[Breakdown] $5M in 12 months: How to scale Google Ads from scratch

One of our clients just wrapped up 2025 with a major milestone.

$5.13M in revenue. 13.3X ROAS.

What makes it impressive is that this was their first year running Google Ads.

Before we started working together, they'd never spent a single pound on the platform.

They had a solid social media presence, and they knew Google was a gap in their strategy.

So they came to us with a clear goal:

• Capture branded traffic efficiently

• Build and scale prospecting from scratch

• Hit at least a 4X ROAS overall

Now, there's a big misconception people have about Google Ads.

They think as long as you have solid brand awareness, making money here should be easy.

Nah.

I’ve seen plenty of brands operate with this mindset… and what usually happens is this:

They launch random campaigns with no clear structure.

They mix branded and prospecting traffic together.

They don't understand which networks to use or what goals to set for each campaign type.

As a result…

Either they're overpaying for branded traffic that should've been dirt cheap…

Or their prospecting efforts fall flat.

What they're missing is a clear framework.

And there are 3 core areas you need to nail:

1. Brand Capture & Protection

Before you spend anything on prospecting, you need to own your branded traffic.

That comes down to 2 things:

• Don't let competitors steal those clicks

• Don't overpay for them

For this brand, we built brand campaigns using manual CPC so we could maintain full control.

This also allowed us to adjust our bids based on device performance.

Mobile was driving a much lower CPA, so we leaned into it aggressively.

Another important detail:

Branded Shopping campaigns can easily get polluted by non-branded searches.

To prevent that, we implemented:

• “Wall” Shopping campaigns to capture unwanted prospecting traffic

• Negative keywords to exclude non-branded terms

This kept our branded campaigns focused on brand searches.

As a result, 98.5% of the traffic going through them was branded.

2. Feed Optimization

A lot of brands treat feed optimization like an optional add-on.

Something that’s “good to optimize.”

That makes no sense.

If you’re running Shopping Ads, your feed is the foundation of the entire account.

For us, feed work is non-negotiable from day 1.

We ran competitor and keyword research, then filled the product titles with high-volume, relevant search terms.

Then we optimized every attribute…

Price, availability, GTINs, gender, color, size, product type, all of it.

It allowed our listings to show up more often, in better positions, across more valuable searches.

3. Prospecting Layering

There’s been a lot of debate about whether Google is incremental for new customer acquisition.

And to be honest…

When I read some of those takes, I couldn’t even tell if they’re being serious or not.

Because the data across our accounts tells a very clear story.

Our clients are scaling prospecting profitably on Google.

This brand was no exception.

Most of their prospecting campaigns deliver over 4X ROAS.

There are multiple ways to approach prospecting on Google, which makes testing critical.

You need to validate what works as quickly as possible.

This brand didn’t have many creative assets for PMax at the start.

So we launched with a feed-only PMax campaign to get traction.

Once we saw strong signals, we leaned into them and layered in additional assets over time.

We also launched a conquesting PMax campaign targeting competitor traffic.

Since then, it’s been a strong revenue driver.

We tested other formats as well.

RSAs, DSAs, Demand Gen, Standard Shopping.

They didn’t meet our performance targets, so we paused them.

Since the brand’s priority was efficiency, we focused on what delivered both scale and profitability.

The key here is speed.

We quickly tested what could work, saw what worked, and instantly pushed hard on it.

Looking ahead, we already have several ideas to push the account further.

So there’s no doubt the numbers will be even bigger in 2026.

That’s how we took a brand with zero Google presence… to now having a growth channel that runs profitably alongside their social.

Now, I won’t say this is what everyone should expect in their first year on Google Ads.

There are a lot of variables that affect how fast and how far you can scale.

But it does show the impact of having the right structure and the right people managing the account.

So if you’d like to get similar results…

Grab a call with me here.

I’ll walk you through what Google Ads can unlock for your brand when it’s run properly.

Jackson

CEO & Founder of Echelonn

How we can help:

Get a free Google ads audit: For brands spending more than $20k/mo. or making over 1 million annually, we’ll identify the key bottlenecks in your account, and turn it into a free 90-day scaling plan. Click here.

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