Book Review & Highlights: Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke
Scrolling for hours with no meaning is never rewarding, yet so many do it, myself included, although I’m not on TikTok yet, and I hope I’ll never have to be, some days I find myself spending too much time on YouTube & Instagram, so here I am reading Dopamine Nation to get a better understanding of why I do what I do and what I can do about it to pursue healthier habits. Rating: 3/5 (very good) – I’d recommend it to people who spend too much time pursuing cheap dopamine and instant gratification. It’s nice to see Dr. Lembkes share her experience with addiction to romance novels, binging them to escape her everyday stress which over time escalated into compulsive consumption. Despite recognising the negative effects, she found it difficult to stop. This realisation helped her empathise more deeply with her patients in her day to day job as an addiction psychiatrist. Scoring: 1 – don’t bother, 2 – ok, 3 – very good, 4 – great, 5- must read. Key Insights What fires together wires together “Neurons that fire together, wire together” – I’ve come across this phrase a few times in the brain and addiction books I’ve read to date. It’s an important concept to understand because it is fundamental to how brains operate. Imagine your brain is like a big garden with lots of paths. Every time you do something, like exercise, watch netflix or use social media it’s like walking on one of those paths. When you walk on the same path a lot, it gets clearer and easier to follow, like when the grass gets pushed down and the path becomes smooth. That’s what “wiring together” means. Your brain makes that path stronger because it thinks, “Oh, they’re using this path a lot—it must be important!” Now, if you stop using a path, the grass grows back, and it becomes harder to find. That’s how you can forget things or stop bad habits. The more you do something, the easier it is for your brain to remember or do it again next time. It’s your brain’s way of getting really good at things you practice. When you start exercising, it’s hard at first because your brain hasn’t connected exercise with feeling good. But each time you work out and feel proud or energetic, those neurons fire together and create a stronger connection. Over time, your brain wires exercise to positive feelings, making it easier to stick to the habit. Checking social media feels good because your brain gets a dopamine hit from likes, comments, or new posts. Each time you scroll, your brain wires the habit: “boredom → pick up phone → feel rewarded.” Over time, social media becomes automatic, making it hard to stop, even when it’s not satisfying. Working out wires an active, positive habit that boosts energy and health. Social media wires a passive habit for instant gratification. To change, replace social media use with something engaging, like journaling or reading, and reinforce workouts with positive triggers. Your brain will adapt. Recovery begins with abstinence There is no magic pill, no quick tip or hack to fix you in 3 minutes. Abstinence takes time and patience. Abstinence means stopping something completely for a period of time, especially something that might be harmful or that you’re doing too much of. It’s about giving your body and mind a break so they can reset and heal. Our brain’s reward system, primarily driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine, is designed to motivate us toward behaviors that ensure survival and satisfaction, like eating, social bonding, or achieving goals. However, modern activities like consuming drugs, overeating junk food, or excessive social media use overstimulate this system, causing a flood of dopamine. Toxic dopamine. Over time: Abstinence breaks this cycle by stopping the overstimulation of the brain’s reward pathway, giving it a chance to reset. So commit to abstinence, endure the discomfort, replace with simple pleasures (exercise, read, clean, play tennis just to name a few) & be patient, it takes time. Questions Highlights Cheers
Shopify Microsoft Bing Ads Conversion Tracking [2026 Update]
How to Set Up Microsoft Bing Ads Conversion Tracking Using Google Tag Manager If you’re running Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) and want to track conversions like purchases, signups, or leads, using Google Tag Manager (GTM) makes it easy, with no need to mess about with your website’s code directly. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll show you exactly how to set up Microsoft Ads UET (Universal Event Tracking) Tag and conversion tracking in GTM. Note: To set up Bing Ads conversion tracking with Google Tag Manager, you must first connect GTM to your website. Click here to view the step-by-step guide on adding Google Tag Manager to your Shopify store. Step 1: Create a UET Tag in Microsoft Ads 1. Go to your Microsoft Ads dashboard. 2. From the right side menu, click Conversions > UET Tag. 3. Click + Create UET tag. 4. Enter a name (e.g., “Main Site UET Tag”). Make sure to uncheck the Microsoft Clarity integration box, since we are not setting up Microsoft Clarity in this step. Save and next. 5. Then select “Automatically add the tracking tag through Google Tag Manager” and click Next. 6. After that, click Done. You’ll see your Microsoft UET Tag ID (something like 12345678). Save it for later use in Google Tag Manager. Step 2: Add the UET Tag Using GTM’s Built-In Template 1. Open your Google Tag Manager account. 2. Navigate to the Google Tag Manager account and container you selected earlier. 3. Add a new tag to your container. Click on Tags > New> Under Tag Configuration, select choose a tag type to begin setup. 4. Search for “Microsoft Advertising Universal Event Tracking” and select the tag template from the list. 5. Paste your UET Tag ID into the field. & Leave Event Type as Page Load for general tracking. 6. Set the Triggering to All Pages. 7. Click Save and Publish. This tag is your base UET tag sorted. It’s needed before we start adding conversion events. Step 3: Create a Conversion Goal in Microsoft Ads 1. Go back to Microsoft Ads > Tools > Conversion Goals > Click Create. 2. You’ll see the question “What kind of conversions do you want to track?” — since we’re setting this up for a website, select Website. 3. Choose a goal type (e.g., Purchase, Sign-up, or Custom Event). 4. For the Goal Type, choose Event, since we’re setting this up using Google Tag Manager. 5. Enter your event name here and choose Revenue if applicable for your goal, then click Next. 6. In the Tagging Setup step, select “Yes, the UET tag was already installed on all website pages” since we’ve already added it through Google Tag Manager. 7. And in this step, choose Manual installation. 8. If you want to set up enhanced conversion tracking, select “Turn on Enhanced conversions”. If you don’t want to use enhanced conversions, choose “I don’t want to use enhanced conversions.” In this guide, I’m showing how to set up enhanced conversions, so I selected “Turn on Enhanced conversions.” What is Enhanced Conversion Tracking? Enhanced conversions improve conversion accuracy by hashing and sending customer data (e.g., email or phone number) securely to Microsoft. Microsoft then matches this data with signed-in users to track more conversions. 9. Define the Event Category, Action, Label, and optional Value. Then, under “When do you want to track this event?”, select “Track event on inline action.” 9. Click Save. You’ll now see this goal under Conversion Goals. Step 4: Set Up the Conversion Event Tag in GTM 1. Open your Google Tag Manager account. 2. Navigate to the Google Tag Manager account and container you selected earlier. 3. Add a new tag to your container. Click on Tags > New> Under Tag Configuration, select choose a tag type to begin setup. 4. Search for “Microsoft Advertising Universal Event Tracking” and select the tag template from the list. 5. Paste your UET Tag ID into the field. Under Event Type, choose Custom. Event Value & Currency (optional): You can use a GTM variable like {{Transaction Value}}{{currency}} 6. Under Triggering, select the trigger based on your conversion: Or, if your data includes a specific event — like in my case, when someone completes a transaction, I have a purchase event — you can create a custom event trigger in GTM and select that for your conversion tracking. 7. Click Save and Publish. Step 5: Set Up Enhanced Conversions by Sending User Data via GTM If you selected “Turn on Enhanced conversions” during goal setup in Microsoft Ads, you’ll need to pass user-provided data (like email, phone number, or name) using Google Tag Manager. This allows Microsoft to match more conversions, especially from iOS or privacy-restricted browsers. How to Capture and Send User Data with GTM You can push user data to GTM’s data layer and send it with your Bing Ads tag. Example Setup: 1. Push User Data to the Data Layer (Custom Code) On your thank-you page (or after form submission or purchase ), push data like this: Tip: If you’re on Shopify, you can place this code inside the order confirmation page or use Liquid variables to auto-fill the values. 2. Create Variables in GTM to Read This Data Go to Variables > User-Defined Variables > New > Data Layer Variable, and create the following: To capture the Email for Enhanced Conversion Tracking, we need to create a variable in Google Tag Manager. To capture the phone number for Enhanced Conversion Tracking, we need to create a variable in Google Tag Manager. Now, we need to create a Custom JavaScript variable in Google Tag Manager to format the user data properly for Microsoft Ads Enhanced Conversion Tracking. Follow these steps: This variable will send the user’s email and phone number in the correct format Microsoft requires. Make sure the {{dlv – email}} and {{dlv – phone}} variables already exist and are pulling data correctly from the Data Layer. 3. Add user Data with our Event. To set up
ProfitMetics.io Review: Is it worth it? How to track profit in Google Ads
Yes, it is worth it if you’re selling a range of products with different margins. The primary benefit of Profit Metrics is that it can account for cost prices, shipping & payment fees and report profits in your Google Ads account. It doesn’t only report profit, the main benefit is that you can use profit as your primary conversion action, and Google’s smart bidding strategies will prioritise higher margin products. Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity! If you’re selling one or a limited amount of products with a flat margin across the board then it doesn’t make much sense, you can simply set up a server container in GTM to take advantage of the ~20% increase in recorded conversions you get compared to the default setup. Profit Metrics Pros Quick summary of what I like about Profit Metrics and why you should consider it too. 1. Quick account summary on key metrics, great for any ecommerce PPC agency. 2. Great support team to help you every step of the way with the integration. They can be slow at times, but you can book a call with them, and they can even do the integration for you if you’re struggling or need 1-1 assistance. 3. Shopping Booster feature allows for labelling products based on performance. You can define your own rules on what you consider profitable & unprofitable, and then manage the ad spend better in the account. Apply it as a custom label and create a campaign for the Unprofitable bucket where you set a higher ROAS target and a limited budget, as well as have a separate campaign for profitable products with a more aggressive tROAS. It’s very similar to Producthero Labelizer solution and Flowboost Labelizer script. 4. Take advantage of server-side tracking & Converison Booster, which helps capture more conversion data compared to the default implementation in the below example, we’re recording 14% more transactions and 11% more revenue with Profit Metrics conversion actions. 5. You can connect it to Facebook and even push profit data to Facebook, it’ll have to be set up under a different event name due to Facebook limitations, something like Registrations completed just so you can keep the purchases to revenue to compare both. 6. Profit Metrics Cons Constructive feedback, it’s still great value for what it is :) 1. Price – they charge per order. $32 per domain + $0.1417 per order for the first 5,000 and + $0.0185 for anything extra. So it can get expensive if you’re getting lots of orders. For example: I’d love to have an option for a discounted fixed fee especially for stores that get many orders to make it more accessible and predictable. 2. Email support sometimes takes a bit longer than I’d like to reply. 3. Outages, although it rarely happens, there may be instances where you’re going to have to apply data exclusions. 4. It doesn’t account for refunds/cancelled orders yet. Support confirmed they had plans to do it, but no ETA was provided. 5. No integration with Bing Ads, you can just pull cost data into the dashboard, but can’t send profit. Profit Metrics Case Studies Auto Parts Retailer With over 54,000 products across 439 brands and 201 categories we desperately needed a tool like Profit Metrics to feed the right data to PMax campaigns and help them optimise for profit, not just revenue. Profit Metrics conversion actions have recorded 45% more transactions compared to the old tracking tag. And we’ve been able to double total profit after ad spend from an average of £150K/month to £320K/month. Read the full case study here. Golf Shop Although this is a DTC Shopify brand they also sell resell products at a much lower margin so Profit Metrics came to the rescue and helped us prioritise the right products in the campaigns. Read the full case study here. Tools & Equipment Ecommerce With over 2,000 products in the feed and tiny margins, we needed to optimise for profit above all else. And in just 3 months, we have been able to double the profit after ad spend with improved tracking. Read the full case study here. To sum up If you’d like to give it a try or support the work I do check out Profit Metrics following this link: https://profitmetrics.io/?fpr=victor and sign up for a free trial (it is an affiliate link meaning I will get a small commission if you sign up for a paid plan at no extra cost to you). PS If you click on my affiliate links, I may earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support the work I do and earns treats for Paco (my cat) and most of the time, you’ll get an offer too. Win-win! I only promote products I personally use.
Tawk.to Review – Best Free Live Chat Widget For Anything Really
Beyond the fact that it’s free, super easy to setup and use, what more can you ask for from a live chat? I’ve used tawk.to many times and it’s played a significant factor in improving conversions and retention. Tawk.to stands out as a reliable, feature-rich live chat tool that works for businesses of all sizes. I’ve used it so much that I am a tawk.to partner, I’ve even got a badge, yey. Do I really need to say what Tawk.to is? A live chat. That’s it. It works, that’s all you need to know. It’s free and easy to install, it has premium features like hiring live agents for $1/hr if you’re getting lots of inquiries video & screensharing features on the $29/mo plan. How to set up Tawk.to? I’m not going to do a step-by-step, but I will share examples of how I’ve set up my widget, and hopefully, that will give you some ideas on how you can design yours because the default settings are boring. 5. Set up triggers, here’s what I have – welcome, autoreplies and chat rescue if I’m offline (automatically triggers if I don’t respond in 2 minutes) Alpaca welcome – it doesn’t have to be an alpaca, you can pick some other animal or human, I don’t care. Let’s say, for example, you clicked “Roast my ad account for £97”. I’ve set up a trigger to send a Calendly link to pay for the roast. Here’s what it looks like. And finally the rule for the chat rescue, you can adjust these to suit your situation. And that’s pretty much it. Now it’s your turn. Ready to give it a try? Get started here. PS If you click on my affiliate links, I may earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support the work I do and earns treats for Paco (my cat) and most of the time, you’ll get an offer too. Win-win! I only promote products I personally use.
Tolstoy Review: DTC Shopify Brand Case Study – Shoppable Video & UGC – gotolstoy.com
Tolstoy interactive video tool – is it worth it? Tolstoy is a handy tool that helps businesses create interactive, shoppable videos to connect with customers, improve their shopping experience, and increase sales. It’s easy to set up and comes with powerful features, making it perfect for businesses that want to stand out from the competition.. Case Study: This is one of my clients who runs on Shopify selling a high-ticket product I’ve used Tolstoy with several clients over the past year, and it works really well so I wanted to share a case study and hopefully get you on board as it’s an essential tool to help you stand out in crowded markets and give you an edge. Here are the stats in just 90 days (September 15–December 13, 2024): Tolstoy Viewer Metrics: Engagement Rates: Comparison with Overall Shopify Performance: Solid numbers clearly showing the difference Tolstoy made, with viewer conversion rate outperforming site-wide rates fivefold (2.2% vs. 0.44%). Tolstoy Features 1. Shoppable Videos Engage customers by showcasing products directly within videos, enabling seamless purchases without leaving the experience. 2. User-Generated Content (UGC) Integration Build trust by featuring authentic customer reviews, unboxings, and testimonials directly on your product pages. 3. AI-Powered Personalization Automatically tailor video recommendations to individual viewers, enhancing engagement and product discovery. 4. Video Branching Create choose-your-own-adventure-style videos, allowing viewers to navigate personalized journeys based on their preferences. 5. Embedded Lead Capture Collect customer data like emails and preferences while they interact with your video content. Works great if you’re offering consultations as you can embed a Calendly and have people schedule meetings with you right in the Tolstoy box. 6. Comprehensive Analytics Track metrics like viewer retention, click-through rates, and revenue attribution to optimize campaigns and maximize ROI. Pros and Cons Pros: Cons: Pricing Who Should Use Tolstoy? Verdict: A Must-Have for High-Ticket E-Commerce Brands Tolstoy isn’t just a tool; it’s a strategic advantage. By integrating interactive videos, businesses can upgrade their customer experience, increase conversions, and drive substantial revenue growth. Whether you’re a small business or an enterprise, Tolstoy’s blend of engagement tools and robust analytics makes it a worthwhile investment. With real-world data demonstrating its ability to outperform traditional site averages, Tolstoy stands out as a game-changer in the e-commerce and marketing space. For businesses ready to take customer engagement to the next level, Tolstoy is a clear choice. So if you’ve made it this far, sign up for a free trial with Tolstoy today, you’ve got nothing to lose! Or send an email to victor@victorserban.com and I’ll book you in for a demo so you can get a better idea on the best set-up for your store. PS If you click on my affiliate links, I may earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support the work I do and earns treats for Paco (me cat) and most of the time, you’ll get an offer too. Win-win! I only promote products I believe in and personally use. Cheers,Victor
How to calculate the point of dimishing returns in Google Ads?
Are you spending too much or too little? How much more profit can you generate if you increased the budget and what’s the point where you start losing profit. The closer you get to the saturation point the higher acquisition costs and lower your ROI. One way to calculate the point of diminishing returns in Google Ads is to run a regression analysis. Why should you care? Diminishing Returns Matters! At first, increasing your Google Ads budget often yields great results. Lower-hanging fruit gets picked: cheaper clicks, high-intent customers, and easy conversions. But eventually, you start chasing users who are more expensive to convert. Acquisition costs creep up, and net profits go down. If you’re spending too little, you’re leaving money on the table. Spending too much? You’re wasting cash on expensive conversions that don’t justify the cost. The key is finding that sweet spot—spending enough to drive maximum returns while avoiding diminishing returns. What is the Law of Diminishing Returns? In simple terms, the Law of Diminishing Returns means that after a certain point, every extra dollar you spend on ads brings in progressively smaller gains. For example, spending $10,000 on ads might generate $50,000 in sales, but doubling your budget to $20,000 doesn’t necessarily mean doubling your revenue to $100,000. Instead, you might see only $80,000 in sales, meaning the additional $10,000 yielded less return than the first $10,000. To maximize profitability, your goal should be to find the optimal budget—the point where your spend generates the highest net profit rather than just revenue. Let’s assume you’re running an e-commerce selling appliances and you’re enjoying a 30% profit margin. Currently, your monthly Google Ads spend is $10,000, and here’s what your campaign performance looks like: Encouraged by the results, you increase your budget to $20,000 per month. After 30 days, the data shows: At this point, your revenue increased significantly, but your net profit only increased by $2,000 because your ROAS dropped. You then push the budget further to $30,000. After another month, here are the results: Here, despite spending an additional $10,000 in revenue, your profit tanked. This shows that you’re experiencing diminishing returns, where increased spend no longer justifies the additional revenue as it’s losing profit compared to when you were spending $20,000/month. Finding the Optimal Spend Based on these scenarios, your optimal budget is likely around $15,000 to $20,000 per month. Let’s estimate the performance at $17,500: At this level, you’re maximizing net profit without overspending. As you may have guessed already, you won’t know unless you test. So test small increases or decreases in the budget (10-20% at a time) and track key metrics ROAS and Net Profit. And don’t neglect other optimisations – ad improvements, better targeting, creatives and landing pages. Example with a real account that indeed sells appliances. Feel free to use this Google Ads Regression Analysis Template to get an idea of your optimal spend level. Conclusion There is no easy or quick way to answer the question. The best option is to test yourself. It’s trial and error—eventually, you’ll find the balance between capturing the bulk of the sales and avoid overspending. And if you can’t be bothered with that and want me to help, send an email to victor@victorserban.com I’ll be happy to help Cheers,Victor
GMC Disapproved Product Alerts Google Ads Script
Last updated: 14/11/2024 Tweaked the Disapproved Products Alerts script by Nils Rooijmans as it wasn’t working for me last time I ran it with a few tweaks that reports on the total products disapproved in the Shopping and anything that had at least one click in the last 90 days.
Impression Share, Auction Insights and Competitive Metrics Explained for Google Shopping & Search Ads
What is Impression share? Impression share (IS) is the percentage of impressions that your ads receive compared to the total number of impressions that your ads could get. Impression share is a good way to understand whether your ads might reach more people if you increase your bid or budget. Formula: Impression share = “Impressions” / “Total Eligible Impressions“ How does Impression share work? It’s important to understand how it works and according to Google Impression share includes all auctions (impressions) where your ad showed and auctions where it was competitive enough to show (total eligible impressions), but could exclude auctions where your ad needs a 1,000% bid increase to appear. So the next logical question is – what is the number of Total AVAILABLE Impressions? To save you time and headache I’ve put together the three layers of Impression share in a simple illustration. You can rest in peace now. Still confused? Difference between Total Available & Eligible Impressions? Let’s take this demonstration as an example which I found on clicktrust.be Impression share = Impressions / Total Eligible Impressions You increase bids and your formula looks like this: Impression share + X% = (Impressions + Y) / Total Eligible Impressions But as you increase bids, you might be eligible for more impressions meaning the correct formula is: Impression share + X% = (Impressions + Y) / (Total Eligible Impressions + Z) An increase in bids affects both total eligible impressions and the number of impressions your ads receive so it may result in a higher number of Impressions, but lower Impression Share %, because your Total Eligible Impressions are higher now. Search Campaigns Impression share With Search campaigns, it’s straightforward when using Exact and Phrase match because you know what words the search terms should contain. Even though exact is not “exact” anymore, the variations are most often acceptable. Here’s an example of close variants that Google is showing our ads for the exact keyword [cheap memory foam mattress]. 80% of the search terms will exactly match the keyword and 20% will be close variations. It gets a little more difficult with broad match. Google’s showing your ad on searches that are related to your keyword and more importantly keywords that are completely unrelated or way too broad for the term you’ve specified. Have a look at an example of the broad keyword best life insurance and what are the top search terms. None of them contains the word life which is what we’re interested in and that’s what we’ve specified in the keyword, but Google instead is marching the keyword to insurance related queries which are too broad for what we’re trying to do here. In conclusion, it’s impossible and pointless trying to measure impression share for a broad match keyword because it is causing a lot of waste. Shopping Campaigns Impression share For Shopping campaigns it’s more like with broad match type (Broad match lets a keyword trigger your ad to show whenever someone searches for that phrase, similar phrases, close variations of the keyword terms, related searches, and other relevant variations – that is a lot and it can be anything) in Search, you never know what auctions Google might consider you’re eligible for and aiming for 100% IS on your shopping campaigns is not a great idea, unless you’re using query level bidding otherwise you’re wasting ad spend because a good portion of those will be either too generic or irrelevant and you should optimize for ROAS and profit instead. Key Insights: What’s the difference between the Impression share column in the campaign view and the Auction Insights view? If you’ve been reporting Impression share and Auction insights data, you might’ve noticed slight differences which we’ll cover in this section. According to Google Ads Help docs: Sometimes impression share at the campaign and product group level and impression share from auction insights reports may have slight differences. The reason for the slight discrepancy is likely that auction insights filters out auctions with very low impressions, which the campaign level does not (this is to reduce auction insights latency). so based on the above statement Auction Insights IS should be always higher than campaign / ad group or product group level. Here’s an example of a Search Campaign Campaign view versus Auction Insights view It’s 74.28% vs 74.19%. Marginal difference. I’m happy with that. Now same views for a Shopping campaign: Campaign IS is 28.60% compared to Auction Insights view which is showing 39.20% resulting in a 10% difference with Auction Insights showing higher. I’ve reached out to Google support for a more detailed explanation and here’s what they said: The article mentions that the auction insights report “filters out auctions with very low impressions which the campaign level IS does not”. So to sum up, this is expected behavior as Auction insights filter out auctions with low impressions to reduce latency, while the campaign tab shows all eligible data. If you want to get the accuracy, they should refer to the campaign tab report over auction insights. X/E meaning Campaign view which in our case is 28.60% < is less than x/e which is Auction Insights Impression share at 39.20%. Key Insights: How much are my competitors spending? Shopping Campaigns It’s important to understand that auction insights data visible to you is only relevant to you and not reflective of what your competitor’s paid strategy is. Data you can see applies only to the auctions you were eligible for and if your competitors have their bids set higher or bid on keywords and products which you don’t – you’re not seeing those in the Auction Insights. We’ll use the below example to calculate how much Amazon has spent on impressions that we were eligible for. In theory, it should be as simple as: Take the campaign spend which is £1,150 and apply a simple math calculation 39% (our IS) = £1,150 66% (Amazon IS) = x Result: x = (£1,150 * 66%) / 39% = £1,946 But that’s not
PPC For DIY & Hardware Products – Building & Construction Store Doubled Profit in 3 months with Google Ads
This is a case study detailing how I ran PPC ads for a DIY & hardware brand selling building & construction supplies with Google Ads. Good neighbours live in Holmes Chapel This case study is a referral from another client of mine, read their case study here, they literally have their warehouses next to each other. We’ve been working together since January and in a relatively short amount of time managed to double monthly net profits from £11K to £22.5K+ and I’m excited to share how we’ve done and what we’re doing now as we continue to scale. First Meet I first met with Rob (the founder) at their HQ in Crewe. We talked about how it all started and their current marketing operations. They had a healthy split of channels and marketplaces that were performing but haven’t seen much growth, being a little too cautious with investing more in ads as they lost confidence in marketing after they partnered with an agency that didn’t live up to expectations. They shall remain nameless, but it’s worth mentioning they’re one of the largest digital marketing agencies in the UK that work primarily with small businesses, and they’re rated Excellent on Trustpilot with over 2,000 reviews; the funny bit is that this is not the first time others have reached out to me with pretty much the same story, well not everything is birds & bees & flowers, anyway. For the last year, Rob has been managing the account himself and he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. The first question he asked me when we looked at the account was, “What’s our return on investment from Google Ads in the last year?”. Every other month, he would log in and adjust the budgets depending on how busy or slow sales were without much analysis of what the campaigns were reporting. A big chunk of sales were from Amazon and eBay, which charge high commissions and the fact that most of the items had low margins (20-30%), the focus was on scaling Shopify. It was clear that the account needed more attention, had the capacity to do better, and paid search was the right channel to help them generate more profit, so I agreed to follow up with a quick account audit and a formal proposal. Audit While auditing the account, I encountered a few issues and highlighted opportunities outside paid search that I knew would make a positive difference. 1. Duplicate conversion tracking Double counting conversions from Google Analytics and Google Ads tags, you’d think an agency of that size would know better, but here we are again. 2. Underperforming campaigns Five PMax campaigns split into brands, at first, didn’t seem too bad, but neither of those was prioritising their best sellers and high-margin products. Along with a local search campaign targeting generic terms like “builders merchants near me” that has generated three transactions worth £128 for £2,950 in ad spend, and they’re not getting many click-and-collect orders, so that budget would’ve been better spent on other campaigns, to drive more online sales. 3. Email marketing Other than sending an email asking for a review after an order and the automated abandoned checkout emails by Shopify, they didn’t have any other flows. So I suggested signing up for Klaviyo and setting up a few more email flows and a popup with a discount for orders over £100 to increase the AOV (average order value), which was low ~£50. 4. Profit tracking With over 1,900 products and 8,000+ variants in the feed that range from 16% to 65% in gross margins, it was crucial to have a profit tracking solution in Google Ads to inform the smart bidding strategies of which products have scope to be scaled and which should have budget and bid caps. First, I noticed some products missing cost prices in Shopify, which needed updating. While that was being done, I set up Profit Metrics — the best out-of-the-box solution that is super easy and straightforward to link with a Shopify store. It won’t be long until you’ll start seeing better results and, most importantly, better net profits! Here’s a view of the last 90 days for this account. 5. SEO wins The majority of the category pages had “lazy” titles and no descriptions to help them rank on Google. I suggested a few simple tweaks to help those pages rank better and strengthen the organic profile of the website, which in turn would help boost paid search conversion rates. For example, they had a collection page selling Corrapol sheets with the title “Corrapol – {Brand Name}”, unlikely that’s ever going to rank, so I suggested having a combination of a longer tail keyword that has a transactional intent “Corrapol Corrugated Roofing Sheets For Sale – {Brand Name}” along with changing the H1 to “Corrapol Roofing Sheets” and adding a description. Today, with ChatGPT, it’s never been easier to produce SEO copy. It’s not the best, and with a little more effort, you can develop a better prompt, but it’s better than nothing and gives you a great starting point. 6. CRO & website improvements CRO stands for conversion rate optimisation. As PPC experts, we should look at the full funnel, not just what’s inside Google Ads. We must check on competitors and always look for ways to improve the conversion rate on the website. Most times, it’s the landing page that needs more attention and not the campaign in Google Ads. After a brief analysis of what else is out there, I noticed some things that I was sure would improve the conversion rate. Here are a few: Add a price match guarantee banner on the product pages Add reviews to the product pages – I suggested they use Judge.me which had an import feature so they could upload all the reviews from Trustpilot, Amazon and Ebay Free Next-Day Delivery timer – they were one of the few retailers who held stock and were offering next-day
Golf Brand PPC Case Study – Increased Net Profit From £10K to £65K/Month In 2 Years With Google Ads
This case study describes how I ran PPC (Google, Bing & Meta Ads) for a golf store and helped them increase their net profit in 2 years by 600%. Disclaimer: Because I’m sharing sensitive information no names will be mentioned. Most case studies are sh*t. They either don’t share numbers or say “revenue up by 277% in 30 days” with no context of before and after or sales trends over time. They conveniently highlight the stuff that looks good. My case studies are different. You can see both, the good and the bad, although lucky for me it’s mostly good. Industry: Sports Gear / Golf Equipment Platform: Shopify Duration: March 2022 – Present (3+ years) Services: Google Ads, Bing Ads, Paid Social/Meta Ads, SEO, Email Marketing, International Expansion. Overview How long have we worked for? 4+ years, since May 2022 – Present Monthly Revenue Up 23x from £50,000 to £1,150,000 Monthly Net Profit Up 11x from £10K to £110,000 Average Profit Margin 25% AOV £900 Markets International (UK 40%, Europe 30% USA 20%, Australia 10%) Blended ROAS 2,160% Google Ads ROAS Total 1,322% TACOS (total ad spend / total revenue) *includes all marketing spend 9.5% Google Ads ROAS Non-Brand 1,101% Monthly Google Ads Spend £53,200 Happy Tuesday A few years ago, on a cold Tuesday 8:49PM, February 15th, Bob reached out to me on Upwork, requesting for 5 minutes of my time to jump on a Zoom call at 8:50PM. That’s an ambitious entrepreneur, I thought. And there I was watching The Office on Netflix for the 7th time; hoping for a quiet evening, boredom leads people to do mad things, so I joined the call. It lasted 14 minutes, and the next day, I started managing the account. This case study is still a work in progress; it’s different from the other case studies because I decided to personally invest in the company in July 2023, so read on to find out how that worked out. Account Audit Lucky for me, the account had never been managed by a “good” expert/agency, it had no conversion tracking, and the product that spent the most was a £5 phone holder, which was just an accessory to one of their main products. The account had many opportunities. I posted new campaigns and started scaling in March 2022. At the time, the website was doing £50K/month. The products are seasonal. Normally, demand picks up in September, with highs in November and starts to drop off around April/May. The challenge No senior manager has ever touched the account, it was all set up by the owner, who isn’t very tech-savvy, so the way he set it up 12 months ago with no conversion tracking, one campaign that was pushing a £5 product that was an accessory to the main product they were selling. It was a beautiful disaster, and it needed a total rebuild from scratch. Approach/Strategy/How Month 1 Fixed tracking Built the campaigns for Shopping and Search, split into brand vs non-brand, prioritised products with the highest margins because the brand was selling a mix of their own products and other manufacturers. Month 2 Feed optimisations and improvements – all started with addressing titles. Most of them were very unorganised and were missing the keywords with solid search volume that represented them well. Month 3 Tested lead gen campaigns because they were selling a premium product, people would often want to speak with someone first, ask questions/get advice so we tested a landing page with Unbounce that we used for quite a while. Now 4 years later we’re still using a lead capture page that’s hosted on Shopify and we refined over the years based on various A/B tests to try and increase the conversion rate from click to lead to a booked call for an initial consultation. Month 3+ International expansion. Created another account for USA as demand was 10x in the US compared to the UK, judging by the search volume keyword planner was reporting on. Nerdy stuff What changes have I implemented, and how am I managing the account today? 1. Conversion Tracking & Profit Metrics Fixed conversion tracking with the default Google & YouTube app and soon after that started tracking net profits with Profit Metrics which replaced the primary conversion actions for revenue. We had a mix of products with different margins, so it was important to feed that information to Google and “educate” smart bidding strategies on which products and keywords drive the most profit. Another benefit of Profit Metrics is that it manages to capture more conversions than the default conversions Google creates with its server-side tracking. For a 90-day period, this account saw a 21% uplift in conversions (from 362 recorded by Google to 438 registered in Profit Metrics) and a 12% increase in revenue (£387K Google vs £433K Profit Metrics). Not bad, the more data Google has, the better it will perform. It’s not about claiming more conversions for Google Ads as a channel in isolation, it’s about feeding conversion data to Google smart bidding strategies that will improve your bottom line. 2. Product Exclusions Excluded unprofitable products from paid listings (Shopping & Display). This is so easy but often overlooked. Just an export with all-time spend and sales (ideally net profit hopefully your cost per item fields are not empty) in Shopify to identify potential exclusions works great for finding products to be scaled. By far the best way to manage your exclusions, relying just on Google Ads data may lead to assuming some products are performing better than you think because Google Ads does not account for returns by default. I look at products that had at least 150 clicks or spent more than £100; anything less than that often leads to excluding products prematurely and you missing out on profits, especially if you have a high AOV (Average Order Value). 3. Advertising Worldwide Initially, we started advertising in Europe. Set up a new campaign on low bids targeting the top