We Smashed Our PPC Targets… So Why Did the Client Fire Us? ft Chris Avery

Chris, co-founder of JudeLuxe, speaks about a client relationship that ended despite improving ROAS and contribution. Chris explains how that experience changed the agency’s approach: start with the business’s commercial needs, question inherited targets, and give Google Ads and AI the context needed to make useful decisions. Key Topics: Chris recounts losing a client two months into an engagement, despite improved ROAS and contribution, because the agency had not understood the client’s need to clear seasonal stock and release cash. The agency had accepted an average ROAS target as the brief instead of asking what the target meant, what trade-offs were acceptable, or what the business needed from advertising. Chris describes the shift from a platform-focused, “button pushing” agency to a commercially engaged partner speaking with finance, merchandising, operations, and ecommerce teams. Campaign success should reflect the campaign’s purpose; YouTube and other upper-funnel activity may support branded search and shopping rather than deliver the strongest standalone ROAS. Ecommerce goals change with stock age, seasonality, discounting, and cash needs, so stale targets can send Google Ads the wrong signals. Chris calls product feeds a major, often neglected ecommerce lever: product titles and feed data help determine which searches products can appear for. AI can analyze data quickly but lacks business context; Chris cites an audit recommendation to raise a Knotts County campaign budget by about 500% despite limited demand. Agencies are paid for judgment: examine AI recommendations, test their assumptions, and retain human responsibility for decisions. Chris shares PPC account warning signs, including a chiropractor campaign targeting only “Guildford” on broad match and a product title repeating “Mustard” six times. His advice after a setback: understand why the mistake happened, learn from it, and “control what you can control.” Chapters 00:00 Meet Chris: commercial thinking beyond Google Ads 04:11 The client loss behind the lesson 06:39 Why higher ROAS missed the stock and cash problem 10:35 Profit is not the whole commercial picture 14:10 Why channels need different success measures 18:28 Changing onboarding: question the objective 21:25 Talk to finance, merchandising, and operations 24:46 Targets must move with ecommerce conditions 27:50 Give Google Ads the right business context 31:21 How to respond when a client leaves 33:29 PPC horror stories and the product-feed blind spot 40:36 AI recommendations need human scrutiny 48:27 Moneyball and the numbers that help you win