Why most eCom brands don’t profit from Google Ads

We’ve audited various brands in the last 6 months ranging from 6-figures in monthly revenue to 8-figures, 60-70% of them struggle with one problem:

Getting profitable with Google Ads.

It’s funny because you see other brands flexing those screenshots with massive ROAS…

Yet Google ads can feel like you’re just pouring money into a black hole.

It’s frustrating because you already know what you should be doing.

You know what variables to test.

You know what campaigns to run.

You know which audience to target.

But execution is where you fall short.

Your ad spend doesn’t go where you want it to go. And the numbers don’t add up the way you expected.

The hardest part?

Watching your budget burn every day without knowing if or when you’ll see a return.

To make matters worse, ad costs keep rising and new competitors are flooding the space…

Which turns Google Ads into a losing battle

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Let me be real with you.

Most eCom brands don’t profit from Google Ads.

They scrape by on branded search and a couple of generic pMax campaigns.

The reason this happened?

Google makes launching a campaign ridiculously easy…

As a result, many brands just do the bare minimum.

They set up a pMax campaign, let AI take the wheel, and hope for the best.

They dump all products into a single Shopping campaign and cross their fingers.

It’s convenient.

But it doesn’t lead to profit.

If you want to win, you must get specific and take control of your account.

Take Shopping Ads for example…

You wouldn’t bid the same for a $20 product and a $200 one.

You wouldn’t market a seasonal item the same way as an evergreen product.

That’s why segmentation matters. It gives you control over:

Budget allocation between categories

Bidding strategies for different price points

Optimization for seasonal products

Testing new products

But more importantly…

It lets you tailor your approach to your audience’s awareness levels.

That way, your ads reach the right audience and you deliver the exact message needed to turn them into buyers.

Let me show you why this matters…

We ran a test comparing two ad groups targeting prospecting traffic.

Same ad. Same product. Same offer.

The only difference is that one ad led to a generic product page.

The other led to a dedicated landing page.

The results?

The product page group delivered a 0.73x ROAS

The landing page group? 1.41x ROAS.

Same ads. Nearly double the ROI.

This happened because cold prospects usually have many objections.

They wonder if the brand is legit, if the product delivers, and if the price is justified.

The landing page bridged that gap.

The social proof, the copy, the FAQ section–all those elements gave them the confidence to hit “buy.”

That extra layer of credibility made all the difference.

That’s just one optimization.

Yet it resulted in almost double the returns.

Here’s the thing…

It wouldn’t be possible if we mixed cold traffic and warm traffic in the same campaign.

That’s why segmentation plays such a crucial part in your results.

Without it, you’re blindfolded.

You’re working with aggregated data that hides what’s really happening.

It’s not about adding complexity for the sake of it.

It’s about taking charge and adjusting every lever to maximize performance.

That level of specificity and precision is what you need to get the return you’re looking for.

For that reason, the #1 priority for our Google Ads & Merchant Center Build-Out is setting up a solid structure.

It’s the difference between a highly profitable account and one that’s barely scraping by.

Yet it’s something brands new to Google Ads tend to trip up the most.

It’s like the foundation of a house.

If it's not built right from the start, everything else you do is just putting expensive decor in a house that's about to collapse.

Jackson

Founder and CEO of Echelonn.

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