Google Ads Case Study: How I Achieved 8X ROAS for an Indian E-commerce Brand

When a fashion accessories brand from Surat approached me in early 2025, they were spending ₹2.5 lakh/month on Google Ads and getting a 2.1X ROAS. They knew the numbers weren’t good — but they’d been told by their previous agency that “2X is normal for accessories.” It isn’t. Within 90 days, we were at 8X ROAS on the same ₹2.5L budget. Here’s exactly how we did it.

The Situation When I Took Over

Before rebuilding anything, I ran a full audit. What I found was textbook under-performance:

  • Campaign structure: One broad Shopping campaign with all 340 SKUs lumped together, zero segmentation by margin or price point
  • Search campaigns: Broad match keywords with no negative keyword list — they were paying for searches like “jewellery repairing near me” and “free earrings”
  • Bidding: Maximize Clicks — completely wrong objective for an e-commerce brand focused on ROAS
  • Product feed: Titles were manufacturer-style (“SKU-4821-GLD-EAR”) with no searchable keywords, no GTINs, and incorrect product categories
  • Conversion tracking: Only “Purchase” was tracked — no micro-conversions like Add to Cart or Initiate Checkout, which starved the algorithm of learning signals

The account had ₹7.5L in historical spend with poor data quality. Before touching the campaigns, I needed to fix the foundation.

Phase 1 (Weeks 1–2): Feed Overhaul and Tracking Fixes

The most impactful Google Shopping changes happen in the product feed — not in the campaign settings. We rewrote every product title following this structure:

[Material] + [Product Type] + [Key Feature] + [Gender/Occasion] + [Brand]

So “SKU-4821-GLD-EAR” became “Gold Plated Jhumka Earrings for Wedding — Traditional Indian Design — [Brand]”. This alone improved impression share by 34% within 10 days because the feed now matched actual search queries.

We also fixed conversion tracking — adding Add to Cart and Checkout Started as secondary conversions, with Purchase as the primary. This gave Google’s algorithm 6x more signals to work with during the learning phase.

Phase 2 (Weeks 3–6): Campaign Restructure

I split the single Shopping campaign into four segmented campaigns based on product margin and price tier:

  • Campaign A — High Margin Hero Products (₹799–₹1,499): Top 40 SKUs by margin percentage. Budget: ₹80,000/month. Target ROAS: 10X
  • Campaign B — Mid-Tier Volume Products (₹299–₹799): 120 SKUs driving most of the order volume. Budget: ₹1,00,000/month. Target ROAS: 7X
  • Campaign C — Clearance / Low Margin: Remaining SKUs. Budget: ₹40,000/month. Target ROAS: 4X (acceptable at lower margin)
  • Campaign D — Brand Search: Exact match brand terms only. Budget: ₹30,000/month. This campaign consistently delivered 15X+ ROAS

For Search campaigns, we replaced broad match chaos with a tightly controlled exact + phrase match structure, built a 400-term negative keyword list in week one, and added audience overlays (past purchasers, cart abandoners) to Shopping campaigns to improve bid efficiency.

Phase 3 (Weeks 7–12): ROAS Optimisation and Scaling

By week 6, Campaign A was already hitting 9.2X ROAS and Campaign B was at 6.8X — both ahead of targets. The restructure and feed work were paying off.

In phase 3, we focused on:

  • Search term mining: Weekly review of search terms to find high-converting queries to add as exact match keywords
  • Performance Max testing: We ran a PMax campaign alongside Shopping for the top 20 products to test incremental reach — it underperformed Shopping by 2.1X so we paused it at week 10
  • Remarketing integration: Google Display remarketing targeting cart abandoners with product-specific creatives — this added ₹18,000 in incremental revenue/month at ₹6 cost per click
  • Seasonal bid adjustments: Increased bids 20–30% on weekends and around payday dates (25th–31st of each month) — Indian consumer data consistently shows higher conversion intent during these windows

The Results at 90 Days

MetricBefore (Month 1)After (Month 3)Change
Monthly Ad Spend₹2,50,000₹2,50,000Same budget
Revenue from Google Ads₹5,25,000₹20,00,000+281%
Blended ROAS2.1X8.0X+281%
Average CPC₹18.40₹11.20-39%
Conversion Rate1.2%3.8%+217%
Orders/Month2861,089+281%
Cart Abandonment Rate78%61%-17pp

The brand went from ₹5.25L in Google Ads revenue to ₹20L — same budget, same products, same website. The only things that changed were feed quality, campaign structure, bidding strategy, and conversion tracking.

What Made the Biggest Difference

If I had to rank the interventions by impact:

  • Product feed rewrite (40% of total improvement): Google Shopping is a feed-first platform. If your titles and attributes don’t match real search queries, no amount of campaign optimisation compensates for it.
  • Campaign segmentation by margin (30%): Treating a ₹299 anklet and a ₹1,499 statement necklace as the same product in the same campaign is a guaranteed way to average out your ROAS into mediocrity.
  • Switching to Target ROAS bidding (20%): Once we had enough conversion data (90+ conversions in 30 days), switching from Maximize Clicks to Target ROAS unlocked Google’s algorithm properly.
  • Negative keyword discipline (10%): A clean negative list prevents budget bleed to irrelevant searches. We added 400 negatives in week one and continue to add ~20/week.

Is 8X ROAS Achievable for Your Brand?

8X isn’t a universal target — it depends on your product margins, average order value, and competitive landscape. For fashion accessories with 60–70% gross margins and average orders around ₹650, 8X is achievable and sustainable. For a brand selling products at ₹200 AOV with 30% margins, the math is different.

But almost every Indian e-commerce brand spending on Google Ads has significant, recoverable ROAS leakage — usually in the feed, the campaign structure, or the tracking setup. The floor is almost always higher than where you currently are.

Running ads and not getting results? Book a free 30-minute strategy call — I’ll audit your account for free.

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