Forwrd
BRUNA THE LABEL • Case Study • Google Ads

From low six figures to 7-figure generic revenue — and still compounding.

The initial fix unlocked the growth. The sustained work — constantly testing, evolving, and redirecting budget toward what's genuinely incremental — is what kept it compounding.

BRUNA The Label

The numbers

Generic campaigns were rebuilt as the primary growth engine, with budgets, structures, and bidding strategies optimised specifically for new customer acquisition.

0x generic revenue growth in year one — low 6 figures to 7 figures
0% further growth in year two — compounding on an already transformed base
0x+ improvement in generic ROAS through sustained account evolution

About BRUNA The Label

BRUNA The Label is a fine jewelry brand founded in 2019 by Helena and Simon, with a story that began in Tahiti with the discovery of rare keshi pearls. Built around the idea of modern heirlooms — pieces designed to be worn every day and cherished for a lifetime — BRUNA crafts its jewelry from ethical gold and silver, laboratory-grown diamonds and genuine pearls. Handmade by skilled craftspeople and sold direct-to-consumer, BRUNA is one of the most compelling responsible jewelry brands in the European market.

Core account truth

The high reported ROAS reflected existing demand, not new demand being created.

The high reported ROAS from brand-inclusive PMax reflected existing demand, not new demand being created. The real growth opportunity — reaching new customers through generic search and Shopping — was not getting enough budget.

How we helped BRUNA grow

We restructured the account around a clear separation between brand and generic activity, removed brand signals from PMax, and rebuilt the generic campaign architecture to give the algorithm the clean, incremental signals it needed to find new customers efficiently.

The story

BRUNA came to us with a Google Ads account that wasn't delivering what the brand deserved. Generic search revenue was in the low six figures — modest for a brand with BRUNA's product quality and growing organic audience. The account was technically active, but structured in a way that was actively working against incremental growth.

We took over, diagnosed the root cause, and rebuilt the account from the ground up. In the first full year under our management, generic revenue grew 10x — crossing from low 6 figures into 7-figure territory. In year two and beyond, the result was a further 43% growth on top of an already transformed baseline and a ROAS on generic campaigns that more than quadrupled over the full engagement.

The problem nobody was talking about

The inherited account had a common setup problem that is often missed: Performance Max campaigns were running with brand signals included.

PMax with brand inclusion often reports impressive ROAS figures because it is, in effect, capturing branded search traffic that would have been converted anyway. The algorithm gravitates toward the warmest signals available and branded queries are always the warmest. The result is an account that appears to be performing well while actually doing very little incremental work.

At BRUNA, this meant the account was over-bidding on brand terms, cannibalising organic brand traffic and starving the generic campaigns of budget and learning signals. Brand search ROAS looked high, but branded conversions were actually falling. The business wasn't growing from paid search. It was cycling the same warm audience through increasingly expensive campaigns.

The fix

The diagnosis pointed directly to the solution. We restructured the account around a clear separation between brand and generic activity, removed brand signals from PMax, and rebuilt the generic campaign architecture to give the algorithm the clean, incremental signals it needed to find new customers efficiently.

Brand campaigns were isolated and managed independently, with appropriate budgets and bid strategies reflecting their role as a defensive, retention-focused channel. Generic campaigns were rebuilt as the primary growth engine, with budgets, structures, and bidding strategies optimised specifically for new customer acquisition.

This separation is foundational. Without it, the algorithm will always take the path of least resistance and that path leads to brand, not growth.

Rebuilding the PMax & Shopping structure

With brand signals removed from PMax, we rebuilt the campaign structure around product feed quality and audience signals that reflected genuine purchase intent rather than existing brand affinity. Shopping campaigns were restructured to prioritise high-margin, high-conversion product groups and give the algorithm sufficient data density to optimise effectively at scale.

Scaling Generic search

Generic search campaigns were expanded systematically, new keyword coverage, tighter match types, and audience layering to ensure the budget was reaching buyers who were in-market for fine jewelry but hadn't yet discovered BRUNA.

This is where incremental revenue actually comes from: people who wouldn't have found the brand otherwise.

Systematic campaign testing and revenue growth animation
Continuous test, filter and learn optimisation cycle animation

Never standing still

The work didn't end once the initial structure was in place. What followed was years of continuous account evolution, new campaign types tested and iterated, bidding strategies adjusted as platform dynamics changed, audience signals refined as data accumulated and budget constantly redirected toward whatever was demonstrably driving incremental revenue at that point in time.

The account that exists in 2025 looks nothing like the one we built more than 2 years ago. That is not a sign of instability, it is a sign of genuine active management. The ROAS trajectory on generic campaigns reflects this: more than 4x improvement from the starting point at takeover, with the strongest gains coming in the most recent quarters as ongoing optimization starts to deliver bigger results.

The results

The growth trajectory across the engagement:

Period Generic Revenue Generic ROAS vs. Prior Period
Pre-takeover Low 6 figures Baseline —
Year 1 7 figures Same baseline +10x revenue
Year 2 High 7 figures Same baseline +43% YoY

Year one was the transformation. Year two and beyond is what sustained, intelligent account management looks like in practice: a structure that never stands still, constantly tested and evolved based on what the data shows is actually driving incremental revenue. The account that exists today is materially different from the one we built originally and that's the point. Markets shift, algorithms change, competition moves. An account that isn't evolving is quietly losing ground.

The ROAS trajectory on generic campaigns reflects this compounding approach. Each quarter of refinement — bidding adjustments, audience exclusions, campaign restructuring, feed optimisation — built on the last. By Q4 2025, generic ROAS had improved more than 4x versus the starting point at takeover, while revenue continued to scale. Growing efficiency and volume together is the clearest sign of an account managed with a real understanding of what moves the needle.

Key learnings

Brand inclusion in PMax is one of the most common and most costly structural errors in Google Ads.

It produces metrics that look like performance while delivering very little incremental value. Identifying and correcting this is often the most impactful change you can make in a newly taken-over account.

Separation is not just an optimisation, it is a prerequisite.

Without clean separation between brand and generic activity, it is impossible to know what Google Ads is actually contributing to business growth. Attribution is muddled, budgets are misallocated and the algorithm optimises for the wrong thing. Every incremental improvement downstream depends on getting this right first.

ROAS at takeover is not a ceiling it is a starting point.

A 4x improvement in generic ROAS while simultaneously growing revenue 10x is not a common outcome. It happens when the account is rebuilt on correct structural foundations and then optimised consistently over time. The compounding effect of doing the fundamentals right is significant and sustained.

The algorithm works for you when you give it the right signals.

When PMax was redirected away from the brand and toward genuine generic demand, it found new customers efficiently and at improving economics. The algorithm isn't the problem in most underperforming accounts, the instructions it has been given are.

The result

10x growth in generic revenue in the first year. A further 43% increase in year two. Generic ROAS more than quadrupled.

An account structure that never stopped evolving — because understanding what actually moves the needle is not a one-time diagnosis, it is an ongoing discipline.

The initial fix unlocked the growth. The sustained work — constantly testing, evolving, and redirecting budget toward what's genuinely incremental — is what kept it compounding.

Yann Durand
Ask me about a free audit

Meet Yann Durand

Co-founder of Forwrd. Google Ads, YouTube Ads and performance marketing specialist.

Hi, I'm Yann. I've spent the last 10+ years living and breathing Google Ads, YouTube and performance marketing — and honestly, I still love it.

I started out at a leading global agency in the UK after a first-class master's in digital marketing. Then I moved to the Netherlands to run Google Ads for Bestseller on brands like Jack & Jones, Vero Moda and Only, spending millions across 16 brands and 15 markets simultaneously.

The chapter that really changed things was Vienna. At waterdrop, I took non-brand Google Ads from €200k to €6M in revenue. That experience became the backbone of a system for D2C brands trying to scale with Search, Shopping and YouTube Ads.

After seeing the bad shape of most Google Ads accounts out there, I built Forwrd to go after the untapped potential most agencies leave behind. Where agencies stay on the surface, we go after the moves that actually shift revenue.

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If your growth problem is not just volume but quality, the answer is usually not more spend. It is a better structure, better signals, and better creative strategy.

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