ROAS-schmoas: Why Chasing Impressions in Google Ads Is Like Drinking Decaf at a Coffee Festival

Fall interactions and outputs need

So, you’ve been pouring money into Google Ads like it’s happy hour, but you’re still not seeing the sales you wanted. Your impressions chart looks like the EKG of a toddler at a sweets buffet, but your revenue? Well, let’s just say your accountant’s not high-fiving you. If you think those millions of impressions are worth something just because they look shiny on a dashboard, hold onto your reusable coffee cup — you might want a real caffeine fix.

Welcome to the caffeinated world of digital marketing where, as at any good coffee festival, you’re not there for a cup of lukewarm decaf. You want the proper stuff — the tasty, full-bodied espresso that delivers the actual buzz.

What’s ROAS, and Why Does It Matter More Than Impressions?

First things first. If your agency is still bragging about “total reach” and “brand impressions”, it’s time to ask if they also believe in horoscopes. Impressions simply count the number of times your ad pops up on a screen — anyone’s screen, at any time, even if they’re half-asleep and skipping straight past it. Impressions are the digital equivalent of flyers in the wind, landing wherever and hoping for the best.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), on the other hand, is the strong cup of espresso you actually paid for. It answers the most vital question for e-commerce businesses: “For every pound I spend on Google Ads, how many pounds come back in the till?” The calculation’s dead simple:

ROAS = Revenue from Ad Campaign / Cost of That Ad Campaign

If you spent £1,000 on Google Ads and made £4,000 in sales tied to that spend, your ROAS is 4.0 — so you earned £4 for every £1 burned in Google’s algorithmic fires.

Impressions may give you the false sense you’re everywhere, but unless you’re selling to bots who just love your product photography, it’s a feel-good metric that won’t pay the bills.

Why Chasing Impressions Is Like Bringing Decaf to a Coffee Festival

Let’s spell it out. You rock up to a coffee festival (the real, frothy kind), only to be handed a watery cup of decaf. Sure, it looks like coffee. It might even smell like coffee. Does it do the job? Not even close.

Chasing impressions is exactly the same. You get loads of activity — your ads “exist” — but there’s no punch, no conversion, no profit. There’s just you, clutching your generic decaf, pretending you belong.

It gets worse.

Imagine explaining to your boss or your clients that even though site visits and impressions are up, revenue’s flatlining. At least with real coffee, people pretend to be polite. Here, you’re just reminding everyone you value appearances more than substance.

What Google Impressions Actually Tell You

Impressions are, by definition, just counts of how many times your ad was shown. Here’s what they don’t tell you:

• Whether a human or a houseplant saw your ad

• If anyone stopped scrolling to actually read it

• Whether it prompted anyone to click, much less to buy

• If your copy, product, or offer actually resonates

Impressions are very good for brand awareness (if you’re Coca-Cola and have a budget that’d make an oligarch blush). For e-commerce brands fighting for every conversion, they’re mostly a distraction. They can be used to identify reach in the early stages of a new campaign, but continuing to fixate on them is what polite marketers call “vanity metrics” and what honest ones call a waste of time.

Why ROAS Rules (and How to Focus on It)

Let’s get this straight: your only sustainable metric — the one that pays for the roof and the dog food — is ROAS. A solid ROAS means your ad campaigns are generating more revenue than they’re costing you. Anything else is peering into a magician's hat and hoping for a rabbit.

Smart Google Ads strategies focus relentlessly on ROAS:

• Target ROAS Bidding: Use Google’s Target ROAS bidding so your campaigns optimise for the conversions most likely to deliver value, not just volume. Google’s machine learning works best with clear signals — tell it what your ideal return looks like and let it go to work.

• Conversion Tracking: Ditch wishful thinking. Make sure your conversion tracking is pin-perfect and you’re actually measuring revenue, not just clicks.

• Segmentation: Drill into your Product and Campaign reports. Even within the same campaign, certain SKUs will deliver far higher ROAS than others. Boost the budgets for those, and don’t be sentimental about pausing the rest.

• Attribution Settings: Last click, data-driven… whatever the model, make sure it lines up with how your customers actually shop.

Questions You Should Actually Be Asking

If you’re a DTC or e-commerce marketer asking “How do I get more impressions on my Google Ads?”, pause and ask yourself why you’re asking the wrong question. Try these instead:

• What’s my current ROAS, and which campaigns or ad groups are winning/losing?

• How does my ROAS compare by device, time of day or geo?

• Am I optimising my product feed with accurate, search-friendly data (hello, more relevant clicks)?

• What’s my true profit margin after deducting ad spend, and how can I improve it with smarter bidding?

Focus your energy on actionable, profit-driving questions — not just how to fill up a vanity dashboard.

Real-World (and Caffeinated) Business Outcomes

Let’s say you’re running a Google Shopping campaign for your online trainers shop. One campaign has 500,000 impressions, a click-through rate of 0.3 percent and a ROAS of 1.2. The other campaign, with only 75,000 impressions, drives a ROAS of 5.6. Which one do you keep fuelling? If you’re not picking the second, you’re either a) a charity for The Google Corporation, or b) fresh out of espresso.

It’s the quality, not the quantity, of your traffic that matters. You need both targeting and offer alignment, or you’re just buying “digital wallpaper”.

The Pitfalls of Over-Caffeinating on Vanity Metrics

“Look at our reach!” shouts the marketing manager, waving little more than a spreadsheet and hope. Clients don’t care. Your accounts team cares even less. If you want healthy reporting — the kind that makes people care — measure what matters:

• Cost per conversion by keyword or product

• Incremental revenue from paid search

• Margin after ad spend

Do fewer things, and do them better. You’ll look smarter, and your results will actually mean something.

How to Build a Google Ads Account That Brews Revenue Like Espresso

Here are the signs you’re working with a finely roasted Google Ads account:

• Campaigns and asset groups are split so you can measure ROAS cleanly, not just overall impressions

• Every product or service is tracked for revenue, not just site visits

• Feed data is kept immaculate (see our post: Get Seen, Sell More: Why Structured Product Data is Your PPC Superpower)

• You use audience signals and negative keywords to keep the tyre-kickers and freebie-hunters at bay

• Bidding follows your real business priorities, not hollow requests for “more eyeballs”

Sure, it’s tempting to pump metrics for a shiny chart at the next board meeting, but those charts are best caffeinated by profit, not just pageviews.

Sip Carefully — Your Takeaways

1. Impressions do nothing for your bottom line if they don’t convert. You want caffeine, not brown water.

2. ROAS is the number for Google Ads. Everything else should be there to support it, not distract from it.

3. Use Target ROAS bidding and relentless conversion optimisation to get the most from your spend.

4. Celebrate measurable, profitable growth, not flattering impression counts.

5. If your agency shouts about impressions first, tell them to come back with a proper brew — or a better plan.

In the end, it’s simple: if you want meaningful results from your Google Ads, stop patting yourself on the back for impressions. Go for the ROAS buzz — and save the decaf for the amateurs.

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Want to overhaul your Google Ads caffeine strategy? Find more high-caffeine, low-nonsense advice on the JudeLuxe blog. Or, pop the kettle on and let’s chat strategy — just don’t ask us for decaf.