Managed Google Ads spend across the account
Profit leak identified and fixed in a single PMAX campaign
This 8-figure health and longevity supplement brand is one of the most recognised names in their category – the direct competitor to one of the world’s most prominent longevity and health influencers. They were spending $2.4M per year on Google Ads alone, with significant additional spend on Meta. By any measure, this is a sophisticated operation with serious commercial momentum.
When they came to us in September 2025, the goal was not to dramatically scale their ad spend. They are planning to exit in 2026, selling to a large US conglomerate. The priority was something more precise and arguably more valuable: optimize the account, fix inefficiencies, and prepare their Google Ads operation to withstand the scrutiny of buyer due diligence.
When a business at this level goes through an acquisition, buyers pull apart every channel. They look at ROAS by campaign, landing page performance, account structure, creative quality, and whether the account shows evidence of strategic management or just money being thrown at Google. Wasted spend does not just hurt margins – it directly impacts EBITDA and therefore exit valuation.
That was the brief. Find the waste, fix it, document the improvements, and demonstrate operational excellence at scale.
What we found when we audited the account was more significant than expected.
Before Budai Media
After Budai Media
1. Restructuring the Competitor Campaigns
The first thing we audited was their competitor campaigns – campaigns targeting people actively searching for rival brand names. These are high-intent, high-value searches. Someone typing a competitor’s brand name into Google already knows what they want. The opportunity is to intercept that search and give them a compelling reason to choose your product instead.
What we found was the opposite of compelling. Every competitor – every brand name, every variation – was piled into a single ad group. All 200+ keywords driving to the same generic ad copy: shop our products. No acknowledgement of which competitor was being searched. No specific value proposition. No reason to switch.
The problem is straightforward. When someone searches for a specific competitor, they are in a specific mindset. They know that brand. They have expectations. An ad that simply says “shop our products” gives them no reason to deviate from what they already planned to buy.
We restructured the entire competitor campaign into 5 tightly themed ad groups, each targeting a specific competitor or group of similar competitors with ad copy written specifically for that audience. If someone searches for Competitor A, the ad acknowledges Competitor A and explains clearly why our client’s product is a better choice. Relevant, specific, persuasive.
The results were clear:
For a business preparing to exit, this matters beyond the performance metrics. It shows buyers that the account is being managed strategically, not just funded. That kind of operational discipline is exactly what acquirers want to see during due diligence.
The screenshot below shows the impact of those improvements at the account level. As ad relevance and quality scores increased, the business was able to generate stronger results while reducing overall spend. Cost per conversion decreased, campaign efficiency improved, and the account generated more value from every dollar invested in advertising.
2. Finding and Fixing the $110K Profit Leak
The second discovery was more alarming. Inside their main PMAX campaign – running at approximately $60K per month in spend – we pulled up the landing page performance report. This report shows every page on the website that received traffic from the campaign and what it returned.
One page stood out immediately. It had received almost $110K in ad spend. Its ROAS was 0.95x. They were losing money on every single click sent to that page.
The more significant problem: that page was not listed anywhere in the campaign setup. It was not in any asset group. The client had not chosen to advertise it. Google sent $110K there anyway.
The cause was a default PMAX setting called Final URL Expansion. When this is turned on – and it is turned on by default in every PMAX campaign – Google ignores the landing pages you have specified and sends traffic to any page on your website it believes will convert. The logic is that Google knows your website better than you do. As this account demonstrated, that logic does not always hold.
Fixing this required two steps: disabling Final URL Expansion and explicitly excluding the low-performing URLs from the campaign. A setting change and a URL exclusion list. Work that takes minutes but had been quietly draining six figures in ad spend.
For a business heading into acquisition, this finding is significant beyond the immediate cost saving. When buyers do due diligence on a Google Ads account and find $110K in spend on an unintended page at sub-1x ROAS, that is a red flag. It signals the account was not actively managed. Fixing it before the exit process begins removes that flag entirely – and directly improves the EBITDA figure buyers will use to calculate their offer.
3. Diagnosing and Resolving the YouTube Spend Spike
During the BFCM period in late November and early December 2025, the main PMAX campaign was performing strongly – 4x ROAS, high volume, everything working. The natural instinct was to scale. Two changes were made simultaneously: a significant budget increase and a reduction in the target ROAS setting to give Google more flexibility to spend.
In theory this makes sense. A winning campaign, more fuel on the fire. In practice, something unexpected happened. Google’s channel performance report – which shows where PMAX spend is being allocated across Search, Shopping, YouTube, and Display – showed YouTube spend jumping from approximately $3K to $22K in a single week. At 0.86x ROAS.
We escalated directly to our Google rep to understand what had happened. Their explanation was clear: when you make sudden simultaneous changes to a PMAX campaign’s budget and target settings, especially at this scale, Google’s algorithm essentially resets. It starts testing placements from scratch to find the fastest way to spend the new, larger budget. YouTube and Display impressions are significantly cheaper than Search and Shopping, so that is where the algorithm floods first. It is not trying to waste money – it is optimising for spend volume, not spend quality.
The fix, confirmed directly by Google: never increase PMAX or Demand Gen budgets by more than 10 to 15% at a time when operating at this scale. At $60K per month in PMAX spend, that still means meaningful daily increases – but incremental rather than sudden. And critically, never change multiple variables simultaneously. Budget and target ROAS should be adjusted separately, with time between changes to allow the algorithm to stabilise.
This protocol is now in place across the account.
4. Taking Control of Creative in PMAX
The fourth issue was less urgent but equally important given the exit timeline: creative quality in PMAX.
When no custom video assets are uploaded to a PMAX campaign, Google generates them automatically. These auto-generated videos are slideshows of product images with text overlays. They are generic, they tell no story, and they do not represent the brand. As PMAX campaigns scale and YouTube spend increases, these are the videos that potential customers see.
For a brand preparing to be acquired by a large US conglomerate, this creates a specific problem. Buyers evaluating the business will look at advertising assets across every channel. If Meta and Instagram show polished, professional creative while Google and YouTube are running auto-generated slideshows, that inconsistency signals that the Google account is not being fully managed. It is a detail that sophisticated buyers notice.
We are currently producing custom video asset sets for PMAX before scaling these campaigns further. These do not require expensive production – product videos, customer testimonials, and well-edited lifestyle footage all perform well and can be produced efficiently. The priority is brand consistency and creative control before YouTube spend scales further.
We are also monitoring asset-level performance reports within PMAX regularly, tracking which images, videos, and headlines are driving the most conversions and doubling down on what works.
Four months of work on a $2.4M/year Google Ads account. Here is what the optimisation produced:
Competitor Campaigns:
PMAX Audit:
Scaling Protocol:
Creative:
Every one of these improvements has a dual impact: it makes the account perform better today, and it makes the account more defensible during acquisition due diligence. Buyers doing a thorough audit will find an account that shows evidence of active, strategic management – incremental improvements documented over time, profit leaks fixed, and a scaling methodology that prioritises sustainable growth over volatile short-term spikes.
The account optimization work is ongoing. As the exit timeline approaches, the focus will remain on sustainable linear improvement rather than aggressive scaling – buyers value predictable, growing performance over volatile spikes.
Planned next steps include:
1. At $2.4M annual spend, small inefficiencies become six-figure problems
A default setting left unchanged. A landing page no one intended to advertise. $110K gone. At this scale, the cost of not auditing regularly is not a rounding error – it is a material impact on margins and exit valuation.
2. Competitor campaigns require competitor-specific messaging
Generic ad copy does not convert searchers who already have a brand in mind. Acknowledging the competitor they searched for and explaining specifically why your product is better is the difference between a wasted click and a new customer.
3. Never change multiple PMAX variables at once
Budget and target ROAS are both signals to Google’s algorithm. Changing both simultaneously at scale causes the algorithm to reset and flood cheap placements. One change at a time, maximum 10-15% increases, with stabilisation time between adjustments.
4. Creative control matters more as YouTube spend grows
Auto-generated video assets are a brand consistency problem and a performance problem. Custom video assets should be in place before YouTube spend scales – not after.
5. Pre-exit optimization is a different discipline to growth optimization
When a business is preparing to sell, the goal shifts from maximum growth to demonstrable excellence. Buyers pay premiums for accounts that show strategic management, documented improvements, and sustainable performance – not accounts that show volatility and waste.
Four months into managing this account, the work has been less about scaling and more about making every dollar already being spent work harder.
A $110K profit leak fixed. Competitor campaigns restructured to deliver 18% lower CPC and 17% higher CTR. A YouTube spend spike diagnosed, explained, and resolved with a protocol that prevents it from recurring. Quality scores moving from 3 to between 5 and 7 across the account. Custom creative in production. A scaling methodology in place that Google themselves confirmed as best practice at this budget level.
For a brand heading into a high-stakes acquisition, this is the work that matters. Not just better ROAS today – but an account that tells a story of operational excellence when buyers pull it apart during due diligence. Every fix is documented. Every improvement is incremental and defensible. Every wasted dollar was identified and recovered.
The exit is approaching. The account is ready.
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