The Brand
A beauty/personal care brand doing approximately $1.2M on Amazon. They had been working with a PPC agency for over a year and were spending $15K/month on ads. The owner was obsessed with ROAS as the primary metric and the agency optimized accordingly — high ROAS, but revenue had plateaued.
The Challenge
The agency had built a "safe" account structure: tight keyword targeting, aggressive negation of anything that didn't convert immediately, and low bids on anything exploratory. ROAS looked great on paper (5.8x) but total revenue was flat for 3 consecutive quarters.
The brand was essentially paying for ads that only captured customers who were already going to buy. 70% of ad spend was going to branded and exact-match terms where the brand already ranked #1 organically — they were paying for clicks they would have gotten for free. No new customer acquisition, no category expansion, no market share growth.
What I Did
Week 1-2: Full Account Audit
I mapped every campaign to its strategic purpose (or lack thereof). Found that 70% of ad spend was going to branded and exact-match terms where the brand already ranked #1 organically — they were paying for clicks they would have gotten for free. The agency's "optimization" was actually just cutting anything that wasn't already converting, which meant zero growth.
Week 3-4: Rebuild Architecture
Rebuilt the account architecture from scratch. Created three campaign tiers: Defense (branded terms, low bids, catch what organic misses), Core (high-intent category keywords, competitive bids), and Growth (category-adjacent terms, competitor targeting, new audience discovery). Each tier had its own ACOS target and success metrics.
Month 2: Shift Budget & Manage Expectations
Shifted 40% of budget from Defense to Core and Growth. ROAS dropped from 5.8x to 3.9x in the first two weeks — this was expected and planned for. I communicated weekly with the brand owner to maintain confidence during the transition. Showed them that total revenue was climbing even as ROAS dipped.
Month 3-4: Compound & Scale
Core campaigns matured. Growth campaigns identified 12 new converting keyword clusters the previous agency had never tested. Total revenue started climbing while ROAS stabilized at 4.2x. Organic rankings improved across the board as increased sales velocity lifted the brand's relevance signals.
The Results
“ROAS is a compass, not a destination. The brand owner shifted their mindset from "protect ROAS" to "grow profitably" — and that was the real win. The brands that grow are the ones willing to invest in finding new customers, not just retargeting existing ones.”