Results
Case Studies From Live Accounts
Three accounts, with the numbers taken straight out of Google Ads, Search Console and Analytics rather than retyped from a deck. Each one includes the part that did not go to plan, because a case study without one is an advertisement.
Side by side
Which account looks most like yours?
The same 24-month window in every row, so the three are comparable. Period is how long the relationship has run, which is longer in two of the three cases.
| Client | Sector | Managed spend | Blended return | Period | The job |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lifeguard Store | Aquatics retail | $159,235 | 17.5x | 24 months | Scaling a seasonal account |
| Shurhold | Marine care | $112,278 | 3.6x | 7 years | Growing a stable account |
| Petticoat Lane | Fashion & accessories | $238,587 | 3.9x | 4 years | Changing the channel mix |
Aquatics Retail · 24 months
The Lifeguard Store
$159,235 managed · 17.5x blended return
Scaling a seasonal account, and what the extra spend really returned once you separate it from the average.
Read the case study
Marine Care · 7 years
Shurhold
$112,278 managed · 3.6x blended return
Seven years on one account. Spend up, revenue up faster, and the diagnostic that said to keep funding it.
Read the case study
Fashion & Accessories · 4 years
Petticoat Lane
$238,587 managed · 3.9x blended return
A third less paid spend at a better return, rankings up sharply — and the organic revenue that has not followed yet.
Read the case studyReading the numbers
What the figures mean, and what they do not
What is a blended return, and why quote that one?
Blended return is all tracked revenue divided by all ad spend across the whole period. It is the honest headline because it includes the bad months as well as the good ones. A figure quoted from a single quarter, or from one campaign, will almost always look better and tell you less. Every return on this page is blended across 24 months.
Why does marginal return matter more than the headline?
Because the headline tells you what the account did, and the marginal figure tells you what the next dollar will do. Divide the change in revenue by the change in spend year over year and you get the return on the money that was added, not on the money already working. It points in opposite directions on two of the accounts below — well below the average at The Lifeguard Store, above it at Shurhold — and that single number is what decides whether a budget goes up or down.
Where do these numbers come from?
Straight out of the platforms: Google Ads for spend and conversion value, Google Search Console for rankings, and Google Analytics for channel revenue. They are pulled through an API into a data file that generates both the charts and the text on each page, so the prose cannot drift from the figures. Nothing here is retyped from a deck.
What are these numbers not telling me?
Conversion value is the ad platform’s own attribution, which is the right measure for judging the platform and the wrong one for judging the business — those are different questions. Year-on-year comparisons also overlap with price changes, stock and whatever competitors did, so they are arithmetic on real totals rather than controlled experiments. Each case study says where its own figures are soft.
Can I see an account like mine?
Probably, if you sell physical products direct to consumers and spend somewhere between $5,000 and $100,000 a month. The three below are a seasonal retailer scaling hard, a stable account compounding over seven years, and a store deliberately reducing how much it depends on paid traffic. Most briefs look like one of those three.
Want the same look at your account?
I audit the account before either of us commits to anything, and you keep the audit whether or not you hire me.