The Challenge
A luxury fashion brand commissioned 181st Street to overhaul its underperforming Google Ads account. Despite strong brand awareness and international distribution, the brand’s paid media spend was inefficient – delivering visibility but not profitable conversions.
Campaigns were targeting audiences outside the brand’s affordability range, driving high traffic costs and low returns.
The objective was to rebuild the account for commercial performance – reducing wasted spend, improving conversion, and restoring profitability.
Our Approach
We carried out a full audit and restructure of the brand’s Google Ads system, identifying opportunities to reduce cost and improve efficiency without compromising reach.
Our approach focused on:
Tight Keyword Targeting: We rebuilt campaigns around high-intent search terms and product-level keywords, increasing qualified traffic by 25%.
Audience Refinement: Targeting was restructured to focus on high-income segments and key international cities aligned with retail distribution, improving purchase intent and affordability fit.
Bid Optimisation: Budgets were reweighted toward high-performing campaigns, shifting spend from lower-converting categories.
Performance-Driven Creative: Ad copy and formats were re-engineered to prioritise product visibility, aligning with how luxury consumers browse and buy.
Results
Within five months, the campaign moved from unprofitable to top-quintile performance in its category:
Average ROAS 3.9×, placing the brand in the top 20% of luxury advertisers globally.
Ad spend reduced 32.8% without loss of conversion volume – saving approximately 30% of monthly budget.
Conversions doubled year-on-year while maintaining profitability.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) reduced by up to 50% YoY.
Delivered an uplift in sales and a 99% increase in gross profit, driven by higher efficiency and improved conversion.
Why It Works
We didn’t just optimise bids – we rebuilt a behavioural targeting system that aligned audience, keyword, and creative performance. By identifying where the brand’s audience truly converts and redirecting spend accordingly, we achieved higher returns at lower cost proving that sustainable growth comes from commercial clarity, not higher ad budgets.
Impact
The brand’s Google Ads channel is now a high-performing, profit-positive revenue stream. With efficiency restored and data-led insights driving future campaigns, the business has a scalable foundation for international D2C growth.