The Client
The Proud Republicans is an online store for patriotic hats, flags, apparel and mugs, selling across the United States. Our Google Ads for this e-commerce store turned $220K+ in ad spend into $1.3M+ in ad revenue over 32 months.
The store's best sellers were the products its customers searched for by name: Trump 2020 flags, MAGA hats and campaign merchandise, plus free-merchandise offers where the buyer paid only for shipping. When we built our first campaign in August 2018, it brought in a little over $4,300 in ad revenue that month. Two years later, a single month brought in more than $230,000.
"$4,300+ in ad revenue in August 2018. $230,000+ in August 2020."
The Challenge
- Low order values. The average order was about $20, many of them free products with paid shipping, so every click had to be cheap and every campaign had to stay profitable at volume.
- Demand that moves with the news. Searches for campaign merchandise rise and fall with the political calendar. Budgets had to scale fast when demand peaked and pull back when it cooled.
- Broad, noisy keywords. Terms like "trump 2020" or "maga" also bring news readers, critics and people looking for images, not buyers.
- Competitors on the same searches. Other stores sold similar flags and hats and bid on the same terms.
What We Built
1. A Free-Merchandise Search Campaign
Our first campaign was built around the store's free-product offers: "free trump hat", "free trump flag" and related searches, bid with maximize conversion value so Google favored the clicks that turned into orders. It went on to produce $660K+ in ad revenue by itself.
2. An Optimized Core Search Campaign
In December 2018 we launched a second Search campaign for the core product searches: Trump 2020 flags and merchandise, MAGA hats and "proud republican". The keyword "trump 2020" alone drove $330K+ in ad revenue. This campaign produced $680K+ in total.
3. Competitor and New-Product Campaigns
In 2020 we added a competitor campaign on maximize conversion value and a campaign for new products as the range grew, together with Dynamic Search Ads ad groups that matched searches to pages on the store automatically.
4. Negatives, Offers and Assets
Over 770 negative keywords at campaign and ad group level kept news, image and research traffic out. Sitelinks, callouts, promotion and price assets put the offers in the ad itself, before the click.
5. Daily Optimization via Ad Campaign Concierge™
Every campaign was reviewed daily under the process that runs today as our proprietary Ad Campaign Concierge™ system: search-term mining, new negatives, bids and budgets moved toward the keywords that sold.
The Results
- $1.3M+ in ad revenue from August 2018 to March 2021, on $220K+ in ad spend
- About 6x ROAS across the whole engagement
- 66,000+ purchases from the ads
- Over $1M in ad revenue in 2020 alone, and $720K+ in just four months, June to September 2020
Scaling Into the Peak
When demand for campaign merchandise climbed in 2020, we scaled with it. Monthly spend went from about $7,600 in May to about $32,600 in August, and ad revenue followed, from $57,000+ to $230,000+ in August 2020, at about 7x. The budget grew more than fourfold and ROAS stayed above 6x every month.
Key Takeaways
- Sell what people search for by name. The biggest keywords were the products themselves, "trump 2020", "trump flags", "maga hat", and they carried the account.
- Put the offer in the search. A free-merchandise campaign built around "free" searches became a $660K+ revenue campaign.
- Scale when demand peaks. Spend grew fourfold in four months in 2020 and ROAS stayed above 6x.
- Search alone can carry an e-commerce store. No Shopping campaign was needed: Search campaigns built on the right keywords, offers and negatives drove 66,000+ purchases.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much revenue can Google Ads drive for an online merchandise store?
For The Proud Republicans, the Search campaigns we built drove over $1.3 million in ad revenue from August 2018 to March 2021, on a little over $220,000 in ad spend. More than $1 million of that came in 2020 alone.
What ROAS should an e-commerce store expect from Google Search ads?
This store averaged about 6x across 32 months: every dollar of ad spend brought back about six dollars in revenue from the ads. In August 2020, its biggest month, the campaigns returned about 7x.
Can you scale Google Ads spend quickly without losing ROAS?
Yes, when demand is there. Between May and August 2020, monthly spend on our campaigns went from about $7,600 to about $32,600, and ad revenue went from $57,000+ to $230,000+ a month, while ROAS held above 6x every month.
Do you need Shopping campaigns to sell merchandise on Google?
Not always. All four campaigns we built for The Proud Republicans were Search campaigns, including Dynamic Search Ads, and they produced 66,000+ purchases. The keywords, the offers in the ads and the negative keyword lists did the work.
About This Campaign
Google Ads for e-commerce, built and optimized by Live PPC Ads with the process behind our Ad Campaign Concierge™ system.
Industry: E-Commerce: Patriotic Apparel & Merchandise Platforms: Google Ads (Search, Dynamic Search Ads) Location: United States (online store) Account Duration: August 2018 to March 2021. The engagement has ended.
Figures cover only the campaigns we built (the campaigns marked "LPA" in the account). Revenue is the value of the account's "Sales Conversion" purchase action, the store's tracked purchases from the ads. All figures are approximate and rounded down, in US dollars.