A declining account, turned around

Situation

Heading into peak season, the account was declining year over year — total sales down 8.5% and order volume down 14% versus the same period the year before, with ad spend essentially flat. Growth had stalled and nobody could say exactly why.

Task

Diagnose the actual cause of the decline before peak season hit, and reverse it — without just buying growth by spending more into a structure that wasn't working.

Action

1. 1Audited the account down to the search-term level to separate what was actually converting from what only looked productive at the campaign level.
2. 2Cut spend on search terms and placements that weren't converting, instead of trimming budgets evenly across the board.
3. 3Rebuilt the campaign structure around what the data showed was working, rather than the structure the account had inherited.
4. 4Once wasted spend was eliminated, scaled budget deliberately behind the proven terms — ad spend nearly tripled, from $42.8K to $137.9K/month, over the same window.