The Client
BoardGameCo (boardgameco.com) is an online board game retailer serving the tabletop hobby market — a passionate, deal-savvy audience that knows exactly what a game should cost.
Why Is Google Ads Hard for Board Game Retailers?
- Hobby buyers price-compare instantly; Shopping results put your price next to Amazon's on every query.
- Catalogs run to thousands of SKUs with wildly different margins, from mass-market party games to collectible titles.
- Title-name searches mix buyers with rules-lookup and review traffic that never purchases.
- Margins are thin, so acquisition cost has to stay brutally low for the math to work.
What Did We Do Differently?
- Structured Shopping and Search around margin and intent, prioritizing the titles where the store wins on price or availability.
- Ran constant negative keyword cleanup against rules, review, "how to play," and print-and-play queries.
- Kept conversion tracking airtight so every order reported true value, steering bids toward profitable baskets.
- Reallocated budget toward proven product segments, holding blended cost per click to $0.27.
What Results Did BoardGameCo Get From Google Ads?
| Metric | Verified Result |
|---|---|
| Tracked ad revenue | $329K |
| Ad spend | $85K |
| Return on ad spend | 3.86x |
| Orders | 6,211 |
| Cost per order | $13.77 |
| Clicks | 314,406 |
| Avg. cost per click | $0.27 |
Key Takeaways
- A 3.86x ROAS in a price-transparent hobby category comes from ruthless efficiency, not clever copy.
- $0.27 average clicks and $13.77 orders are what disciplined query control looks like in practice.
- 314,000+ clicks of hobbyist traffic is also a remarketing and email asset that keeps paying after the click.
How Much Should a Board Game Store Spend on Google Ads?
This account generated $329K in tracked revenue from $85K in lifetime spend — $3.86 back per dollar, acquiring orders at $13.77. For hobby retail, the answer is CPA-driven: know your average order margin, set the acquisition cost you can live with, and spend as much as the account can deliver at that number. This account proves the model works even head-to-head with marketplace pricing.
About This Campaign
All figures are lifetime totals pulled directly from the Google Ads account. Revenue reflects e-commerce conversion value tracked in-platform.