Profit-First Google Ads Agency
Every SKU gets a commercial job. The bid serves the job, not the account average.
A profit-first Google Ads agency bids on contribution margin, not revenue. JudeLuxe assigns every SKU one of five commercial jobs under BOI® (Bid On Intent) and calibrates bids to the job — not to blended account ROAS.
We are a UK ecommerce Google Ads agency working with £3M to £100M ecommerce brands spending from £15k/month. Across 32 accounts we have averaged a 94% improvement in POAS in the 90 days after engagement versus the 90 days before it. Fixed fee from £2k/month fixed fee, never a percentage of your media spend.
Trusted by leading brands
The mechanism: five commercial jobs, one per SKU
BOI® (Bid On Intent) is our registered framework and the reason profit-first is a method here rather than a slogan. A catalogue does not have one commercial objective, so it cannot have one bid target. Every product is assigned one of five jobs based on margin, stock position, cash impact and acquisition role, and the bid, budget, custom label and value rule all follow that job.
Job
Scale
Healthy margin, stock depth and auction headroom. Bid to take share.
Job
Profit
The default for healthy SKUs. Bid to maximise contribution margin per pound spent.
Job
Protect
Contested auction, strategic product. Hold position without chasing growth.
Job
Recovery
Margin compressed, stock low or returns climbing. Pull back and protect cash.
Job
Gateway
Customer-acquisition SKU. Accept lower per-unit margin for lifetime value.
Jobs are reassigned weekly, because stock and margin move weekly. A Scale SKU that runs low on stock becomes Recovery inside a day, not at the next quarterly review. Read the full framework on the BOI® methodology page.
Revenue-led management vs profit-first management
Revenue-led
- One ROAS target across the whole catalogue
- Order value sent as the conversion value
- Unprofitable SKUs survive because the account average looks fine
- Percentage-of-spend fee
- Reporting leads with revenue growth
JudeLuxe — profit-first
- A target per BOI® job, reviewed weekly
- Contribution margin sent as the conversion value
- Loss-making SKUs demoted or excluded within the first fortnight
- Fixed fee from £2k/month fixed fee, independent of spend
- Reporting leads with contribution margin after ad spend
The proof
94%
Average POAS improvement, 90 days post-engagement vs 90 days prior
32
Accounts in the measured set
98%
Client retention
Named case — UKSoccerShop
Inherited from a previous agency running one blended ROAS target across a 20,000+ SKU catalogue. Zombie SKUs with high return rates were pulled out of the feed, end-of-season stock was reassigned to Recovery jobs and bidding was rebuilt against contribution margin. £520k of wasted spend recovered in the first 45 days.
Read the UKSoccerShop case studyEvery agency now says profit-first. Here is how to test whether they mean it
The phrase has been absorbed into standard agency positioning, which makes it useless as a selection criterion on its own. These five questions separate a method from a marketing line. Ask them in the pitch, and ask for the answers in writing.
1. Show me a bid target that differs from the account average, and tell me why.
If every campaign shares one ROAS or CPA target, the account is not being managed on profit. It is being managed on one number that averages your best and worst products together.
2. Which of my SKUs lose money at the current target, and what did you do about them last week?
A profit-first agency can name the products and the action taken. A revenue-first agency will talk about campaign-level performance because SKU-level economics were never loaded.
3. What cost data sits in the conversion value you send to Google?
If conversion values are order values, smart bidding is optimising revenue and any profit work is being applied manually after the fact. Contribution margin belongs in the value itself.
4. How is your fee calculated?
A percentage of media spend rewards the agency for spending more of your budget. A fixed fee removes the conflict. Ask what happens to the fee if the profitable answer is to cut spend by 30%.
5. What does your monthly report lead with?
If the first slide is revenue and ROAS, that is what is being optimised. Contribution margin after ad spend, reconciled against the P&L, is the only report a finance director can act on.
Related reading: what a POAS agency does, Google Shopping management, high-SKU catalogue management, Performance Max management and how to choose a PPC agency.
Profit-first Google Ads FAQs
What is a profit-first Google Ads agency?
A profit-first Google Ads agency bids on contribution margin, not revenue. Cost of goods, fulfilment, returns, payment fees and discounts are loaded per SKU, and bid targets are set against the profit each product actually produces rather than a blended account ROAS target.
How is that different from every agency saying 'we focus on profit'?
The claim is now standard; the mechanism is not. Ask what the agency changes in the account when it decides a product is unprofitable. If the answer is 'we lower the bid' rather than a documented per-SKU role with its own target, the profit language is positioning rather than method. JudeLuxe assigns every SKU one of five commercial jobs under BOI® (Bid On Intent) and calibrates the bid to the job.
What are the five BOI® SKU jobs?
Scale (healthy margin, stock and auction headroom, bid to grow share), Profit (bid to maximise contribution margin per pound), Protect (contested auction, hold position without chasing growth), Recovery (stock or margin under pressure, pull back and protect cash) and Gateway (customer-acquisition SKU, accept lower per-unit margin for lifetime value). Jobs are reviewed weekly because stock and margin move weekly.
What results does profit-first management produce?
Across 32 accounts, JudeLuxe has averaged a 94% improvement in POAS measured over the 90 days after engagement against the 90 days prior. The lift usually comes from stopping spend on products that never made money rather than from finding new volume.
What does a profit-first Google Ads agency cost in the UK?
JudeLuxe charges a fixed monthly fee from £2k/month fixed fee, never a percentage of media spend, with a minimum of £15k/month on Google Ads. A percentage-of-spend fee pays the agency to grow the budget, which is the opposite of a profit-first incentive.
Do you need our margin data before starting?
Yes, at least at category level. SKU-level cost of goods, shipping cost and return rate give the sharpest targets, but we can start from category margin bands held in your ERP or store and tighten them as the feed improves.
Find out which of your SKUs are funding the account.
We will rebuild your last 90 days on a contribution margin basis, assign BOI® jobs to your top SKUs and show you where the profit is leaking. Yours to keep either way.
Book a Profit Audit