Case Study: TACoS from 28% to 11% in 90 Days

The Problem

This health and wellness brand was spending $42,000 per month on Amazon PPC. Revenue was growing, but profitability wasn’t. Their TACoS sat at 28%, meaning more than a quarter of every dollar earned went back into advertising.

The root cause was structural. Their previous agency had built 200+ campaigns with no clear architecture. Auto campaigns ran alongside exact match campaigns targeting the same keywords. Broad match campaigns had no negative keywords. Sponsored Brands and Display budgets were set and never touched.

The brand was paying for the same click three different ways.

What We Found in the Audit

We pulled 90 days of search term data and found three major problems.

Wasted spend on irrelevant terms. Over $6,800 per month went to search terms that never converted. Terms like “free samples,” competitor brand names with zero conversion history, and generic category terms that attracted browsers instead of buyers.

Cannibalization across campaigns. The same 50 high-value keywords appeared in auto, broad, phrase, and exact campaigns. The brand was bidding against itself on every auction.

No product-level strategy. Every SKU got the same treatment regardless of margin, conversion rate, or competitive position. A product with 35% margins and 18% conversion rate had the same bid strategy as a product with 12% margins and 4% conversion rate.

What We Did

Week 1-2: Campaign teardown and rebuild. We paused every campaign and rebuilt from scratch. New architecture organized by product margin tier. High-margin products got aggressive growth campaigns. Mid-margin products got efficiency-focused campaigns. Low-margin products got defensive brand campaigns only.

Week 3-4: Keyword segmentation. We moved every proven converting search term into exact match campaigns with controlled bids. Broad match campaigns became discovery-only with tight budgets and daily negative keyword additions. We added 340+ negative keywords in the first month.

Month 2: Budget reallocation. With clean data flowing, we shifted budget from underperforming SKUs to products with strong TACoS profiles. Three products received 60% of total ad spend because they drove 75% of ad-attributed profit.

Month 3: Sponsored Brands and DSP. With Sponsored Products optimized, we launched targeted Sponsored Brands video campaigns for the top 5 products. DSP retargeting campaigns captured shoppers who viewed but didn’t purchase.

The Results

After 90 days, the numbers told the story.

• TACoS dropped from 28% to 11%. Total ad spend went down by $8,000 per month while total revenue increased.
• Monthly ad-attributed revenue grew from $120K to $210K. Better targeting meant higher conversion rates on every dollar spent.
• Wasted spend dropped by 38%. Negative keywords, campaign structure, and bid discipline eliminated the waste.
• Organic revenue increased 22%. Better ad placement drove more sales velocity, which improved organic ranking on 12 keywords.

The brand’s total monthly revenue grew from $150K to $245K. Their ad spend dropped from $42K to $34K. They were making more money while spending less on advertising.

Key Takeaways

Throwing more money at Amazon PPC doesn’t fix a structural problem. This brand didn’t need a bigger budget. They needed campaigns built around their margin structure, keywords segmented by intent, and daily search term management.

That’s what PPC management from Altus Commerce looks like. Not bid tweaks. Campaign architecture that connects ad spend to profit.