Scaling google ads

I see it time and time again. Clients come to me asking the same question:

“Our costs are rising, our ROAS is falling - what can we do?”

The honest answer is rarely the one they’re hoping for. And in the short term, it can feel uncomfortable.

The answer is simple in principle: invest further up the funnel.

PPC has been an incredibly consistent growth channel over the past decade, and for good reason. It captures demand efficiently and delivers measurable returns. But many businesses have become so focused on ROAS that they’ve lost sight of the bigger picture.

Instead of measuring success through customer acquisition cost or true return on investment, budgets are increasingly concentrated into the campaigns that already drive conversions. Brand terms. High-intent keywords. Remarketing.

At first, this works brilliantly.

But over time, those campaigns become saturated. Volume stops growing. CPCs rise. Incrementality declines. And suddenly the very campaigns that once drove profitable growth start to erode margin instead.

When that happens, the instinct is often to double down — to push more budget into struggling bottom-of-funnel activity in an attempt to protect ROAS.

That is usually the worst thing you can do.

This is the point where the focus needs to shift from harvesting existing demand to creating new demand.

Instead of forcing efficiency from campaigns that have already peaked, now is the time to invest in brand-building and upper-funnel activity. That means broadening your paid media mix and supporting it with wider growth channels: improving your website and conversion experience, investing in digital PR and SEO, strengthening your email strategy and building consistent visibility across paid social, video and discovery.

These channels do not work in isolation. Together, they increase familiarity, grow branded search demand, expand remarketing pools and improve conversion rates across your entire account.

As you move further up the funnel, the returns may not show immediately in last-click ROAS. Costs may look higher. Performance may feel less comfortable.

But over time, the impact becomes clear.

Brand campaigns become cheaper. Conversion rates improve. High-intent search regains headroom to scale. And growth becomes sustainable again.

At that point, it no longer matters which channel delivers the final click. What matters is that the business is growing profitably as a whole.

Yes, the initial investment may be higher. You may need to reallocate budget away from bottom-of-funnel campaigns that feel safe.

But in the long run, this is what protects performance.

Because waiting until ROAS collapses and volume disappears is almost always too late.