Most B2C paid search accounts are optimized for metrics an agency can screenshot, not for new customers. We rebuild the account around feed quality, real incrementality, and budget that follows the buyer instead of the calendar.
The Problem
Product feed errors quietly cap Shopping and Performance Max spend
Performance Max and Shopping campaigns run on your product feed, not your keywords. Most B2C feeds have gaps nobody checks: missing GTINs, thin titles, wrong category mapping, out-of-stock SKUs still bidding. Google throttles impressions on flagged listings without telling you why spend dropped. Your best-margin products often sit disapproved for weeks while budget reallocates to whatever the feed serves cleanly.
Attribution gaps make branded search look like growth
Consumer buyers touch a brand across Meta, TikTok, organic search, and email before typing your name into Google. Last-click attribution hands nearly all that credit to the branded search click that closes the loop. Agencies report rising ROAS on branded terms and call it a win, when you're really paying to intercept a customer who was already coming. Since iOS 14.5 and cookie deprecation, cross-device journeys can't be stitched together, so this inflation compounds further.
Seasonal and promotional swings expose static campaign structures
B2C purchase volume spikes around holidays, drops, and promotions in ways B2B demand never does. Budgets set once a quarter miss the week a competitor runs a flash sale and CPCs jump 40 percent. Bid strategies trained on average conversion rates misfire during promotions because the algorithm hasn't seen the pattern yet. Every missed reallocation either burns budget on inflated CPCs or leaves revenue on the table during your highest-intent window.
Non-brand keyword sprawl buries the SKUs that actually convert
Broad match and automated campaign types expand non-brand coverage fast, but most accounts never prune the search term report against real purchase behavior. You end up bidding on category terms that draw browsers instead of buyers, competing against Amazon for generic queries you can't win on price. The account looks comprehensive in a dashboard while actual revenue concentrates in a small set of terms nobody isolated and funded properly.
How We Help
We start with an account and feed audit, not a strategy deck. We pull the actual product feed against Google Merchant Center's disapproval list, map every campaign's budget against 90 days of conversion data by SKU, and separate branded from non-brand performance. Most accounts we inherit have never had this done – the agency's reporting is built on platform-attributed ROAS, which is exactly the number this audit questions.
From there we rebuild campaign structure around how your customers actually buy, not a generic template. We decide, category by category, whether Performance Max, standard Shopping, or manually controlled search gives you better cost control. PMax trades transparency for reach – the right trade for some catalogs, the wrong one for others. Budget allocation gets tied to your actual promotional calendar, so a launch or sale doesn't require someone reworking bids at midnight.
Execution is where most of the work lives. We fix the feed first: correcting titles, filling GTIN gaps, resolving disapprovals, and building a monitoring cadence so issues get caught in days, not the next quarterly review. Negative keyword hygiene runs weekly against the search term report, pulling budget out of near-duplicate queries and into SKUs with real intent. On branded spend, we test incrementality directly – geo holdouts or brand-off experiments that show whether it's adding revenue or just taxing revenue you'd have gotten anyway.
Creative gets the same rigor as the feed. Responsive search ads and Shopping asset groups decay fast when nobody refreshes them, so we test against conversion rate, not just CTR, and retire underperforming assets before the algorithm keeps serving them out of inertia. For brands running paid social alongside search, we coordinate creative and audience signals across both so the channels aren't bidding against each other for the same buyer.
Measurement is built to survive the attribution problem instead of ignoring it. We track blended and marginal CAC by channel and campaign type, run incrementality tests on a recurring cadence, and report what your order data actually shows. We operate as an embedded team accountable to your revenue number, not a media plan – if a campaign type isn't producing real customers, we say so and reallocate.
What we deliver
- Feed and account audit – full Merchant Center diagnostic plus SKU-level spend and conversion mapping
- Campaign restructure – budget allocation and campaign type decisions matched to your catalog and promotional calendar
- Incrementality testing – geo holdouts or brand-off tests that separate real demand generation from branded search capture
- Ongoing feed and negative keyword management – weekly hygiene so disapprovals and low-intent terms get caught fast
Rising branded search ROAS isn't proof your paid search program is working – it's often proof you're paying to intercept customers who were already on their way. The number that matters is incremental CAC, not platform-reported ROAS.
Our Methodology
Our approach runs as a 90-day sprint built around the feed and attribution problems most B2C SEM accounts never surface. The first 30 days are diagnostic: a full Merchant Center and campaign audit, SKU-level spend-to-conversion mapping, and a branded versus non-brand breakdown, so we know what's real before we touch a bid. Days 30 to 60 are restructuring – fixing feed issues, rebuilding campaign architecture around your catalog and promotional calendar, and standing up the negative keyword and asset-testing cadence that keeps the account clean going forward. The final 30 days run incrementality tests and lock in reporting tied to blended and marginal CAC, not platform ROAS.
What separates this from a standard SEM retainer is where the effort goes. Traditional agencies bill hours against bid management and reporting decks built on last-click attribution – work that looks active but rarely questions whether spend is producing new customers. We spend the first month questioning exactly that, because for most B2C accounts the biggest lever isn't a smarter bid strategy – it's fixing a feed error or catching a branded-spend problem nobody looked for.
How We Work
The first 30 days are audit and diagnosis. We pull your Merchant Center feed, campaign structure, and 90 days of conversion data, and come back with a specific list of what's broken and what it's costing, not a generic strategy deck. Days 30 through 60 are rebuild: campaign restructuring, feed fixes, and the negative keyword and creative testing cadence get implemented directly in your accounts. By day 90 we're running incrementality tests and reporting against blended CAC instead of platform-claimed ROAS.
On our side, the team is a paid search lead who owns the account plus a feed and analytics specialist who handles Merchant Center hygiene and attribution modeling, both embedded in your Slack or equivalent rather than routed through an account manager relaying to an offshore team. From your side, we need access to Google Ads, Merchant Center, your order data, and one point of contact who can approve budget and creative decisions without a committee.
Cadence is weekly during the first 90 days – a working session covering feed health, spend allocation, and test results, plus async Slack for anything time-sensitive like a promotional launch or a CPC spike. After the initial sprint, most engagements settle into a biweekly cadence with monthly deeper reviews tied to your promotional calendar. Typical engagement length is 3 to 6 months for the initial buildout, with many clients continuing on a lighter management retainer once the testing cadence runs on its own.
What to expect at each phase: month one surfaces problems, sometimes uncomfortable ones about how much branded spend was inflating reported performance. Month two is visible change in account structure and feed health. Month three onward is where incrementality data starts informing real budget decisions instead of gut calls against a dashboard number nobody has stress-tested.
- CAC reduction through feed fixes and non-brand keyword pruning
- Reduced branded search waste after incrementality testing
- Improved Shopping and Performance Max eligibility from feed health fixes
- Budget allocation that flexes with promotional and seasonal demand
If your b2c company needs paid search (sem) leadership, we should talk.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does a paid search engagement cost for a B2C company?
Most B2C paid search engagements with us run $8K-20K monthly, depending on ad spend under management and catalog complexity. That's typically less than the fully-loaded cost of an in-house hire plus tools. Feed-heavy catalogs cost more to manage properly than a simple account.
How long before we see results from a paid search engagement?
Feed fixes typically show measurable changes in Shopping and Performance Max eligibility within 30-45 days. Incrementality test results take a full test cycle, usually 4-6 weeks. Meaningful CAC improvement shows up in the 60-90 day range.
How does the paid search team integrate with our existing staff?
We work directly inside your Google Ads and Merchant Center accounts rather than routing requests through an account manager layer. Weekly working sessions cover feed health, spend allocation, and test results with whoever owns growth on your side. If you have an in-house marketer, we become the specialist execution layer on paid search.
What makes Winston Francois different from a traditional paid search agency?
Most SEM agencies manage bids and produce reporting decks against platform-attributed ROAS, which rewards branded search capture without questioning it. We start every engagement auditing the feed and testing attribution assumptions most agencies never touch. We operate as an embedded team accountable to your CAC number, and we'll say when a campaign type isn't earning its budget.
How do you measure ROI from a paid search engagement?
We track blended and marginal CAC by campaign type and product category, not platform-reported ROAS, because platform attribution overcredits branded search and last-click conversions. Incrementality testing – geo holdouts or brand-off experiments – gives us a real read on whether branded spend is adding customers or just taxing revenue you'd have captured anyway. We tie this back to your actual order data, so the number we report is the number your finance team would also arrive at.
What type of B2C company is the right fit for this service?
Consumer brands running meaningful monthly ad spend, typically $15K or more, with a catalog large enough that feed quality actually matters to performance are the best fit. Companies coming off a plateaued agency relationship, where reported ROAS looks fine but growth has stalled, tend to see the fastest impact. The first step is the account and feed audit – if that turns up real issues, that's your signal this is the right engagement.
