Stop and restart ads on a single variant
2 min read · updated November 14, 2026
How Stop ads works in Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, when to use it, and how to undo it.
Often one color or size of a product spends money without selling, while the others do fine. Stopping the whole product loses the good variants. Stop ads stops just that one variant in Google Ads and leaves everything else running.
How it works
When you click Stop ads, ScaleVendo excludes that variant's item ID from the product groups (listing groups) in your Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns. Google stops showing ads for it. The product stays active in your store and in Merchant Center, so it can still sell from organic listings or other channels.
Restart ads removes the exclusion so Google can show the variant again.
Ways to stop ads
One variant: click Stop ads on its row in Product performance.
All variants of a product: search for the product and click Stop ads on all N (or Restart all N).
Across all campaigns: if you add a new campaign, click Apply N stopped variants to all campaigns so stopped variants stay stopped there too.
Every night ScaleVendo re-applies your stopped variants, so they stay stopped even if a campaign's product groups change.
When to use it
A variant has spent 20 or more with no sale.
A variant sells, but at a ROAS well below break-even, and lowering bids hasn't helped.
A size or color is out of stock with your supplier but you want to keep the product live.
What you need
Your Google Ads connection needs Standard or Admin access to the Ads account.
It works with Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns, whatever way their product groups are split.
During the free trial you can stop ads up to 10 times. Restarting doesn't give a stop back. Paid plans have no limit.
If something goes wrong
If Stop ads shows an error, the most common reasons are read-only Ads access or no Shopping or Performance Max campaign in the linked account. Check access in Google Ads under Admin → Access and security.