John SankeyE-commerce · Event TicketingTwist engagementHow a £4k Google Ads budget delivered 3× monthly revenue and 5× ROI.
The client wanted to sell tickets for their branded event and drive revenue through their online store. We rebuilt the PPC motion around brand and market terms, let Google's algorithm learn cleanly, and turned a modest test budget into the strongest month the account had ever seen.
3×
5×
14.15%
272
Twist took a budget we'd usually treat as a test and turned it into the best revenue month we'd ever had on the channel. The discipline to leave the algorithm alone made the difference.
The hurdle
The client was launching their first PPC campaign with a tight £4,185 budget — selling tickets for a branded event while also driving revenue through their online store. Two goals, one budget, no historical conversion data for Google to lean on.
On top of that, several partners were bidding on the same brand terms at the same time, eating impression share and pushing CPCs to £0.61 before we'd even started optimising for performance.
What we changed
We've found Google Ads is an extremely strong driver of conversion performance when the brief is purchases and revenue. We set up a single campaign targeting both brand and market terms, segmenting keywords into four tightly-themed ad groups so the algorithm could learn faster.
We started on Enhanced CPC bidding to let the platform gather conversions at a sensible CPC, then switched to Maximise Conversion Value once we had enough signal — pushing the campaign from cost control into revenue maximisation.
How it ran
Once partner bidding on brand terms quietened down, impression share recovered instantly and CPCs fell. Interest on the event itself was high — 14.15% CTR and ~4% CVR — so every efficiency gain compounded into more conversions, not just cheaper clicks.
We deliberately kept campaign interference low. Where Meta was struggling to exit the learning phase because of weekly creative refreshes, Google's algorithm was left alone to optimise toward sales, and the results followed.
The outcome
£4,185 of spend returned £40,804.85 in revenue — 272 conversions, a 5× ROI, and roughly 3× the client's previous monthly revenue from the same channels combined.
It's the engagement we now point to when a client tells us 'we've never run paid before.' Small budget, clean structure, minimal interference, real numbers.
Impression share is a fight, not a setting —
The client's partners were bidding on the same brand terms, dragging impression share down and CPC up to £0.61. As soon as partner bidding eased, share rebounded and CPCs dropped — a reminder that auction context matters as much as bid strategy.
High interest makes everything easier —
14% CTR and 4% CVR told us the demand was already there. The job wasn't to manufacture interest; it was to remove friction between the search and the checkout.
Let Google learn —
Compared with Meta — where weekly creative changes kept the campaign stuck in the learning phase — Google's algorithm thrived on minimal interference. Once Max Conversion Value bidding was on, we resisted the urge to tinker, and ROI climbed.
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