Quick answer
A luxury ecommerce account running Google Ads Search and Shopping at volume. Structural wasted spend identified in the diagnostic and resolved within
-41%
Wasted spend cut within thirty days of diagnostic fix list implementation
The commercial situation
Client running Google Ads at $80K+/month across Search and Shopping. ROAS had drifted from 3.8 to 2.4 over six months with no structural change that anyone could identify. We were engaged for a Conversion Second Opinion.
The diagnostic
The Conversion Second Opinion identified the following structural issues in the account and surrounding commercial system:
47% of spend on Search was running through broad match campaigns that had quietly been broadened by a platform-level setting change. Search terms report showed a 63% mismatch rate between bid queries and converted queries.
tROAS was set against gross transaction value. High-ticket SKUs with low margin were being bid up while high-margin SKUs were starved.
A GA4 and Google Ads conversion were both firing on thank-you page. The bid signal was corrupted.
The intervention
Broad match converted to phrase match with negative keyword cleanup. tROAS recalibrated to margin-weighted value. Conversion tracking deduplicated. All three changes implemented inside a five-day window.
The outcome
Wasted spend, defined as spend attributable to queries with less than 1:5 conversion-to-click ratio, fell 41% within thirty days. ROAS recovered to 3.6 within sixty days. No additional budget added.
All client identifying details NDA-protected.
The engagement format
$999 · 72-hour written diagnostic · No retainer structure
Commission the Diagnosis