Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out!
Happy to give you some of my initial thoughts and guidance on your situation. First off, congrats on hitting £20k a month at a 6x ROAS with PMax – that's a really solid start, especially for a high-ticket niche. A lot of businesses would be thrilled with those numbers.
The challenge you're facing now is a classic one, though. Scaling from £20k to £50k isn't just a case of adding more budget; it's a completely different game that requires a shift in strategy. Tbh, simply tripling the budget on your existing PMax campaign is probably the fastest way to tank your ROAS. The real solution lies in moving beyond the "black box" of PMax and building a more granular, controllable, full-funnel system. Let's get into it.
TLDR;
- Scaling aggressively from £20k to £50k will almost certainly lower your 6x ROAS. The goal isn't to prevent this, but to manage the decline so you're still hitting your overall profit targets.
- Performance Max is great for finding a baseline, but it's a "black box" that hides crucial data and limits control. To scale properly, you need to unbundle it into separate, dedicated Standard Shopping, Search, and Display/YouTube campaigns.
- The most important piece of advice is to build a proper tiered Search campaign structure. You need to seperate campaigns for your own brand name, generic product terms (e.g., "high-end speakers"), and maybe even competitor names. This is where you'll find scalable growth.
- Your website is now your biggest bottleneck. Scaling traffic without optimising your product pages, trust signals, and checkout process is like pouring water into a leaky bucket.
- I've included an interactive "ROAS Decay Calculator" below to help you visualise how your returns might change as you increase spend.
Why simply increasing your budget is a recipe for disaster...
The first hard truth we need to get on the table is the law of diminishing returns in paid ads. Your PMax campaign has done a brilliant job of finding the "low-hanging fruit" – the people most likely to buy your equipment right now. They're actively searching, they know the brands, and they're ready to purchase. That's your 6x ROAS audience.
But to get from £20k to £50k in revenue, Google has to go looking for people further away from that core group. It has to show your ads to people who are less certain, earlier in their research, or just browsing. These people cost more to convert. As your spend goes up, your average ROAS will inevitably come down. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a dream. The trick isn't to fight this, but to manage it intelligently.
This is where the problem with PMax comes in. It's a black box. You feed it a budget and assets, and it gives you sales, but you have very little idea of what's *actually* working. Is it search? Shopping? YouTube? Display remarketing? You can't tell. And if you can't tell, you can't control it. To scale effectively, you need to break open that box and manage the component parts yourself.
I'd say you need to master Standard Shopping first...
The first thing I'd do is pause PMax and build a Standard Shopping campaign. I know it sounds like a step backwards, but it's about taking back control. With high-end electronics, I'd bet a small number of your products or brands drive the majority of your profit. PMax treats them all equally, but you shouldn't.
With Standard Shopping, you can structure your campaigns based on what matters to your business. I'd start by segmenting your products into groups. You could do it by:
- -> Brand: (e.g., KEF, Naim, Bowers & Wilkins) - this lets you bid more aggressively on your most popular or highest-margin brands.
- -> Product Category: (e.g., Floorstanding Speakers, Integrated Amplifiers, Turntables) - useful for setting different ROAS targets for different types of gear.
- -> Price Point or Margin: (e.g., 'Under £1k', '£1k-£5k', 'Over £5k') - this is a powerful one. It ensures you're not spending the same to sell a £200 cable as you are to sell a £10,000 amplifier.
Critically, Standard Shopping gives you access to negative keywords. Are you getting clicks from people searching for 'cheap bluetooth speaker' or 'repair parts'? With PMax, you're likely paying for that irrelevant traffic. With Standard Shopping, you can block it, immediately making your spend more efficient.
Here’s a simple way you might structure it to start:
| Campaign | Ad Group | Example Products | Strategy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopping - Speakers | Floorstanding Speakers | B&W 702 S3, KEF R11 Meta | Higher ROAS target, focus on profit |
| Shopping - Speakers | Bookshelf Speakers | KEF LS50 Wireless, Elac Debut B5.2 | Moderate ROAS target, volume driver |
| Shopping - Amps & Sources | Integrated Amplifiers | Naim Nait XS 3, Rega Elex Mk4 | Target buyers looking for system core |
| Shopping - Amps & Sources | Turntables | Rega Planar 3, Technics SL-1200GR | Capture vinyl revival trend |
| Shopping - Accessories | Cables & Stands | All cables, speaker stands, etc. | Lower ROAS target, focus on add-on sales |
This structure alone will give you far more insight and control over where your budget goes, allowing you to push spend on the winners and pull back from the losers.
You probably should seperate your Search efforts...
The next piece of the puzzle is Search. PMax bundles this in, but the intent behind different search queries is vastly different, and each needs its own campaign and budget. Lumping them together means your budget for high-converting brand searches could be wasted on broad, informational queries.
I'd structure your Search campaigns into three distinct tiers:
- Tier 1: Brand Campaign. This targets searches for your company name (e.g., "[Your Store Name]"). These are your hottest leads. They already know you and are likely ready to buy. The goal here isn't discovery; it's to defend your brand from competitors bidding on your name and to ensure a smooth path to purchase. This campaign will have a very high ROAS, but it's not where you'll find scale.
- Tier 2: Generic / Product Campaigns. This is your growth engine. It targets people searching for the products you sell, but not your store specifically. Think keywords like "naim uniti atom review", "best floorstanding speakers under £5000", or "kef ls50 wireless ii". This is where the bulk of your scaling budget should go. The ROAS will be lower than your brand campaign, but the volume potential is huge. You need to be competative here.
- Tier 3: Competitor & Awareness Campaigns. This is more speculative. You could test campaigns targeting competitor names (e.g., "richer sounds", "audio t"). It's expensive and conversion rates are low, but it can be a way to steal market share. You could also target very top-of-funnel informational queries like "how to build a home cinema system". The goal here isn't direct sales, but to get your brand in front of people at the start of their journey and pull them into your retargeting audiences.
Top of Funnel: Awareness
Searches like "how to set up home cinema".
Goal: Educate & build retargeting lists. Low ROAS.
Mid Funnel: Consideration (Generic)
Searches like "best floorstanding speakers".
Goal: Capture active researchers. This is your main growth driver. Moderate ROAS.
Bottom of Funnel: Intent (Brand)
Searches for "[Your Store Name]".
Goal: Convert existing interest & defend brand. Highest ROAS.
You'll need to understand your new numbers...
As we've discussed, your 6x ROAS is going to change as you scale. But by how much? It's impossible to know for sure, but we can model it. A lower ROAS isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as the total profit you're generating is increasing and hitting your targets. The calculator below can help you play with some numbers to see what a new reality might look like. Adjust the "Market Competitiveness" slider – for high-end audio, I'd say it's pretty high.
Estimated New ROAS
3.60x
Estimated Monthly Revenue
£180,000
I'd say your website is now your biggest problem...
Here's the final, and possibly most important, piece of advice. When you start spending £50k/month, your ads are no longer the bottleneck. Your website is. Driving all that new traffic to a site that doesn't convert effectively is the fastest way to burn money. For high-end audio, trust is everything. Your website needs to scream expertise and reliability.
Ask yourself these questions, honestly:
- -> Trust Signals: Do you have clear contact information, a physical address, professional 'About Us' and company history pages? Are customer reviews (from Trustpilot, Google, etc.) prominently displayed? For purchases this large, people need to know you are a legitimate, long-standing business.
- -> Product Pages: Are you just copying and pasting manufacturer specs? Or are you writing unique, compelling copy that explains the *benefit* of those features? Why should someone buy a £3k Naim from you instead of a competitor? You need to add value with expert advice, comparisons, and setup guides. High-quality, original photography and videos are non-negotiable.
- -> The Offer: A high price is a huge point of friction. Are you offering financing options like Klarna or DivideBuy? What's your returns policy? Do you offer free, insured shipping? A price-match guarantee? These things can make or break a sale.
- -> User Experience: Is the site fast? Is it easy to navigate on mobile? Is the checkout process simple, or does it ask for a dozen unnecessary details? Every bit of friction causes people to drop off.
At this level, a 0.5% improvement in your website's conversion rate is worth more than any ad tweak you can make. It's a force multiplier on every single pound you spend on advertising. This is often where we find the biggest wins for our eCommerce clients.
This is the main advice I have for you:
To sum it all up, moving from PMax to a granular, multi-campaign structure is the path to scaling. It's more work, but it gives you the control and data you need to grow intelligently. Here's a breakdown of the strategic shift:
| Area | Current State (PMax) | Recommended Action | Expected Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign Structure | Single "black box" campaign. | Unbundle into seperate Shopping, Search, and Remarketing campaigns. | Full control over budget allocation, clear data on what works, ability to scale winning channels. |
| Shopping Ads | Automated bidding across all products. | Build Standard Shopping campaigns with product groups by brand, category, or margin. | Focus budget on most profitable items, use negative keywords to eliminate wasted spend. |
| Search Ads | Included in PMax, no visibility. | Create tiered campaigns for Brand, Generic, and Competitor keywords. | Protect your brand, capture new customers actively researching, and grow market share. |
| Audience Building | Left to Google's algorithm. | Use Display/YouTube for strategic remarketing to cart abandoners and product viewers. | Recapture lost sales, increase customer LTV, and improve overall ROAS. |
| Optimisation Focus | Tweaking PMax assets and budget. | Holistic optimisation of ads, bids, landing pages, and website conversion rate. | Sustainable, profitable growth that isn't reliant on a single automated campaign type. |
I know this is a lot to take in, especially coming from a Meta background where the campaign structures can be a bit more straightforward. The level of granularity required to do Google Ads well at this scale is significant, and managing the interplay between these different campaigns is a full-time job.
Getting this transition right could be the difference between successfully hitting your £50k/month goal or seeing your ROAS collapse as you increase spend. Given the stakes, many businesses in your position choose to work with a specialist to manage this process, de-risk the investment, and acheive their goals faster.
If you'd like to chat through this in more detail, we offer a completely free, no-obligation strategy session where we can have a proper look at your account and map out a more concrete plan of action for you. It might be a useful next step.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh