is not how the Shopping auction is built. The reason is structural.
Why you are not bidding against yourself
- 1Google's Shopping auction consolidates bids at merchant level.
- 2Google sees one merchant — not two competitors.
- 3Only the higher bid enters the auction. The other drops out beforehand.
You never bid against yourself. There is no second bidding round that ratchets your price up — the two bids never meet in the auction.
The auction slot never stays empty
This is the part almost nobody factors in. If your CSS partner does not bid, "nobody" does not win — a marketplace or a competitor does. And they do not send the customer to you. Compare the three possible outcomes:
| Your campaign wins | Your CSS partner wins | A marketplace wins | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad cost paid by | You | The partner | The marketplace |
| Your cost | Your normal click price | €0 — commission only on a sale | €0 — but no direct revenue either |
| The customer lands | In your shop | In your shop | On the marketplace |
| Customer data & repeat purchase | With you | With you | With the marketplace |
| Effect on your click price | — | None | Drives it up |
Your campaign wins
- Ad cost paid by
- You
- Your cost
- Your normal click price
- The customer lands
- In your shop
- Customer data & repeat purchase
- With you
- Effect on your click price
- —
Your CSS partner wins
- Ad cost paid by
- The partner
- Your cost
- €0 — commission only on a sale
- The customer lands
- In your shop
- Customer data & repeat purchase
- With you
- Effect on your click price
- None
A marketplace wins
- Ad cost paid by
- The marketplace
- Your cost
- €0 — but no direct revenue either
- The customer lands
- On the marketplace
- Customer data & repeat purchase
- With the marketplace
- Effect on your click price
- Drives it up
Your click price is set by the bids of external competitors — not by a second bid on your own products.
The question is not whether the click costs money — in two out of three cases someone else pays it. The question is who ends up with the customer and their data. With your CSS partner, that is you. With a marketplace, it is the marketplace — which bids against you tomorrow using that same data.
In addition — not instead
"And what if you're already running Google Ads?"
Perfect. The CSS partner doesn't replace your existing setup. It adds another performance-based sales channel.
Most stores here already run Google Ads or work with an agency. Those campaigns stay exactly as they are. The CSS partner uses its own media budget — and you only pay when a confirmed sale comes out of it.
"Will I end up paying for sales I would have got anyway?"
Nobody can honestly claim that for every single sale — which is exactly why you should measure it. What matters is not how many sales the CSS partner books for itself. What matters is whether your store generates more profitable revenue overall with the extra channel.
Don't take our word for it. Measure it.
Compare before and after launch: total revenue, orders, cost and — if available — new customers. If the extra channel adds no economic value, there is no reason to keep scaling it.
"Will this make my Google Ads agency look worse?"
No. The CSS partner does not take over your existing Google Ads account. Your agency keeps running and optimising its campaigns exactly as before. The CSS partner works alongside them, with its own budget.
Two channels in the same market can influence each other. That is why the overall result is what counts afterwards: does your store make more money with both channels running together?
"What if my own Google Ads would have got that sale cheaper?"
Then that sale via the CSS partner is not automatically the better one. A simple example:
Looked at in isolation, that sale would be more expensive via the CSS partner. Which is exactly why the goal is not to attribute as many sales as possible to the CSS partner — it is additional profitable sales that improve your overall result.
More revenue alone isn't enough. What counts is profitable additional revenue.
"Can I even see whether it pays off?"
Yes. The CSS partner's results are reported separately. Among other things, you see:
- Revenue
- Orders
- Commission and fees
- Effective cost ratio
- Products and product groups
- Cancellations and returns
Where the data is available, new customers come on top. On top of that, you keep watching your existing Google Ads results.
So the question at the end is not "how much revenue did the CSS partner produce?", but "how did my entire shopping business develop?"
"What about returning customers who already know my brand?"
That is another reason why not every attributed sale should automatically count as additional revenue. Where the data is available, new customers, returning customers and individual product groups can be looked at separately.
It's not about attributing as many sales as possible to the CSS partner. It's about generating more profitable revenue for the store.
At the end of the day, only one question matters.
Does your store make more money with both channels running together than it did before?
Your Google Ads agency keeps optimising your existing budget. The CSS partner risks its own media budget. You compare the overall revenue and cost impact — and only scale the additional channel if it makes economic sense.
Already working with a Google Ads agency?
No problem. They don't have to hand over your account. The CSS partner runs alongside it and should be measured by the numbers just like any other performance channel.
Your agency doesn't have to take our word for it. The numbers have to prove it.
Example calculation
What do you keep? Let's run the numbers.
Example: 11% commission on the net basket value, plus a 30% network fee on that commission. The maths: 11% × 1.3 = 14.3%. Your total cost is therefore 14.3% of the net basket value — and only once a sale actually happens.
The 30% network fee applies to the commission — not on top of revenue. So: 11% × 1.3 = 14.3% of the net basket value.
Per order
Commission is always calculated on the net basket value — after deducting shipping and tax. Never on the gross amount the customer pays. All values below are net.
- Commission (11%)
- €4.40
- Network fee (30%)
- €1.32
- Your cost
- €5.72
- You keep
- €34.28
- Commission (11%)
- €8.80
- Network fee (30%)
- €2.64
- Your cost
- €11.44
- You keep
- €68.56
- Commission (11%)
- €16.50
- Network fee (30%)
- €4.95
- Your cost
- €21.45
- You keep
- €128.55
Three example scenarios per month
Illustrative net volumes. Note: the effective cost ratio stays the same — whether 200 or 2,000 sales. That is exactly what makes pay-per-sale predictable.
| Scenario | Sales | Avg. net basket | Extra revenue (net) | Commission (11%) | Network fee (30%) | Your cost | Revenue/cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cautious start | 200 | €60 | €12,000 | €1,320 | €396 | €1,716 | 6.99x |
| Solid growth | 800 | €75 | €60,000 | €6,600 | €1,980 | €8,580 | 6.99x |
| Scaling | 2,000 | €90 | €180,000 | €19,800 | €5,940 | €25,740 | 6.99x |
| Worst case | 0 | — | €0 | €0 | €0 | €0 | Only on sale |
- Sales
- 200
- Avg. net basket
- €60
- Extra revenue (net)
- €12,000
- Commission (11%)
- €1,320
- Network fee (30%)
- €396
- Your cost
- €1,716
- Sales
- 800
- Avg. net basket
- €75
- Extra revenue (net)
- €60,000
- Commission (11%)
- €6,600
- Network fee (30%)
- €1,980
- Your cost
- €8,580
- Sales
- 2,000
- Avg. net basket
- €90
- Extra revenue (net)
- €180,000
- Commission (11%)
- €19,800
- Network fee (30%)
- €5,940
- Your cost
- €25,740
0 sales = €0 cost. No media budget burned.
Illustrative values. You set the commission rate yourself — the maths shifts accordingly. That is exactly why this runs on commission: it is the lever you control. The principle stays: costs only arise on confirmed sales, calculated on the net basket value.
Process
Getting started is simple
- Step 1
Connect
Simply via Selecdoo.
- Step 2
Share your product feed
The partner handles setup and configuration. If you don’t have a feed, Selecdoo can help you create one.
- Step 3
Commission rate
The partner works purely on the commission rate you have already set. Ad budget and bidding sit with them.
- Step 4
Campaigns live
Live in 1–3 days. First results in 7–10 days. Full optimisation in 6–8 weeks.
No upfront cost. No contract. No technical load for your team.
Result
One example from practice
A European electronics retailer scaled with this model in Austria and Switzerland.
Two more examples
Different sectors, same mechanics
Anonymised experience values from the partner network — not a guaranteed result. Your numbers depend on assortment, margin and competition in your category.
Starting point
- Flat sales with no upward trend.
- Rising click prices in a highly contested segment.
- Every attempt to raise volume pushed the margin down.
Result
- +40%
- Impressions and clicks
- +25%
- GMV, with additional internal efficiency gains
- +20%
- more products in the catalogue
- up to +30%
- incremental sales
Starting point
- High click prices across several countries at once.
- Limited visibility precisely on the higher-margin products.
- Erratic growth that was hard to plan around.
Result
- +41%
- Revenue in European markets (6 months)
- -21%
- Cost per acquisition
- 3
- new markets opened up
FAQ
Working together
All channels together
Search, shopping, display and editorial reach can be combined. Each of these channels runs on top of your existing setup, on partner budget, and is billed per sale — with the fixed-price packages, at the price agreed in advance. None of it replaces what you already do today.
What each channel contributes
- Shopping via CSS and the Microsoft network capture demand that already exists.
- Display placements on comparison platforms decide who makes the shortlist.
- Editorial reach and newsletters create demand that would not have existed otherwise.
- Fixed-price packages secure a firm date when a launch or peak week is coming up.
At the end of the day, only one question matters.
Does your shop earn more with all channels running together than it did before?
More commission-based channels
Same logic, different reach
Bing Product Ads
Extra sales through the Microsoft search network.
Shopping visibility
Premium placements on comparison platforms, paid per sale.
Editorial reach
New customers through magazines and newsletters.
Fixed-price packages
Reliable visibility at a fixed price.
Growth Engine
Search, shopping and social bundled — on publisher budget.
All engines at a glance
The overview page with every channel, its billing and a comparison.
Ready for extra sales — paid per sale?
Local experts get you set up and deliver additional conversions without touching your own campaigns.