GM, Miles here!
Last week I told a potential client not to run Google Ads, even though I could’ve easily put them on a €2,000-€3,000 per month retainer if I pushed for it.
They’re a premium brain health supplement brand:
- Mostly bootstrapped, with a small investment round behind them.
- Subscription-based with an option for a one-off purchase.
- Higher price than competitors because of premium ingredients.
- Ran Google Ads in the past and paused it, CPA was too high.
- A serious product, and a genuine ambition to grow.
I went into that call excited because I’m actually a user of the product myself.
But after 20 minutes, I realized Google Ads wasn’t the right fit for the brand yet.
So I told him honestly instead of trying to hard-pitch my services, and he agreed.
Today I’ll walk you through my reasoning.
Hopefully there’s some good insight in this for you to help you determine whether you should even run Google Ads for a particular business.
I feel there’s way too many specialists and agencies who know deep down that Google Ads is not the right channel, but they do it anyway for the retainer. And that’s not in the best interest of the client.
Let’s dive in!
At its core, Google Ads is best for capturing demand that is already there (but this client needed something else).
How typical buying journeys work: someone has a problem and starts looking for the solution online.
Your job is to be there when they do, with the right offer at the right price.
This dynamic of demand capture is why I love Google Ads so much… But it only works when there is actual demand for the product you’re selling.
This client’s situation was a bit tricky: there’s plenty of search volume around their category of brain health supplements. There’s growing demand, and people are actively looking.
But they’re looking for the category as they already understand it — and this product is a new type of thing inside that category (I won’t bore you with all the technical details).
Running Google Ads for this client would mean advertising on generic brain health supplement keywords, against heavy competition, at extremely high CPCs… and sending that expensive traffic to a page that has to change many different beliefs before anyone buys.
Getting the clicks is easy, but I figured the conversion rate would be super low.
And not even the best structure, tracking, bid strategy, or ads fixes that.
A search ad can’t do the education this product needs.
Think about how a normal supplement gets bought:
Someone knows they want something basic like magnesium, or creatine, or vitamin D.
They know what it does, roughly what it should cost, and they search for it.
Demand capture works beautifully there.
Now think about a premium brain health supplement.
Before anyone buys, they have to:
- Understand the category as a whole.
- Understand what the ingredients actually do.
- Accept a price that’s a lot higher than the supplements they’re used to.
- Decide to buy it from this brand instead of another one.
That’s four beliefs that need to be changed, and that can never be done with a headline, two description lines, and one landing page visit from a cold searcher.
That education has to happen somewhere (and requires time): video sales letters, video ads, organic content, trade shows, influencers, face-to-face… A search ad alone can never do that (even with a highly-optimized landing page).
For a product that has to teach before it sells, that’s a structural problem that needs fixing before you spend a dime on ads.
The only viable option for them inside of Google Ads: Demand Gen campaigns.
Demand Gen plays a different game than Search, Shopping, and pMax because it’s built to create demand rather than capture it.
By the nature of visual (mostly video) ads, you get more time with a customer to educate them on the benefits of your product.
But Demand Gen only works with high-quality creatives, which is something that was also lacking for this client.
I guessed their CPA was 3x too high before I saw a single number.
At one point on the call I told the client: “I don’t know anything about your unit economics yet, but I’d guess your current CPA is about three times higher than you want it to be.”
The founder looked surprised and told me I was almost exactly right.
I could guess because the supplement and subscription space works the same way almost everywhere and I’ve had some experience with it in the past:
Competition is heavy, CPCs are high, and acquiring a customer usually costs a multiple of what their first order is worth.
Subscription brands are in the hole for the first couple of months, and survive that by playing the long game.
They lose money in month one, recoup the acquisition cost over the following months, and everything after that is profit.
But that only works if you have the cashflow and strategy to overcome that initial unprofitable phase. And it’s not just a matter of understanding the unit economics — it’s also about having the foundation in place to actually scale (and for this client that means being able to educate the customers better to increase conversion rates).
Build the foundation first, then let Google Ads scale it.
This client is mostly bootstrapped with a small investment behind them, but they don’t have a big pile of investor cash to burn through the early months — so they need to be more careful with their strategy.
So in my opinion, this client wasn’t ready for Google Ads yet.
What I actually recommended:
- Influencers.
- Organic content.
- Long-form product education.
- Push advertising to create demand.
- A landing page rebuilt to teach before it sells.
Once that foundation exists, a few things change:
- The category grows.
- The audience already understands the category.
- The education leads to higher conversion rates.
Then Google Ads pours fuel on the fire. Which is exactly what it’s good at.
I told them I’d happily run a few tests today if they wanted. I also told them I didn’t think they should because of the reasons I shared above.
We agreed that the client will work on their foundation first, and that we’d catch up again in the future to see if there is a new foundation that does allow Google Ads to scale profitably.
Being honest cost me a €2,000-€3,000 retainer, and I’m fine with that.
I’d rather be the person who tells the truth and says no, than the one who takes advantage of a client’s ambitions without getting a positive return.
Over to you: please be honest with your clients.
Sometimes a business just isn’t ready to run Google Ads. And I challenge you to be honest about that when a new potential client asks you for help.
It’s tempting to go for that monthly retainer, but you are so much better off not doing it and finding a client that does allow for profitable growth.
You’ll also see that very often, those clients will come back a few months later, telling you they’ve rebuilt the foundation. And then you are fully ready to make the most out of their campaigns — which is in everyone’s best interest.
With that said, if you want to take your Google Ads skills and results to the next level, consider joining The PPC Hub.
You’ll get the training (Google Ads Success Path), AI-powered systems (PPC OS), and community (2,400+ members) to build deep expertise, deliver the best results, and stay ahead — no matter how fast the industry changes.
It’s how we can help you best.
That’s all for today, thank you for reading.
See you next week!
Cheers,
Miles (& Bob)
