How a structured Google Ads audit recovered over $1,500/month in wasted spend for a Canadian sports apparel brand

Objective

A Toronto-born sports apparel brand approached us for a full Google Ads audit — with the goal of identifying where their budget was being wasted and implementing the changes needed to improve efficiency and drive better return from their existing spend.

Like many e-commerce brands running Google Ads without dedicated paid search management, the account had grown in complexity over time with no clear governance structure — resulting in significant wasted spend that was quietly eating into margins.

The Challenge

Without regular Google Ads management, the account had accumulated over 80 campaigns — the vast majority paused — alongside a complete absence of negative keyword strategy. Brand terms were leaking into Performance Max campaigns at CPAs up to 6× higher than Brand Search, and budget was being spent on irrelevant queries, competitor brand names, and retailer searches that would never convert on the brand’s own website.

For an independent e-commerce brand operating in a competitive apparel market, this kind of inefficiency has a direct impact on profitability. Every dollar spent on an irrelevant search term is a dollar not working toward a real customer.

The Approach

I began with a comprehensive Google Ads audit covering campaign structure, Performance Max search term analysis, keyword performance, bidding strategy, and brand term cannibalisation—giving the brand a clear picture of exactly where budget was being lost and why.

The audit surfaced over 117 negative keyword opportunities across five priority groups:

• Brand exclusions — core brand terms triggering inside Performance Max at multiples of the Brand Search CPA
• Competitor and retailer brands — spend on third-party brand names and retail chains with no conversion potential on the brand’s own site
• Irrelevant search queries — unrelated product categories, wrong-intent searches, and geographic variants generating zero conversions
• Non-English terms — French and non-English queries spending without converting
• Brand Search cleanup — underperforming brand variants with landing page or tracking issues

Brand term cannibalisation was identified as the single highest-impact issue. Core brand queries were triggering inside Performance Max and spending at up to 6× the Brand Search CPA for the same traffic—a common and costly Performance Max problem that many e-commerce brands aren’t aware of.

The audit also uncovered a strong pool of non-brand search terms — including category and product-level queries — converting at under $1 CPA through Performance Max with zero control over bids, match types, or ad copy. This provided a ready-made foundation for a dedicated non-brand Search campaign as a next phase recommendation.

With the audit complete, we moved into implementation — applying brand exclusions via Google’s Performance Max Brand Exclusion tool, uploading the prioritised negative keyword list across each campaign, and delivering a structured set of forward-looking recommendations covering non-brand Search campaign build, Google Shopping reactivation, and Competitor campaign restructure.

Results

• Identified an estimated $1,400–$1,700/month in recoverable wasted Google Ads spend across five negative keyword categories
• Resolved Performance Max brand cannibalisation—brand queries previously spending at up to 6× the Brand Search CPA redirected correctly via brand exclusions
• Uncovered non-brand search terms converting at under $1 CPA through Performance Max—providing a ready-made seed list for a dedicated non-brand Search campaign
• Delivered a prioritised negative keyword list of 117+ terms with campaign-level implementation instructions
• Full Google Ads audit findings and phased recommendations delivered as structured client-facing documentation

Services

• Google Ads account audit
• Performance Max search term analysis and optimisation
• Negative keyword research, prioritisation and implementation
• Performance Max brand exclusion setup
• Paid search strategy and recommendations
• Audit documentation and reporting

Running Google Ads for your e-commerce brand without a clear strategy? We offer Google Ads audits and paid search management for e-commerce brands across Canada and the US. Learn more about our services and how we can help you get more from your ad spend.