appendix b · performance max, shopping & search
The account covers Performance Max, Shopping and Search targeting Australia. It is actively managed and in a stronger position than most e-commerce accounts at comparable scale. The opportunity is targeted enhancement, not a rebuild, which means improvements can land incrementally without disrupting current performance.
the good news
The Growth Levers campaign is consistently exceeding its ROAS and conversion targets. It is one of the strongest performers in the account and the clearest, lowest-risk scaling opportunity available.
It is currently losing 31% of eligible impression share purely because of a post-financial-year budget reduction, not because of performance.
The brand term "beginning boutique" is generating significant revenue through Shopping ads. High-intent brand traffic is converting well, a strong signal of brand equity and purchase intent.
The opportunity is to capture this traffic more efficiently through a dedicated brand Search campaign, which would likely reduce the cost per click substantially while maintaining conversion volume.
the leaks
Google's AI automated asset settings are enabled across the account, allowing Google to generate and attach ad copy, headlines and messaging without review or approval. For a fashion brand where tone of voice and brand language are central to customer perception, this is an ongoing risk to brand integrity.
riskUnapproved, potentially off-brand messaging is being served to Beginning Boutique's customers every day these settings remain active. A day one fix.
Performance Max campaigns are combining all audience signals, competitor URLs, high-intent keywords, remarketing lists and interest audiences, into single asset groups. It is impossible to identify which signal drives performance, to allocate budget by audience type, or to scale winners and pause underperformers.
impactBudget is being allocated to a blended signal with no visibility into what is working. Segmentation is the prerequisite for any meaningful PMax optimisation.
Multiple campaigns are hitting daily budget caps and losing impression share despite consistently exceeding their ROAS and conversion targets. Post-financial-year budget reductions have created an artificial ceiling on proven performers; Growth Levers alone is losing 31% of eligible impression share.
impactProven campaigns are being starved. The account is ready to scale; the budget structure is not allowing it.
Customer match lists have not been updated since 2022-23, making them two to three years out of date. Google relies on these lists for audience targeting signals across all campaigns, particularly Performance Max. Outdated lists mean reduced match rates and degraded targeting quality.
impactThe algorithm is making targeting decisions based on a customer profile that is years out of date, degrading PMax performance and new customer targeting accuracy.
Approximately 5,500 products received spend but generated zero conversions over the past 90 days: roughly $16,000, about 13% of total account spend. These products sit in the same campaigns as top performers, actively competing for budget that should go to proven revenue drivers.
impactIsolating these products and redirecting the budget is the single largest immediate efficiency improvement available in the Google account.
All campaigns target Australia nationally with no state-level segmentation or bid adjustment. High-performing states, Western Australia shows strong ROAS for example, are subsidising poor-performing states within the same budget.
impactBudget is not concentrated in the highest-return geographies, and there is no data to make informed bid adjustments.
the fix list
Turn off all AI automated asset settings immediately, keeping only Seller Ratings, which is safe and beneficial for e-commerce trust signals. Takes under five minutes and eliminates the risk of unapproved messaging.
Upload current Klaviyo customer data to Google Ads immediately, then set a monthly upload cadence as standard practice. Fresh match data directly improves targeting quality across PMax and every audience-signal-dependent campaign.
Move the ~5,500 zero-conversion products into a separate, controlled campaign on a minimal budget. This immediately redirects the $16,000 in wasted spend toward proven revenue-driving products.
Restructure PMax with separate asset groups per signal type: competitor URLs, high-intent keywords, remarketing and customer lists, and interest audiences. Clear performance data by audience type, and the foundation for every PMax decision after it.
Incrementally increase budgets on campaigns that are both limited by budget and exceeding targets, starting with Growth Levers: 15-20% every 5-7 days, capturing lost impression share without disrupting the learning phase.
Create asset groups with no images, video or copy, forcing delivery exclusively onto the Shopping network. Concentrates traffic quality, improves conversion rates and cuts lower-intent placements like Gmail and Display.
Split national targeting into state-level campaigns or bid adjustments. Run a 30-day analysis to identify the strongest-returning states, then concentrate budget accordingly.
Bid on the "beginning boutique" term through a dedicated Search campaign. In comparable accounts this has reduced brand CPC from $1.50+ to $0.02-$0.06, a significant saving at the volume of brand-intent searches this account receives.
Systematically optimise titles and descriptions for the top 100 priority SKUs first: keyword-rich titles, descriptions covering material, occasion, style and fit. Better Shopping visibility and CTR with no additional spend.