Why Google Ads Stops Scaling for Ecommerce Stores

All right, listen. This might sound familiar to you. You just increased the budget by 10 20%. And revenue did absolutely nothing. Your roars tanked. You told yourself, "Hey, you know what? Let's give it two weeks. Maybe it needs some more time to adjust to the new level." And in the end, you quietly pulled back to where the level was before anyway. And now you're at the same numbers for 7 8 months already. That's a plateau. And it's almost never the ads. work with over 200 ecom brands

and it's always the same few reasons and I will show you in this video why you're plateauing right now and what you can do against it. Stick through the video. Number four especially will make you kind of mad because that's the only one where you cannot do much against it. But stick until the end and you will find out how you can break through your

plateau right now in this video. Let's go. All right. Mistake number one, and I know it sounds like a very obvious one, but trust me, most people still get it wrong, and it's simply you ran out of winners to sell or you don't have enough winners to sell. And that's what I mean, right? A lot of people kind of like always try to find different complicated reasons like, "Oh, I need to find a new media buyer, a new agency, or we should like revamp the whole website, right? like change the theme, change this, change that, and they don't even like think it fully through, right?

Like maybe the metrics already perfect. You have top tier AOV, you have good conversion rate, you don't even need to change the site. And sometimes it's just like especially if you scale with shopping ads in the lower funnel specifically, right? And maybe you are like a one product store, you don't have a lot of products that this is often like a obvious limitation that you have, right? Like okay, you try to grab as much in the lower funnel as possible obviously, right? That's where you have a pretty high roars. Doesn't matter regardless of the niche, right? And if you only have a couple of winners there, then like obviously you're capped, right?

And even with stores that have a massive amount of products, big feats like fashion, furniture stores, home decor, jewelry, whatever, right? There you can have the same thing because maybe you have like a huge feat, but maybe only a couple of products are genuinely like dialed in where you have like a top tier winner and a great offer, right? All right. So, what can

you do against this problem? Three things. Three very simple things. First of all, the obvious one. You increase the amount of winners that you have. So, you double down on what's already working or you go broader in in terms of categories, right? So, you're not relying on just one category only. But very simple, you increase the amount of winners that you have. Option number two, you improve the offer that you have. So if you have a very small amount of winners and if it's not fully optimized and fully dialed in then obviously like take those winners and improve the offer as much as possible and the smart ones might have noticed already.

Okay, you can do both, right? You can improve the offer and you can have. And the beautiful thing number three, you can layer on top of it, which is if you have that you have increased or improved the offer, increase the amount of winners. And then number three is you can go multi- channelannel. So you're not capped by one channel, right? If you ran out of winners to sell, if you're capped in any shape or form, if you have a decent level already, can you go to Pinterest? Can you go to meta ads? Can you unlock different campaign types? Right? Going further up the funnel.

Basically, these are the options that you have for problem number one when you ran out of winners to sell. Mistake

number two, and you might do that one as well, is that you are not in control of your spend. You're not in charge of where the spend goes. You're not controlling it well. And therefore, you also don't control the scaling. And it feels a bit random to you, right? for example, if you have bigger feeds, but also if you have smaller feeds, right? And Google or Meta, regardless of the platform, are spending too much money on things that obviously don't work that well, right? For example, you have products that are below your break even roars, they are losing money even though there are a lot of other products that that have a great ros that have more scaling potential at least looking at it at first glance, right?

You need to control the waste. Basically, you need to be in charge of your budget, right? You need to make sure that it gets well spent that you fuel the money the budget into the winners or in everything else that works can be can be a certain campaign type as well right like okay that campaign works that works that works that doesn't work and then you want to like cut the budget or control the budget at least on what doesn't work rights that are wasting money campaigns that are not working audiences that are not working and so on markets that are not working whatever right you get the idea here.

So you need to be in charge of your spend and only then you can be in charge of scaling as well. Another example that shows that you might not be in control is when you are not scaling the right products like we just said but in another way right exact same problem

but another example for you is when you are scaling products with a low margin and products with higher margin don't even get a lot of spend right very common mistake because typically Google optimizes on revenue or roars right but that doesn't reflect your margin and sometimes you have products with great volume, great revenue, even great rewards, but they have a very low margin, right? So like it doesn't benefit you that much in scaling those for example. And then on the other hand, you have products with great margin, but they don't even get that much spent because again like you train the algorithm to to focus on revenue, right?

So you're not in in charge there and again you're scaling the wrong numbers. You're scaling the wrong thing, right? The wrong product leads to this plateau that you're seeing. So that's mistake number two in a nutshell for you. Issue number three, and that's a tricky one as

well, especially if you're like super concentrated in the lower funnel with Google Ads with shopping and search specifically, right? And it's kind of a good problem to have, but it also explains why you're plateauing right now, right? And that is if you already own most of the searches in that segment. Let's say you're in a niche where you have like very like super specific search terms that are converting, right? that maybe it's like not that crazy search volume that you have only a couple of searches who are really like super super valuable and give you the desired return on investment right and you already control that to a very high degree for example when your impression share of all the impressions out there is already like 80 90% whatever right like so you show in 80 90% of the cases you already show up with your ads then that's a bit tricky right it's clear that there is a certain plateau So

especially in the lower funnel, right? And the solution is you can always go further up in in in the upper funnel. Basically create your demand, right? Try different cap types, more awareness focused, but typically the further you go up in the funnel, the lower your return on investment or your ROAS, especially up front, right? So that needs to be a bit more advanced in that case. But you need to understand like okay, what kind of search terms can I target? like how specific is it and how big is the is the volume in in that specific segment really, right? Because if it's very low and very niche, then yeah, of course, you will hit your plateau sooner or later, right?

And again, it kind of goes hand inhand also with some of the other everything that we discuss in this video is goes a little bit handinhand sometimes, right? And these problems are interconnected. It's never like super isolated in in each bucket because for example this limited amount of searches super specific can kind of also go hand inhand with okay you only have a small amount of products to sell right because if this is a problem with the limited amount of searches maybe when you have different kind of winning products different offer types then you can also scale right so that might be interconnected as well but either way if you're super niche and it's a very small market then obviously you hit the plateau sooner or later as well.

And that might

be one of the reasons that is holding you back right now. All right, problem number four. And that's the one where I told you you might hate me for it a little bit because you will realize now when I tell you what it is that this is the one that's the most difficult to fix, right? There is no easy fix, low hanging fruit kind of solution that you can easily apply here. And that is issue number four. your margins are simply too low to scale further and you might have not thought about it yet because people always think ah we can always scale right there are always solutions to push further but the truth is if you are in a niche or you have certain products winning products in a catalog that that do well right now especially in this lower segment again right shopping ads search you somehow made it work but margins are so low that you're always forced to stick to really really high roars to be even profitable and have a meaningful profit margin or to be even break even in the first place and get new customers in the funnel, right?

If that's the case for you or you have like a slightly higher cost of goods for whatever reason anyway. Sometimes it's just like a small amount a small percentage, right? That already makes it difficult for you and the the whole math shifts and can go in both directions, right? But if that's the case for you, you have high cost of goods, you have a low profit margin in general on your catalog or on the winning products that you want to scale, then obviously it will be very difficult for you, right? Again, you might made it work in this super small segment, whatever campaign you're running here.

It doesn't matter if it's Meta or Google, but the moment you want to expand, and expansion always means like, okay, we need to test something new. We need to try different audiences. But you have this low profit margin. You need to stick to high ROAS, right? That will make it difficult because the moment you try something new and it has to go through a learning phase and ROAS drops a little bit, you you will pull back, right? And then you're hitting that plateau. And that's why mistake number four is something you you will hate me for a little bit, right? Because like again, I cannot give

you an easy solution here. But the interesting part about mistake number four is all the other things that we discussed here, all the problems and solutions will not work, right? Because if margin is a constraint, you cannot do anything against it in terms of oh we'll test this or we'll try different offer type different campaign type whatever like this is the fundamental root problem we have to fix first right

figure out what's possible can I negotiate with my supplier get better prices can I increase margin in any other shape or form right because if the math is not mathing if if the formula is already like built to fail in the first place then obviously scaling is not a solution, right? It's not possible if the underlying math doesn't add up. So, that's important to understand. It's important to think about it as well.

Okay, can I even scale with my current margin? Right? All right, listen. Mistake number five, and I love that one because that's the easiest to fix, right? It's such a obvious thing that a lot of people just simply neglect because they're like so focused on what they're doing on a day-to-day basis that they're not able to look further and test new things. Right? Mistake number five is simply you sticking to one channel only or to what's always working for you and not trying to expand. That's one of the most obvious ones and we see it all the time, right? All of our best stores, they are on multiple channels.

They don't just scale on metal like crazy or stick to Google and that's what's working for them, right? They test everything on every channel. They might have a main channel of course, right? Like we all have a main channel depending on the niche. For some it's meta, for some it's Google, whatever. But they are still trying to expand, right? And there's different things there. And that's what you have to do as well. For example, I have so many

clients who scale with me on Google and we are stuck at whatever level, right? 80K, 100K. Not bad. Not bad. Obviously, we pushed quite a bit already, right? We We might be at 100K and now we have the same situation that we're kind of stuck, but you're still at one channel. You have 100K there. So, it's like the most obvious, the most obvious lowhanging fruit for you just to take what's already working. You have proof of concept, right? Take what's already working and try to put that on other channels. And yes, other channels are slightly different. There are different campaign types, different mechanics, but that's the beauty of it, right?

That's why you will be able to break through the plateau. And again, you already have proof of concept. You're not doing that right at the start, right? When you're testing different things and then like, oh, let's do it on four different channels and test on four different channels. No, you do that when you already have proof of concept. And when you already have proof of concept, you know this is working. Let's try to make that work on other channels as well. And you don't even have to break the plateau on that existing channel, right? go

somewhere else where you didn't try anything else like Pinterest for example right like we see it's beautiful like the connection of Pinterest and Google sometimes right we see that working so well because Google is so good in the lower funnel and also very effective in retargeting and Pinterest is more like in this discovery phase right but very cheap cost of traffic regardless of the campaign type right also for their for their shopping campaigns very cheap cost of traffic and it brings in so much relevant traffic in the discovery phase and we even aim for a slightly lower roses there sometimes Right? That's why I put so much emphasis on Pinterest and that's why we'll also add it to our portfolio again soon.

Like it's so cheap to buy traffic there and you can aim for slightly lower ROAS there, right? Like whatever slightly above your break even ros depends sometimes, right? You need to look at the at the bigger picture. You need to look at your marketing efficiency ratio like what's there at the end of the day, right? And not just like looking at it isolated ad account from ad account to ad account basically. And the beauty of it is like you will unlock additional revenue on Pinterest for example. But because that the whole connection is so strong right you will also be able to scale further on Google because you get all the traffic very cheap traffic in the discovery stage.

Google can retarget it right you have overall more data and you will be able to break through the plateau on Google as well. So now you're not at 100K

anymore. Now you have let's say 30K on Pinterest. Google is able to scale further. So now you're at 135K on on Google and suddenly you're at 165K, right? Just by adding another channel, not even doing much, not even trying to force it much, not even like testing a lot of new things, right? You just take what's already working and put it on another channel. And then you do that with with Meta, with Tik Tok, whatever, whatever is your main channel right now, right? And you try to expand to other channels. And again, you don't need to like overthink and it be like, "Oh, it's such a different channel and I need to test so so many new things now and me me me." Just take what's already working.

Start with the low hanging fruits first. Even if it's just 5 10%, it's 5 10%. It's way more difficult to get 10% on a channel where you're already like super mature, already maxed out most of it, where you have already tested everything compared to, hey, let's take what's already working and let's try it on a different completely new channel, right? It's like the obvious no-brainer, but people are so so stuck, so in love with the main channel sometimes that they're not even able to try something new, right? So, very important, kind of like the most obvious one for me. But I I see it almost on a daily basis.

Like people don't don't get it or like they don't want to do it. They're like too stuck on on the main channel, right? But they still want to scale. So, if you want to scale as well, you better take this advice. If you have proof of concept on one channel, you feel like you maxed it out there or you're stuck, you hit the plateau, go multi- channelannel, right? Don't do it straight away. Don't do it in the beginning. Don't do it when you're testing something new. You do it with something that's already working where you have proof of concept. All

right, sweet. You considered my tip here. You went to other channels. You're now on Google, Pinterest, Matter, and you maxed out everything. So now you're also maxed out on the other channels, right? Or at least that's what you think. You grabbed all those lowhanging fruits. Everything makes sense. Great roars, but you kind of hit the plateau here. You kind of hit the plateau there on Pinterest. And the same thing on metal, right? So, you're like stuck again at the way higher level now, but still you're stuck again. You hit your next plateau, right? That's the beauty of plateaus. Like there's always another one. The thing is you're still super stuck in a lower funnel, right?

You put it on other channels, but there you do the same thing, right? You go after the best converting thing first. that gives you the highest roars. Kind of makes sense, right? But at one point like controlled most of the market share. You go after every search term, every customer that gives you this high roars, but you can only go so far in the lower funnel, right? That's the most competitive funnel segment and it's also the smallest funnel segment. So what you need to do now, what you need to learn now is going further up the funnel. I mentioned it earlier the video already. Now you need to figure out campaign

types like demand channel, YouTube ads, uh long form VSSLs that are further up the funnel, typically have a slightly lower ros, but can be pushed much much further, right? And funnel back into the lower funnel segment if you're mastering that. And don't get me wrong, like that's a whole new level, right? Everybody can get a good return in the lower funnel. That's why most ecom brands are getting stuck there, right? And that's why most ecom brands are not multi-million dollar brands because it's easy to to stay there and get a good return on investment. But if you want to move further up the funnel, it takes much more skill.

It's way more difficult, right? Because you're basically targeting colder audiences and they have typically a lower return on investment initially, right? So everything needs to be top-notch on the highest level possible in order for you to do that properly. All right, last but

not least, our last issue. Our last issue is something all ecom brands will face sooner or later. On top of all the other issues that we outlined here, right? You expand in terms of channels, you will face this issue sooner or later. Especially if you're successful, if you have multiple winners, you will face it. If you go up the funnel, you will face it. And especially then you will face it right because I said the more successful you become the more important is what I'm telling you right now and that's it when you scale mostly through media buying through bait ads right and like we said like the more successful you become further you go up the funnel the broader you need to go right just because of the sheer growth which is great right there's one issue like I said before like you go further up the funnel you have to approach colder audiences because you dominating everything in a lower funnel already your ROAS will naturally drop then right your CPA will drop and brands that heavily over rely on media buying and that's their main channel to get and acquire new customers they will struggle with that of course right because first

of all like your drops the further up you go your business grows you need like more employees and naturally when a business grows profit margin goes down right so you're growing profit margin goes down at the same time your roars uh becomes lower and lower and their customer acquisition cost rises and rises the further they have to go up the funnel. That's a huge problem, right? And a lot of brands never figure it out. Sometimes it happens at 1 million a month, 10 million, 100 million, whatever, right? Like again, if you have that growth sooner or later it will happen even if you figured out all the other problems because you don't understand this yet, right?

And the solution to that is that you need to go away at a certain point from just like media buying. Obviously that's working that's that brought you all the growth and the new customers but you will not be able to maintain a great profit margin just with that quite the opposite right the more you try to push the more you try to scale it will decrease your profit margin that's just the the nature

of it so what you have to do as a brand at a certain level right the sooner you start with that the better is you need to double down on branding you need to build a real brand that's bigger than just your media buying right you need to focus on retention those customers back. Not just like get them one time with your ads, which is great, but that should just be like the first step into your business, right? Like once you get them like you want them to return, you want to have high customer satisfaction. You want to have high retention and you only achieve that if you're genuinely a great brand, if you genuinely have a great product and you focus on retention, right?

You go above the media buying, you have a great social media presence. Like I said, you're a proper brand, right? And this is not just email market like I said. Okay. Yeah. social media, email marketing, all those like basics when it comes to retention, right? Like you actually want to build a proper brand around it where you don't necessarily have to run ads to get people to buy at your store, right? Especially not your existing audience. Because if you have to constantly retarget your existing customer base that already bought before just because your brand is not strong enough, that's where that's where it really hurts the ad spend, right?

And again, the more you grow, profit margin is already low. You don't want to like spend money on that. You want to spend all that money on new customer acquisition, right? Especially if you have to go further up that funnel. So that's super important. You have to understand at at the certain point. And again, the sooner the better like you are brand. So you need to think beyond just me buy, beyond just meta ads, Google Ads, Tik Tok, Pinterest, whatever, right? You need to think bigger than just running ads. Like what makes you stand out as a brand? Why should people come back? Why do they get obsessed with your brand?

Right? That's the difference between an ecom brand that eventually does multiple millions a month compared to, yeah, a oneshot ecom brand that maybe does it one month and then hits the plateau or drops again.

And there have been examples before, right? brands that scale aggressively with media buying, like brands that we both know, well-known brands, successful brands, famous brands, and suddenly one year later they're they're doing 70% revenue less just because they push so heavily with the media buying. And again, there there are multiple variables, right? Like maybe that's on on the agenda because like there's so many factors, but that shows as well, right? Like okay, it wasn't sustainable at this space as well, right? they were really pushing in terms of growth. Otherwise, you would not see like 70% less revenue one year later, right? And then pulling out of paid ads that much.

So, and you see that at every level, right? You see that with stores that do 10k a day. You see that with stores that do 100k a day, couple of millions. Again, you see that at every level. And it becomes more and more significant the the further you grow. All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's it for this video today. If you want us to run your ads and finally break through your plateau, reach out to me. You will find all the information below. Looking forward to chat with you. And other than that, see you in the next video.