How to get a positive return on unprofitable campaigns

Last month, we took over one of our new partners’ accounts.

One of their Search campaigns had been running for a while with a 0.56x ROAS.

It was bleeding money with little return, so we shut it down immediately.

But the money spent wasn’t for nothing.

As we analyzed that campaign, we discovered valuable data in the search term report.

We spotted several high-intent keywords buried among the junk.

So we used those queries to build our audience signals in the Performance Max campaign.

We also used the search term data to strengthen our negative keyword list and our ad copy.

We rewrote the landing page and product descriptions to match what people searched for.

That’s the kind of work that doesn't give you the rush of a 6x ROAS campaign.

But it’s those little improvements that compound over time.

Because the truth is…

As you scale Google Ads and launch more campaigns, you'll have winners. But you'll absolutely have losers too.

While it’s easy to get discouraged by the ones that don’t work…

The difference between a decent media buyer and a great one is what they do with that data.

Every campaign tells you a little something about your market and the way people search.

A great advertiser doesn’t abandon a campaign just because the ROAS is low.

Some campaigns, like this one, will hand you the information you need to make other campaigns more profitable.

The trick is being willing to look.

This doesn’t just apply to Search campaigns feeding PMax.

You can:

1. Plug high-performing search terms from PMax & DSA into Search campaigns as exact/phrase match keywords.

2. Analyze Performance Max asset and audience signals to refine audiences and test creative in YouTube and Demand Gen.

3. Leverage Shopping data to optimize product feed attributes and on-site product presentation

That’s why we didn’t stress about the 0.56x campaign.

Because once you’ve learned how to use unprofitable campaigns to unlock a positive return elsewhere…

You realize that almost nothing is wasted if you're willing to pay attention.

And in some weird way, it becomes kind of liberating.

Because you’re no longer at the mercy of results.

You’re in the driver’s seat.

And you know how to use everything (even the losers) to drive better performance.

Jackson

Founder & CEO 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.

• Get our E-commerce Growth Toolkit: Get access to our free resources and tools including the Product Feed & GMC Optimization Checklist, YouTube Shorts Ads Playbook, and 12 Plug-and-Play Dashboards. Click here.

P.S. Got a friend interested in Google ads? Share the love and send them our way.

If you’re that awesome friend, you can subscribe here.