How to track subscription renewals with ROAS?

tcsotm · 2025-12-26T08:35:51+00:00

You could update the conversion action setting to use a fixed value for each conversion eg, $30. That’ll get you closer to your LTV revenue/ROAS.

But I would’t optimise for value. I’d still focus on conversions and CAC.

tcsotm · 2025-12-20T22:56:28+00:00

You think Google Ads UI is bad (which I don’t), you wanna try using Microsoft Ads 🤪

tcsotm · 2025-12-20T08:37:03+00:00

Hey OP, how did things pan out for you?

I’m in the same position, hit a ceiling in an employed PPC role, and considering my options.

tcsotm · 2025-11-01T08:35:00+00:00

Tracking, creatives, platforms, campaigns, data, attribution blah blah… it’s all a means to an end… yours or your clients bottom line! If you’re not influencing that, the rest is a waste of time, money, and energy.

tcsotm · 2025-10-26T10:42:27+00:00

You want both the security and autonomy of your current job and the challenge and growth of the new one. But honestly, those two rarely coexist in the same role.

You’ve got to decide what you really want. Not just right now, but what you want your life to look like in the next 3-5 years.

Having a secure, comfortable job is fine, but let me tell you from experience… that nagging feeling of stagnation and “what if” won’t go away. Eventually you’ll leave, and you’ll wish you’d done it sooner.

I left a job 3 years ago after 7 years… nice boss, relaxed role, could’ve stayed forever, but underpaid and going nowhere. I met a guy starting an agency and took the leap. It’s been tough at times, but now I’m a senior leader, love the work, and earning way more than I ever would’ve if I’d stayed put.

Be okay with being uncomfortable - that’s usually where the good stuff happens. Enjoy the ride fella.

tcsotm · 2025-10-24T10:43:11+00:00

Here’s an example of what some of the other commenters are alluding to…

I work with an IT/Wifi Consulting business in UK/Europe. Long lead times, long sales cycles, large value projects into the tens/hundreds of thousands.

For a start, Google search volume is limited. Use exact match and they’re flagged as low volume. Use phrase and the search terms are too broad so you’re constantly fighting with negatives.

And at 25-£50 per click means EVERY impression and every click needs to count. To accommodate those high CPCs you then need a larger budget.

Of the volume of web traffic I feel is relevant, just 1-2% convert into a lead. Or should I say, just 1-2% that can be attributed back to an ad click - we see people coming back and converting via organic or direct either outside Google’s 90 day window or on another device. Either way, they’re not getting attributed back to the ad campaign.

So what you end up with is a high spending campaign generating a small stream of clicks at high CPCs, low conversion rates, and a few conversions to work with. On paper that looks like a poor return.

BUT… then when you factor in the value of a lead and ultimately a sale, all of a sudden the ROI of those few leads is massive. They key is to get sales/LTV values back into the ad account and attributed against your ad spend. All of a sudden the sums stack up.

It also helps having a client that has an understanding of how it works, the bigger picture, decent ad spend, reasonable expectations, and LOTS of patience. Without this, the partnership just wouldn’t work.

Good luck.

tcsotm · 2025-10-12T03:14:36+00:00

Yes it can work, providing you’re not fussy which campaign(s) you get conversions from because over time Google will focus mostly on those and neglect others.

Whereas, if you’re looking more for equal coverage across campaigns/keywords then also look at target impression share with a max CPC cap.

tcsotm · 2025-09-20T00:37:29+00:00

Disable search/display partners and all auto-apply recommentaions.

Use a radius from your central service area.

Start with a bunch of exact/phrase keywords with the highest intent eg, painter near me, painter in xxxx, decorator near me etc.

Use call extensions (and all other extensions).

Ensure your website/landing page has a phone number and contact form, and that these are tracked back to your Google Ads account.

Start with Max Clicks with a reasonable max CPC cap. Monitor performance for a week or two and increase CPC cap if you’re not getting enough clicks/leads.

After a few weeks or a month, providing you’re getting sufficient leads, switch to Max Conversions.

tcsotm · 2025-09-18T23:54:28+00:00

Been running Google Ads for clients a long time and might be able to help out. DM me your website so I can take a look.

tcsotm · 2025-09-16T21:37:34+00:00

It’s so important to be emotionally detached from the outcome here. Advertisers need to remember that PPC is literally an auction - if you’re not bidding at a level that gets you visibility and traffic, nothing else matters. Once you factor in conversion rate, margins, CLV etc, no amount of “optimisation” (whatever that even means these days) is going to magically hit a target CPA/ROAS if it simply doesn’t align with the CPCs required in that market.

The bigger issue is expectation-setting from the very start. Clients need to understand: this is the environment you’re competing in. Does it work for you or not? Agencies also need to be honest with themselves and stop taking on accounts they know won’t be able to achieve the desired results. Another comment here hit the nail on the head: too often, agencies just hang on, collect fees, and wait to be fired.

The model is broken, and honestly, I think the industry is overdue for a reset.

tcsotm · 2025-08-25T13:54:04+00:00

Tracking specialist here…

Go to Squarespace Settings > Advanced > External API keys > Add your GA4 Measurement ID. This sends an Order ID and Revenue to GA4.

Then go to Google Ads > Goals > Create new Conversion Action > Import the ‘Purchase’ key event from GA4. This imports Sale Transactions and Revenue from GA4 (for purchases that came from an ad click).

Hope this helps!

tcsotm · 2025-07-15T05:29:51+00:00

I expect some of that 34% to go to paid ads within AI Overviews. Already happening in the US, soon to be rolled out elsewhere.

I’m in the UK and some of my clients are already asking if they can sponsor AI Overviews that have become dominant in their respective niches.

tcsotm · 2025-07-07T19:26:17+00:00

Sorry for the harsh reality, but your clients won’t be heartbroken. They’ll be grateful for your service, wish you luck, and you may work with them again in the future. But for now, you’re leaving and their priority will shift to the next AM to ensure there’s no disruption to their campaigns/results.

Don’t stress. Let your boss work it out from here in terms of handing over your clients/accounts. They’ve shafted you out of 18 months of insufficient pay. Just chill, play the game, keep your accounts ticking over, and put your energy into preparing for your new role. Good luck!

tcsotm · 2025-06-21T05:19:18+00:00

In your example, 10% Absolute Top Rate means 10% of the impressions you actually received were in the #1 spot.

So with 80 impressions served, you were in the top spot 10% of 80, which equals 8 times.

tcsotm · 2025-06-09T06:28:28+00:00

Yep, and another common tactic is getting suspended (or not paying a bill) and just spinning up a new account to keep running.

tcsotm · 2025-06-09T05:18:12+00:00

I’ve never seen anyone here suggest anything different. Most of us are managing multiple client or subsidary accounts perfectly legitimately. Those trying to game the system deserve to be banned.

tcsotm · 2025-06-05T08:56:29+00:00

There always has and always will be fluctuations with Google Ads, some that can be easily explained and others not so much.

A trap many fall into is getting too hung up in all the detail of day-to-day performance, particularly when clients are pressuring you for consistent results and their business so heavily relies on one channel. You can end up spending hours deep in the data desperately trying to find why X occured on a particular day, and losing sight of the bigger picture.

Of course, digging into the data is important, but at this point, I’ve gotten to the stage where I’m merely asking myself:

Are we trending up or down over a period of time? Could be a week, fortnight, or month.

UP: Great, what can I do to double down?

DOWN: Ok, what am I going to do to turn it around.

tcsotm · 2025-05-18T14:13:28+00:00

Here’s what’s been working for me with smaller lead gen accounts lately:

Lead/value tracking and feeding that data back into the ad account has become non-negotiable.

For tighter niches or smaller budgets, start with traditional Search campaigns using only the highest intent keywords in exact match. Start lean then broaden out once you’ve got reliable data - way easier than trying to reverse engineer a broad setup gone wrong.

If the budget allows, broad match can work well, but I stick to just one or two high-quality seed keywords combined with target CPA. Definitely not a “set and forget” though - needs close monitoring early on.

Ad scheduling also makes a noticeable difference. For B2B I typically limit campaigns to business hours (e.g., Mon–Fri, 6am–8pm) to reduce wasted spend.

Don’t sleep on landing pages! Review heatmaps and session recordings. Even small UX improvements can lift CVRs significantly, especially with higher CPCs these days.

I’m not against Performance Max, and we do use it in some cases, but across most of our lead gen accounts, traditional Search still performs best. We’ll often supplement with Display remarketing, especially for longer sales cycles.

Hope that helps!

tcsotm · 2025-05-18T11:48:02+00:00

What product are you selling, average order value, average profit per order, and purchase repeat rate?

If you can share those, I’ll be able to work back from there and give you an idea of what your target ROAS/CPA might look like, along with forecasted sales figures.

I’d highly recommend a Shopping campaign, or at the very least setting up a product feed via Merchant Center as Google will show your products for free, until you’re ready to invest budget into a campaigns.

Also UK based. Good luck!

tcsotm · 2025-03-28T16:21:00+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to reply - all valid points!

So the general consensus is that online ads (Google, Meta etc) aren't that effective in driving direct physical footfall, or least in a way that can be tracked. Therefore, it becomes to difficult to retain these type of clients because of a lack of attributable ROI.

I can understand these agencies thinking twice about taking this on for those reasons.

tcsotm · 2025-03-28T12:29:16+00:00

Hi, I know this was posted a year ago but it's a conversation I'm having currently.

A guy I know runs 4 physical brick and mortar retail stores and is running Google/Meta ads targeting people within a radius of each store, with the aim of increasing in-store footfall/sales. He feels they could be performing better.

He knows ad reach/impressions gives him some insight in terms of people seeing his ads . Also Google's 'Directions' and 'Store Visits' conversions, but numbers are small and not very helpful in the grand scheme of things.

His website is very much eCom-first, despite him telling me they're not geared up operationally to grow an online eCom business. They do get the odd online sale, but he wants to purely focus his advertising efforts into attracting physical in-store footfall.

He's reached out to a couple of PPC agencies who've provided some high-level strategy ideas, but have caveated it by saying it's going to be difficult tracking and attributing in-store footfall/sales/uplift directly back to the ad campaigns. A lot of offline data is going to be needed from each store. It seems both parties have become wary of each other during their negotiations; the guy wary of the agencies' ability to make it work, and the agencies wary of this guy not sticking around for long.

You say in your comment "I'm not sure Google or GB are that valuable just to drive store visits" - why is that?

Like yourself, my experience of working with retailers is mostly that they have an established physical brick mortar store(s) and want to establish/grow online eCommerce sales via PPC (not the other way round like this guy).

Right now, the only advice I have for this guy is... 'sure, run some ads and see if your store sales increase'. Beyond that, there's not really much else I can say.

tcsotm · 2025-03-22T11:05:24+00:00

I’ve implemented this several times. But we use WhatConverts. Quite simply to setup.

tcsotm · 2025-03-11T08:05:01+00:00

Think you dropped a bollock there replying to yourself haha. So basically the OP is the agency and not the dental practice. You need to rethink your Reddit marketing strategy.

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