Why We Start with Products, Not Keywords
The standard agency audit starts in Google Ads.
Keyword analysis. Match type review. Search term reports. Quality scores. Ad copy assessment.
All useful. All secondary.
The question nobody asks first:
Which products should be in the ad account at all?
Before keywords. Before match types. Before bidding strategies. Which products have margins that support advertising? Which don't?
Why this matters:
An ecommerce catalogue often has products with 60% margins next to products with 20% margins. Both in the same ad account. Both getting the same strategy.
The 60% margin product can support a £40 CPA.
The 20% margin product might need a £10 CPA to break even.
Blending them together and applying a single strategy guarantees problems. Either you're overpaying for the low-margin products or underspending on the high-margin ones.
Our starting point:
- Map every product to its true contribution margin
- Calculate sustainable CPA by product
- Segment products into strategic roles (profit drivers, volume builders, should-not-advertise)
- Only then look at keywords and campaigns
What we often find:
- 20% of products generating 80% of profit
- 30% of products losing money on every sale
- Best-selling products often not the most profitable
- Clear products that should not be advertised at any price
No keyword strategy can fix a product strategy problem. If you're advertising the wrong products, better keywords just mean faster losses.
The order of operations:
- Understand your products commercially
- Decide what should be advertised
- Build campaigns around that reality
- Then optimise keywords, bids, and copy
Products first. Tactics second. Always.