Google Ads Case Study Hub: What My Best Results Have in Common

Last updated: 7 November 2026

This Google Ads case study hub brings together the accounts I can show in public, from a US wine store to a B2B equipment supplier, and explains what they share. The headline numbers look very different, but the habits behind them repeat. I have managed paid search since 2013, and these are the patterns I trust most.

Quick Answer: What do successful Google Ads case studies have in common?

Across the case studies below, the same habits keep showing up. Conversion tracking gets checked before bids change, and spend goes only to searches with buying intent. Guardrails such as account-level negatives and location limits come before automation. Campaigns are split by margin or intent, and bidding gets enough time and clean data before anyone judges it.

Here is where each habit shows up in the case studies on this page.

Which Google Ads case studies are in this hub?

There are seven accounts here. Five are Google Ads accounts with a published case study, one is a Meta Ads and TikTok Ads lead generation account, and one is an ecommerce store where I can share account data but not a full write-up. The table sums up each result and links to the source.

Each row shows the account, the channel and window, and the headline result as published.

Sources: CANA Wine Company case study, Judaica ecommerce case study, MiKi Jewellery case study, cleaning equipment case study, signage company case study, law firm case study. P-Rex Hobby figures come from the account data; there is no public case study page.

The headline numbers are not comparable across rows. A wine store measures ROAS on orders, a B2B supplier counts inquiries, and a law firm counts form leads. What is comparable is how each account was fixed, and that is what the rest of this page is about.

Why does every fix start with conversion tracking?

Because smart bidding learns from whatever you tell it is a conversion. If the tag counts page views, downloads or duplicate purchases, Google gets better at buying those. So I check GA4, Google Tag Manager and enhanced conversions before I change bids or structure.

In the signage account, the rebuild included a conversion tracking review. Its job was to confirm the account optimized toward qualified leads and purchases, not low-value micro-conversions (signage company case study). It sat alongside the search term audit and the campaign rebuild.

The cleaning equipment supplier had the same problem in a different form. Its conversion setup gave bidding little clean data. Forms and calls were cleaned up first, and conversion-focused bidding came only once data volume allowed it (cleaning equipment case study).

For MiKi Jewellery, a brand-new Shopify store, tracking meant recording each purchase with its order value. Value-based bidding can only aim at the values it receives, so missing or wrong values hold it back from day one (MiKi Jewellery case study).

How does paying only for buying intent change results?

It cuts the clicks that could never convert, which frees budget for the ones that can. In these accounts, the waste came less from bid levels and more from consumers, job seekers, DIY searchers and people outside the area the business can serve.

Why do I start new Search campaigns on exact match?

My default for a new Search campaign is exact match for roughly the first 15 days. It costs more per click, but the traffic matches. Google describes exact match as showing ads on searches with the same meaning or intent as the keyword (Google Ads help on keyword matching options).

Broad match only works once an account has conversion data, and Google’s own guidance pairs it with Smart Bidding. Once an account has that data, I let Performance Max do the broad job instead of opening up Search early.

What did blocking the wrong searches do in practice?

The signage account was losing budget to DIY sign makers, job seekers and people looking for design software. A search term and negative keyword audit removed that traffic as part of a full rebuild, and ROAS went from 1.5x to 7.35x within the first month (signage company case study). I tell the full story in my guide to sign company marketing.

The cleaning supplier had the same leak from homeowners, job seekers and DIY repair searches. Blocking them, splitting buy, hire and service intent, and limiting locations to Southeast Queensland took cost per conversion from A$109.64 to A$29.69 over 90 days (cleaning equipment case study).

For CANA Wine Company, the location limit was legal rather than commercial. Spirits cannot ship to every US state, so geo targeting followed the legal shipping map instead of demand (CANA Wine Company case study).

What happened when the Judaica store stopped buying the wrong traffic?

Google Ads spend fell about 37%, from about $16.85K to $10.6K, while tracked conversion value rose from about $82.1K to $181K over two 120-day periods (Judaica ecommerce case study). Clicks in that category were already cheap, so the old account was likely buying the wrong traffic, not overpaying for the right traffic.

Budget moved toward campaigns that matched specific product searches. Google treats religious products as a sensitive category, which rules out Customer Match and site remarketing. With remarketing gone, the product feed became the main lever, and the standard ecommerce playbook did not apply.

What guardrails do I set before automation takes over?

Before Performance Max or smart bidding runs, I decide where it is not allowed to go. That means account-level negatives in phrase and exact, irrelevant placements excluded, and blog and other non-selling URLs excluded, so traffic lands on pages that convert.

Account-level negatives apply across Search, Shopping and Performance Max inventory, up to 1,000 per account (Google Ads help on account-level negative keywords). I prefer them to campaign-only lists, because a gap in one campaign’s list no longer matters.

URL exclusions keep Performance Max away from pages that will never sell, and Google’s own example is a careers page (Google Ads help on URL exclusion in Performance Max). Without them, Performance Max can pick landing pages you never meant to pay for.

In MiKi Jewellery, listing groups worked as a guardrail too. Each of the five Performance Max campaigns excluded 92 to 97 percent of the catalog, so a policy problem in the earrings campaign stayed inside that one campaign (MiKi Jewellery case study).

In CANA, two campaigns had every asset group limited by policy, which is a normal constraint for alcohol. Negatives sat at account level, and the feed carried accurate bottle names, sizes and stock. I cover the alcohol rules in more depth in my wine marketing guide.

Why split campaigns by margin, collection or intent?

Because a blended account hides where the money comes from. Once each margin band, collection or intent has its own campaign and budget, you can see which part earns and move money toward it.

CANA Wine Company is the clearest example. Its campaigns were split by margin and intent: rare and allocated bottles, everyday spirits, fine wine and gift sets. Over the same 120 days, the best returned 27.05 ROAS and the weakest 7.58 (CANA Wine Company case study).

The weakest campaign still returned more than seven times its spend, so pausing it was not the answer. The real question was whether extra budget would do better in the top campaigns. With allocated stock, that is not always possible.

MiKi Jewellery shows the same thing on a smaller scale. Five Performance Max campaigns, one per collection, returned between 6.30 and 9.11 conversion value per cost in the first 47 days (MiKi Jewellery case study). Separate budgets mean a bestselling collection cannot drain money meant for a newer one.

For B2B, the split is by intent rather than margin. The cleaning supplier’s floor scrubbers, robotic cleaners, machine hire and fleet maintenance each got a campaign, ads and a landing page. I walk through that account step by step in my B2B Google Ads guide.

How long did these Google Ads results take?

Between one month and a full year, depending on the account. MiKi Jewellery’s first read came at 47 days, the signage company was measured over two months, the cleaning supplier over 90 days, and CANA and the Judaica store over 120 days each.

Google says a bid strategy’s learning status never lasts more than seven days, but performance usually settles within one to two conversion cycles (Google Ads help on the learning period). A new account like MiKi Jewellery starts with no history at all, so the first weeks are about building data, not judging ROAS.

My rule for target ROAS also comes down to patience. Once ROAS has been stable for about 30 days on Maximize conversion value with no target, I switch to target ROAS and then push the target up by 15% to 20%. Google warns that a target set too high can limit traffic, so I step it up rather than jump (Google Ads help on Target ROAS bidding).

I never quote a client the ROAS I will hit, especially for a relaunched campaign still in learning. I judge profitability against break-even ROAS, which is 1 divided by your profit margin. A campaign above that line makes money on each sale; one below it does not.

Do the same habits work on Meta Ads and TikTok Ads?

Mostly, yes. The employment law firm I worked with went from about 75 leads a month to an average of 1,758 a month on Meta in 2024, at $18.51 per lead (law firm case study). The levers were different, but the discipline was the same.

Instead of keywords, the work was creative and audience control. Short hook videos opened with a real workplace problem. Audiences were narrowed toward people showing signs of a workplace dispute, with exclusions for groups that sent off-topic inquiries, and creatives were tested side by side.

TikTok Ads came after Meta was stable. In January 2025, the TikTok campaigns produced 1,347 leads at $17.81 each (law firm case study).

There is a caveat I always state with this account. These are form leads reported by the ad platforms, not signed cases, and some leads will not have a case. The firm tracks sign-ups in its own intake system.

How should you read a PPC case study before you trust it?

Check the window, the metric and what the number leaves out. A strong PPC case study states its dates, says how a conversion is counted, and admits what it cannot show. I try to hold my own pages to that standard.

Is ROAS the same as profit?

No. ROAS measures revenue against ad cost, not margin, shipping or payment fees. Google defines target ROAS as the average conversion value you want for each dollar spent, and multiplying conversion value per cost by 100 gives ROAS as a percentage (Google Ads help on Target ROAS). So a 1000% ROAS is the same as 10 in conversion value per cost.

That is why I judge campaigns against break-even ROAS rather than a headline number. The same ROAS can be thin for a product with small margins and healthy for one with large margins.

What do platform numbers leave out?

Each platform credits conversions with its own attribution model. In the CANA and Judaica case studies, the figures are not deduplicated against email, organic or direct sales, and they include searches for the store’s own name (CANA notes, Judaica notes). The later Judaica window also includes the run-up to the autumn holidays, so some of the lift is seasonal.

Some baselines are also worked out rather than read directly. The cleaning supplier’s before-period clicks and spend are approximate, taken from dashboard comparisons. A good case study tells you this instead of hiding it.

What do clients say about the work in their own words?

The two short videos below come from clients in very different businesses: a driving school and an anime collectibles store. They describe their experience themselves, and I leave their words to them.

P-Rex Hobby sells anime collectibles online. From the account data, it reached 1000% ROAS and $98,000 in one month. There is no public case study page for it, so treat that as account data I can share rather than a published write-up.

FAQs

What is a Google Ads case study?

It is a write-up of a real account: the starting point, what was changed, and what happened over a stated period. A useful one names the window, the metric and the caveats. Without those, a big number tells you very little about whether the same approach would work for your business.

Can you guarantee results like these for my account?

No, and be wary of anyone who does. Results depend on your margins, demand, tracking, website and competition. I never quote a ROAS or lead number before seeing an account. What an audit can show is where your budget leaks and what I would change first.

How long does Google Ads take to show results?

Expect the first clean data within weeks and a fair verdict within a few months. The published Google Ads case studies here were measured over windows from 47 days to 120 days. Smart bidding also needs one to two conversion cycles to settle, so judging an account after one week is too early.

What is the difference between ROAS and conversion value per cost?

They measure the same thing in different formats. Conversion value per cost is a ratio, such as 7.81, while ROAS is often written as a multiple or a percentage. Multiply conversion value per cost by 100 to get ROAS as a percentage, as Google’s Target ROAS page explains, so 7.81 becomes 781%.

Are platform-reported leads the same as new clients?

No. A platform lead is a form submission counted by Google, Meta or TikTok. Some will be spam, duplicates or people without a real need. In the law firm case study, every lead figure is a form lead, not a signed case, which is why leads should be matched against intake records each month.

Why are some clients in these case studies not named?

Client work is covered by signed NDAs, so I name a business only where that is cleared, such as CANA Wine Company and MiKi Jewellery. For the rest, I describe the business type, market and results without the brand name. The numbers still come straight from the account data on each page.

How much does it cost to work with you?

My fee is $600 to $800 per platform a month, month to month with no lock-in. You own all your accounts, and ad spend is paid to Google separately. For agencies, white label pricing is custom and depends on how many client accounts need covering. The free audit comes first.

What is the next step if you want results like these?

Start by checking what your account counts as a conversion, then look at the last 90 days of search terms. If either looks wrong, fix it before you change bids or budgets. Those are the same first steps behind every case study on this page.

If you would rather have me look, I hold Top Rated Plus on Upwork, a badge for the top 3% of talent there (Upwork help on Top Rated Plus). My Upwork profile shows $400K+ earned across 268 jobs and 144 client reviews as of November 2026.

Client accounts my team and I have worked on have generated $780M+ in trackable revenue, backed by 591+ client reviews across platforms (Ishant Sharma at Hustle Marketers). You can hire a freelance Google Ads specialist directly or read more Google Ads guides on the blog.

How this post was written: drawn from Ishant Sharma’s own account work and the published case studies linked above, researched against current Google Ads documentation, drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources before publishing.