AdMax/Case studies/PlaceForPros
Case study · 2026 · Tools e-commerce

When the dashboard lied, we followed it back to the truth.

PlaceForPros, a multi-brand tools and home-improvement e-commerce shop on Shopify, came to AdMax with a Google Ads dashboard reporting a 21.3× ROAS — and a Shopify ledger that matched only a fraction of it over the same 60 days. The numbers did not reconcile. The tracking was broken. The audit found a paused brand-defense campaign, a brand running at 0× ROAS, a Performance Max cap leaving double-digit-percent conversion value on the table, and a Klaviyo wired to a defunct integration. This is the audit, the fix, and the Q3 plan it unlocked.


~19×Reported revenue vs actual Shopify revenue
<0.1%Of 21,006 sessions, the share paid could attribute
~2×Q3 plan vs the trailing 60-day baseline
24 / 5Items shipped across five fronts in parallel

Figures reported as audited or as modeled by the optimizer. Specific revenue and spend figures are withheld; multiples and percentages are accurate to the audit window.

Scope shipped, to date
18Social posts shippedWeeks 1 + 2 · 3 brands × 3 formats × 2 weeks
13Blogs in motionGURU + RUBI cluster, all live by Jul 31
5Klaviyo templates rebuiltCart ×3 · Winback · Browse
DailyCompetitive report published7:00 ET, co-branded, on admax.cool

01 · Situation

Six things the audit found.

Six weeks in, the picture was clear. Every fix below was paying off something that was actively costing the account.

  • 01

    The dashboard lied

    Google Ads reported a 21.3× blended ROAS over the audited window. Shopify revenue across the same 60 days matched only a fraction of that figure. The math did not reconcile. Tracking was broken.

  • 02

    11 paid sessions out of 21,006

    Of 21,006 sessions in the first 60 days, only 11 were attributed to paid. The Shopify → Google Ads purchase event was not firing. Paid was running blind.

  • 03

    A brand-defense campaign sitting paused

    A small LP Branded search campaign — the kind that serves people already typing the brand into Google — had been paused weeks earlier. Nobody remembered why. The same dashboard that overstated overall revenue had been reporting an exceptionally high ROAS on this campaign before pause; like the rest of the dashboard, that figure was unverified.

  • 04

    A bid-strategy cap leaving double-digit % on the table

    The Performance Max bid strategy was capped on target ROAS. Reverting it to Maximize Conversion Value modeled a low-double-digit percent of additional conversion value over the audit window.

  • 05

    A brand running at 0× ROAS

    The emac campaign was consuming budget every week and converting at zero. It was still live.

  • 06

    Klaviyo flows live but silent

    Two duplicate ecommerce integrations wired the best-performing cart-recovery flow to a defunct PrestaShop trigger. Customer Winback was double-sending. Browse Abandonment had 0 sends across two live flows.


02 · Work shipped

Five fronts, moving in parallel.

Paid alone does not move an e-commerce account. The engagement runs across paid, lifecycle, content, strategy, and always-on operations — all the same week. Below is what has shipped, grouped by front.

01Paid media

  1. 01

    Full account audit

    Reconciled Google Ads against Shopify against GA4. Documented every channel, every campaign, every flow.

  2. 02

    Tracking rebuilt

    Repaired the Shopify → Google Ads purchase event so paid is no longer running blind. Conversion value finally matches the bank.

  3. 03

    Bid strategy reverted

    Performance Max moved off the tROAS cap and back to Maximize Conversion Value. The cap removal modeled a low-double-digit percent uplift in conversion value over the audit window.

  4. 04

    Dead brand culled

    The emac campaign — converting at 0× — was excluded across the account. Its spend was reallocated to the brands that convert.

  5. 05

    Brand-defense campaign restored

    The paused LP Branded search campaign re-enabled with the audit-grade guardrails it never had. Reported ROAS no longer treated as truth — measured against Shopify going forward.

  6. 06

    Two new Google Ads campaigns

    High-Intent Conquest (seven exact-match SKAGs at a 5× target) + Catalog Sweep PMax (five asset groups at a 3× target). Combined modeled lift on paid revenue: high-double-digit % over baseline.

02Lifecycle & email

  1. 01

    End-to-end Klaviyo audit

    Mapped every live and draft flow, every metric integration, every overlap. Found the duplicate-integration root cause that had silently killed the best-performing cart-recovery flow.

  2. 02

    Cart recovery resuscitated

    The "live" cart flow had been reaching seven recipients in thirty days with a ~14% open rate, no clicks, and no revenue. Rewired it to the Shopify Checkout Started trigger so it now fires against every abandonment, with the redesigned templates pushing open rate toward industry-standard 30–50%.

  3. 03

    Five new on-brand email templates

    Cart Abandoned Touch 1, Touch 2, Touch 3 · Customer Winback · Browse Abandonment. All shipped to the Klaviyo template library, dynamic blocks wrapped so nothing renders broken, no fabricated discount codes.

  4. 04

    Draft-flow triage

    Seven Klaviyo Draft flows reviewed with a recommended action per flow. Highest-priority: Post-Purchase regression caught and queued back to Live. Welcome series and Pro-segment nurtures handed back with copy guidance.

  5. 05

    Duplicate live-flow cleanup

    Two Customer Winback flows double-sending to "all customers" — one queued for archive. Two Browse Abandonment flows at zero sends — broken trigger flagged. Post-Purchase regression diagnosed.

03Content & creative

  1. 01

    18 social posts shipped (Weeks 1 + 2)

    Three brands × three formats × two weeks. Reels, Carousels, Statics with production briefs for the videographer / designer, captions cut three ways (IG / FB · TikTok · YouTube Shorts), and a 16-tag set per post. Posting calendar by day and hour.

  2. 02

    13 blogs in motion

    Eight GURU + four RUBI in the Q3 cluster, plus two already live on the Shopify blog. Sourced via Search Atlas Content Genius against verified keyword research, edited for voice, internal linking, and the right PDP CTA.

  3. 03

    Two short-form brand videos

    A Speedy Superkit install walkthrough and Episode 01 of the WorkAlong series — produced for IG / TikTok / Shorts and as evergreen assets on the PDPs.

  4. 04

    Designer pipeline (Canva v2)

    Build spec, designer brief, and self-build quickstart so the visual library can be extended without bottlenecking on a single designer. Per-post visual asset folders pre-staged for the videographer / designer hand-off.

  5. 05

    Content Kit Vol 2 + Influencer Post Pack

    Two designed, co-branded PDFs the client can hand to creators and contractors — caption banks, brand-safe language, product cuts.

04Strategy & reporting

  1. 01

    PDP audit

    Five hero product pages diagnosed against the June revenue dip — hero copy, social proof, shipping clarity, image stack, mobile CTA. Findings handed back with priority and effort labeled.

  2. 02

    Q3 Sales Plan PDF

    Ten-page designed deliverable, AdMax × PlaceForPros co-branded. Channel split, content backlog, paid blueprint, weekly cadence, mid-quarter pivot criteria. Approved 2026-06-04.

  3. 03

    Q3 Content Production Plan PDF

    Companion plan — content cadence, format mix, brand-vs-brand sequencing, production roles, KPIs.

  4. 04

    Social Media Plan PDF

    Channel-by-channel cadence, voice rules, creative library structure, escalation paths.

05Always-on operations

  1. 01

    Daily competitive watch agent

    Runs 7:00 ET every morning. Tracks Schluter / Kerdi vs GURU, DeWalt / QEP / Sigma / Montolit vs RUBI, and Floor &amp; Decor / Contractors Direct / TileTools / Amazon at the retailer level. Four dimensions per rival: pricing &amp; promos, new products, active ads, SEO rankings on the Q3 money keywords.

  2. 02

    Live co-branded competitive report

    Published daily at admax.cool/deliverables/placeforpros/ — designed, noindex, regenerated by the agent each morning. The client opens one link and reads the market.

  3. 03

    Weekly Monday 7:05 ET client scorecard

    Revenue, sessions, keyword movers, blog status, ROAS by campaign. Plain English, no scoreboard the client has to interpret alone.

  4. 04

    Tracking fix verified end-to-end

    Conversions in Google Ads now reconcile against Shopify. The dashboard is allowed to be trusted again.


03 · The AAAT on this account

Four agents, one engagement.

How the Agentic AI Advertising Team carried the always-on side of this engagement, what each agent owned, and what they shipped.

Analytics

Sage

Reconciled Google Ads against Shopify against GA4 and surfaced the tracking gap on day one. Diagnosed the duplicate ecommerce integration that had silently killed cart recovery. Now hourly: watches every channel for anomalies and pages the strategist before the morning meeting. Runs the weekly Monday 7:05 ET scorecard.

Creative

Lab

Six RSA variants for the top two campaigns. Five redesigned Klaviyo email templates (Cart Abandoned ×3, Customer Winback, Browse Abandonment) shipped on-brand. 18 social posts across two content weeks with production briefs and captions cut for IG, FB, TikTok and Shorts. The 13-blog cluster edited for voice and internal linking. Two short-form brand videos in the can.

Optimization

Helm

Reverted Performance Max to Maximize Conversion Value. Re-enabled the paused LP Branded brand-defense campaign. Excluded emac. Built the bid-strategy guardrails for the new High-Intent Conquest and Catalog Sweep campaigns. Triaged seven Klaviyo Draft flows with a recommended action per flow.

Audience + Market

Lookout

Spun up the daily competitive watch (7:00 ET every morning, three rival sets × four dimensions). Publishes the live co-branded report on admax.cool. Day-0 surfaces: Schluter is premium-priced and rarely self-promotes (price-war opening for GURU), DeWalt owns the "wet tile saw" narrative (RUBI must counter), Floor & Decor is the aggressive coupon player.


04 · Tools on the engagement

The stack.

Every platform AdMax operates inside the PlaceForPros account, plus the AAAT layer that sits on top of all of them.

  • Google Ads

    Search + Performance Max

  • Meta Ads

    Facebook + Instagram

  • Klaviyo

    Cart · Winback · Browse · Post-Purchase

  • Shopify

    Storefront + blog + revenue truth

  • GA4

    Cross-channel reconciliation

  • Search Atlas / OTTO

    Content Genius · Keyword Researcher · Site Audit

  • TikTok / IG / Shorts

    Organic posting + retargeting list

  • Canva

    Designer pipeline + visual library

  • The AAAT

    Sage · Lab · Helm · Lookout

  • AdMax Mission Control

    Activity, scorecard, deliverables


The engagement is ongoing. The audit is done. The tracking tells the truth. The Q3 plan is approved and in motion. Next checkpoint is Aug 1, against a Q3 plan targeting roughly 2× the trailing 60-day baseline.