Following a full account audit in April 2026, Asymmetric was approved to take over management of PaperTube's Google Ads account (~$20k/month budget). The audit identified several structural issues causing wasted spend and inefficient bidding, along with clear opportunities to improve conversion efficiency without increasing budget.
This article documents the findings, recommended fixes, and strategic direction for the account.
Related client: [1]
Related meeting: [2]
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly budget | ~$20,000 (~$650/day) |
| Campaign structure | 2 P-Max campaigns + 1 DSA |
| Impression share | 13–25% |
| Trend | Impressions down; clicks flat (positive engagement signal) |
The low impression share (13–25%) means PaperTube is missing 3 out of every 4 relevant searches — not primarily due to budget, but due to structural and bidding inefficiencies.
The Dynamic Search Ad campaign has no negative keywords whatsoever, causing it to serve on irrelevant queries. Estimated wasted spend: ~$200/month.
Fix: Build out a negative keyword list immediately upon account access.
The feed-only P-Max campaign is optimized for clicks rather than conversions. For an account with both B2B quote requests and direct e-commerce purchases as conversion goals, this is the wrong objective.
Fix: Switch to Target ROAS or Maximize Conversions depending on data volume.
Branded keywords (e.g., "Paper Tube Packaging") are spread across general campaigns with no dedicated brand campaign. This inflates CPCs on terms that should be cheap to win.
Fix: Create a dedicated brand campaign with low bids. Add "PaperTube" and variants as negative keywords in all non-brand campaigns.
Seven campaigns are enabled but receiving zero traffic, creating account clutter and confusing Google's optimization signals.
Fix: Pause or archive all zombie campaigns.
Possible double-counting of purchase conversions, which could be distorting ROAS reporting.
Fix: Audit conversion actions and consolidate to a single primary purchase action.
One ad group ("Push Tubes Restart") is rated Poor and needs a full refresh. Several ads are missing call extensions.
Fix: Rewrite poor-strength ads; add call extensions across all active ad groups.
Separate brand traffic from non-brand. Bid low on brand terms — users searching by name are already high-intent and don't need expensive bids to convert.
P-Max is a discovery/reconnaissance tool, not a long-term strategy. Once P-Max surfaces which keywords convert, graduate those to manual search campaigns with tightly controlled landing pages and bids.
"A PMAX is like a reconnaissance thing. You're out there saying, what's out here? What works? But then once you figure out what works, you need to stop the PMAX campaigns and move to classic search campaigns on the keywords you learned about." — Mark Hope
Google Ads currently has no remarketing running. Website visitor audiences exist in GA4 but are not connected to the ad account.
Fix: Link GA4 audiences to Google Ads and launch a remarketing campaign targeting past site visitors.
Add Canada to P-Max geographic targeting as a low-risk test to expand reach.
The most durable accounts harmonize paid and organic. Concretely:
- Use top-performing ad keywords to prioritize SEO content topics
- Use high-ranking organic pages to inform ad landing page copy and structure
This is especially relevant for PaperTube given the parallel [3] work underway.
The previous manager did solid work on ad creative. The structural and bidding issues are the primary drag on performance.
Per Parag's explicit request, no changes should be made without prior approval. Google Ads is PaperTube's primary revenue channel ("the lifeline of this business"), and uncoordinated changes have previously caused traffic to go silent for weeks.
Agreed process:
1. Asymmetric prepares a prioritized list of recommended changes
2. List sent to Parag for review and sign-off
3. Changes implemented in batches after approval
4. Monitor daily; review results after 2–3 weeks before next iteration
Mark proposed a management fee in the range of ~$1,000/month for the full scope (ads + ABM + website). Parag asked for one day to consider. Outcome to be confirmed.
See also: [1] for engagement status.