Search creators⌘K
  1. Home
  2. Creators
  3. Martin Davies

Martin Davies

Martin Davies shares advice on Google Ads for ecommerce businesses, with a focus on campaign decisions and measuring profit after costs—not just revenue or ROAS. Davies has also developed an ecommerce profitability calculator.

Google AdsEcommercePerformance MaxBased on 11 posts · latest Oct 2026
LinkedIn

At a glance

They are most useful for ecommerce Google Ads profitability audits and campaign optimization advice.

Best for

A B2B ecommerce agency needing a Google Ads profitability audit or optimization plan.

Not for

Consumer or lifestyle brands seeking paid creator campaigns, product placement or reach-based awareness.

Key takeaways

  • Judge Google Ads by profit after product margins, fulfilment, payment fees and VAT, not ROAS alone.
  • Check daily impression share before reacting to slower sales, to separate demand from competitors.
  • For Performance Max, disable Final URL Expansion, but note a site-structure condition may change this.

Check first: Confirm whether they accept paid collaborations and request audience data, formats and terms.

Main ideas
Judge Google Ads on profit after costs, not ROAS or blended revenue · Before changing campaigns, work out whether demand fell or a competitor moved · Turn off Final URL Expansion in Performance Max
Read first
Why ROAS and blended revenue mislead ecommerce advertisers
Sources for this section

What they are known for

Martin Davies shares practical advice on Google Ads for ecommerce businesses, especially how to judge campaign performance by profit rather than revenue or ROAS alone.

  • Their posts cover profitability calculations, Performance Max settings, and diagnosing whether slower sales reflect weaker demand or competitor activity.
  • Ask for more information if you need to confirm whether this is the Martin Davies associated with particular books, shows or earlier work.

Davies connects campaign decisions to the business outcomes behind ad metrics.

  • They flag costs ROAS can miss, including product margins, fulfilment, payment fees and VAT, and describe a calculator that reports break-even ROI and net profit after ad spend.
  • Other examples show their diagnostic approach: check daily impression share before reacting to slower sales, and compare brand and non-brand traffic before deciding whether to exclude brand from Performance Max.
  • They also give a clear default on Final URL Expansion while noting a site-structure condition that could change the decision.
  • The posts offer specific answers to ecommerce Google Ads questions and explain what evidence to check before changing a campaign.
Sources for this section

Ideas and priorities

Martin Davies writes about Google Ads for ecommerce businesses, with a consistent priority: measure what remains after costs and diagnose before changing anything.

Read more

They argue that account-level ROAS, blended revenue or a feeling that performance is fine will mislead businesses turning over roughly £1m–£5m, because those numbers ignore product margins, shipping and fulfilment, payment fees and VAT.

  • Davies points instead to break-even ROI and post-spend profit, and built a free profitability calculator used with clients before any discussion of scaling spend.
  • For day-to-day campaign work, they advocate fewer, better-founded changes: test whether slow sales reflect weaker demand or competitor pressure before rewriting campaigns, switch off Final URL Expansion in Performance Max, and check how much of Performance Max is brand traffic.
  • Each post tends to centre on one decision, with the report, script or tool named and linked so readers can check the reasoning.

Judge Google Ads on profit after costs, not ROAS or blended revenue

Davies argues that ecommerce businesses turning over roughly £1m–£5m often decide how to spend on Google Ads using ROAS, blended revenue or a sense that activity "feels profitable".

Read more

Those measures ignore differences in product margin, shipping and fulfilment costs, payment fees and VAT, they say, and miss the bigger question: what does an advertisement actually leave behind? Davies proposes a profit-focused alternative: break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads — figures used with clients before any conversation about scaling spend.

Davies built and links a free Profitability Calculator, explicitly described as not another ROI or ROAS calculator.

  • It reports four profit figures.
  • The version shown in the post is labelled demo data, so it demonstrates the method rather than a client's results.

The calculator has since been extended. A later post reports two additions — refunds in pounds and as a percentage, and ad spend as a percentage of revenue — with profitability per product stated as the next step.

Read original

Before changing campaigns, work out whether demand fell or a competitor moved

After auditing ecommerce accounts through a slow UK summer, Davies saw businesses respond to weak sales with large, repeated changes to their Google Ads accounts.

Read more

They argue this makes things worse: campaigns never finish the learning phase before the next edit lands, compounding poor performance as customer demand falls. Davies's priority is diagnosis first — establish the cause, then change strategy to match it.

Davies recommends running an impression share report by day, covering the past 30 days or the period before sales dipped. If impression share holds steady, market demand has fallen; if it drops, a competitor sale or aggressive competitor activity is the more likely cause.

Read original

Turn off Final URL Expansion in Performance Max

Davies names Final URL Expansion as the one Performance Max setting they disable without hesitation for ecommerce, and explains why.

Read more

Leaving it on, they say, sends traffic to irrelevant or low-intent pages, mismatches ad messaging with landing page content, wastes spend when those pages convert badly, produces inconsistent user journeys, muddies the data used for optimization, and draws clicks to low-margin or clearance items. They also note that restricting which pages Google may use does not work for most advertisers unless the site is exceptionally clean and well structured.

The post focuses on a single setting decision and names six consequences, giving readers a way to judge whether each applies to their account.

Read original

Check how much of Performance Max is brand traffic, and be willing to give up short-term ROAS

Davies raises the contested question of whether to exclude brand from Performance Max and points readers to data before deciding.

Read more

If brand traffic accounts for a high percentage of Performance Max traffic, they suggest running brand through search campaigns and negating it in Performance Max.

  • Davies acknowledges that reported ROAS may drop in the short term, but argues the business grows as a whole — a trade-off stated openly.
  • The script is other people's work: Smarter Ecommerce (smec) built it and shared it with Davies through Ben Fisher.

The Smarter Ecommerce script shows brand versus non-brand clicks, conversions and the share of brand revenue over time, making the split visible rather than assumed.

Read original

Attach a checkable tool to the claim

Across the posts, each one centres on a single decision — a setting to change, a report to run, a script to try or a calculator to use — and names the specific instrument with a link.

Read more

Davies pairs each argument with a way to test it, rather than offering broad strategy positions or personal narrative. The result is short, decision-led and verifiable.

The five posts cover a Pmax setting, an impression share diagnostic, a brand-analysis script and a profitability calculator. In each case, readers can open the named tool or run the named report rather than relying on the author's word.

Read original · Original 2 · Original 3 · Original 4 · Original 5

Sources for this section

Start with their work

Why ROAS and blended revenue mislead ecommerce advertisers

This post answers a newcomer’s first question about Martin Davies: what do they think most ecommerce Google Ads teams get wrong?

Read more

It lays out the argument and the numbers involved.

Ecommerce businesses turning over roughly £1m–£5m often decide how to spend on Google Ads using ROAS, blended revenue or a sense that activity “feels profitable”, argues Martin Davies.

  • Those measures overlook differences in product margin, shipping and fulfilment costs, payment fees and VAT.
  • The more important question is what an ad leaves behind.
  • Davies says they use a profitability calculator with clients before discussing increased spend.
  • It reports break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads, and links to a free version.

For brands planning a campaign

Use contribution margin per product—not account-level ROAS—to diagnose performance, and tie optimization proposals to a stated break-even threshold. This gives an agency a clear way to open a conversation with a client scaling on ROAS alone.

Building the profitability calculator: refunds, ad spend share, per-product profit

Shows what the tool measures and where it is heading, helping assess whether the approach fits a client’s reporting needs.

Read more

A progress update on the ecommerce profitability tool reports two additions: refunds in pounds and as a percentage, and ad spend as a percentage of revenue.

  • Davies describes these as key figures for an owner, director or ecommerce manager.
  • The stated next step is profitability per product.
  • The numbers in the post are labelled demo data.

For brands planning a campaign

For an agency looking to reuse or replicate this framing in client reporting, the post shows what the calculator currently covers—refunds and ad spend share—and identifies per-product profitability as a stated but unshown extension. Confirm per-product margin analysis before treating it as an existing capability.

Slower sales: separating weaker demand from competitor activity

A practical diagnostic routine from recent account audits, to run before recommending a change to spend.

Read more

During a summer when UK sales were slower than usual, Martin Davies saw ecommerce account owners respond to weak performance with large, repeated changes.

  • They argue this makes things worse: campaigns never complete the learning phase before the next change, compounding poor performance as customer demand falls.
  • Their suggested test is an impression share report by day, covering the past 30 days or the period before sales dipped.
  • If impression share holds steady, market demand has likely fallen; if it drops, a competitor sale or aggressive competitor activity is more likely.
  • Change strategy according to the result.

For brands planning a campaign

Run this check at the start of an audit to distinguish a demand dip from an advertiser-controlled problem—and protect the recommendation from being blamed for the former. The post also treats breaking the cycle of constant edits as a performance measure, not inactivity.

Final URL Expansion in Performance Max: why Martin Davies disables it

A specific, repeatable setting decision, with the reasoning attached—a quick look at how Davies argues for campaign changes.

Read more

Martin Davies names Final URL Expansion as the one Performance Max setting they turn off without hesitation for ecommerce.

  • They attribute several consequences to leaving it on: traffic going to irrelevant or low-intent pages, ad messaging mismatched with landing page content, wasted spend when those pages convert badly, inconsistent user journeys, muddier data that makes optimization harder, and clicks landing on low-margin or clearance items.
  • The post says advertisers can limit which pages Google may use, but that this does not work for most unless the site is exceptionally clean and well structured.

For brands planning a campaign

Agencies can adopt this as a default check and use its stated rationale to explain the approach to clients reluctant to lose volume. The post also identifies a condition—a very clean site structure—that could justify a different answer.

Should brand be excluded from Performance Max?

Shows how Davies approaches a common, contested Performance Max decision and what evidence they want before making it.

Read more

The post asks whether brand should be excluded from Performance Max campaigns and points to a brand script built by Smarter Ecommerce (smec), credited as shared by Ben Fisher.

  • The script reports brand versus non-brand clicks, conversions and share of brand revenue over time.
  • The aim is to see whether brand traffic accounts for a high percentage of Pmax traffic; if it does, Davies suggests running brand through search campaigns and negating it in Pmax.
  • They accept that ROAS may drop in the short term but argue the business grows as a whole.
  • The post closes by stressing the importance of data-driven decisions.

For brands planning a campaign

The post gives agencies a named method and the specific figures to pull before recommending a brand split. Put the stated trade-off—lower reported ROAS in exchange for a cleaner account—in writing before the change, because it alters how the account will look afterwards.

Sources for this section

Topics and approach

Posts cited for each topic
Short, decision-led posts with checkable tools5
Judge Google Ads on profit, not ROAS2
Separate falling demand from competitor pressure1
Disable Final URL Expansion in Performance Max1
Check whether Pmax is taking brand traffic1

Judge Google Ads on profit, not ROAS

Davies argues that ecommerce businesses turning over roughly £1m–£5m often make Google Ads decisions based on ROAS, blended revenue or a feeling of profitability.

Read more

Those measures ignore differences in product margin, shipping and fulfilment costs, payment fees and VAT. The profitability calculator they built shows break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads.

Free profitability calculator; per-product profitability was in development.

The calculator uses demo data, not data from any specific client.

For brands planning a campaign

For a profitability audit, use these cost layers as the audit frame and treat break-even ROI as the gate before recommending more spend. Ask what the client can supply on margin, shipping, payment fees and VAT; those inputs determine whether the ads are actually profitable.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

Separate falling demand from competitor pressure

After auditing ecommerce accounts during a slow UK summer, Davies saw businesses panic and make large Google Ads changes while campaigns were still in the learning phase.

Read more

The diagnostic they describe is an impression share report by day for the past 30 days or from before sales dipped. If impression share holds steady, the problem is lower market demand; if it falls, competitors may be making sales or taking share.

Impression share report by day, over a 30-day window or from before the dip.

For brands planning a campaign

Start the audit with a demand-versus-competition check before proposing restructures. Overhauling a campaign during a demand dip can compound poor performance; match the recommendation to the diagnosis.

Examples: Source 1

Disable Final URL Expansion in Performance Max

For ecommerce Pmax campaigns, Davies disables Final URL Expansion without hesitation.

Read more

They list the consequences: traffic to irrelevant or low-intent pages, ad messaging that does not match landing pages, wasted spend, inconsistent user journeys, muddier data and clicks on low-margin or clearance items. Limiting Google's page choices does not work for most sites unless the structure is exceptionally clean.

For brands planning a campaign

In a Pmax audit, check whether Final URL Expansion is on and pull the landing pages it has used. Match those pages against margin and intent before leaving the setting in place.

Examples: Source 1

Check whether Pmax is taking brand traffic

Davies shares a Smarter Ecommerce script from Ben Fisher that breaks out brand versus non-brand clicks, conversions and the share of brand revenue over time.

Read more

If brand traffic makes up a high percentage of Pmax, they suggest running brand through search campaigns and negating brand from Pmax. They accept that ROAS may drop in the short term and argue that the business grows as a whole.

Smarter Ecommerce Pmax brand script, shared by Ben Fisher.

For brands planning a campaign

Run the brand/non-brand split as part of the audit, then test a brand-separated structure. Set expectations that headline ROAS may fall even when total profit improves.

Examples: Source 1

Short, decision-led posts with checkable tools

The five posts are built around one decision each: a campaign setting to change, a report to run or a calculator to try.

Read more

Davies names the exact script or tool and links to it.

For brands planning a campaign

Expect an applied, tool-led conversation rather than a brand-awareness pitch. Map the audit deliverable to concrete settings, reports and calculators.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4 · Source 5

Sources for this section

Brands and businesses

Martin Davies’s posts document a tool they say they built, a third-party tool they recommend, and a business name in their LinkedIn handle whose role is unstated.

Read more

They also describe Google Ads audit work for ecommerce clients, but name no client, so no relationship can be attributed to a specific brand. The posts don’t disclose any sponsorship, affiliate, or investment relationship; ask Davies to confirm before a campaign.

Profitability Calculator

Owned business

Davies says they built the ecommerce profitability calculator and use it with clients before discussing how to scale ad spend.

Read more

It reports break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend, and net margin after ads, and is offered as a free tool.

  • An earlier post says they were adding refund amounts and percentages, ad spend as a share of revenue, with profitability per product next.
  • The posts present it as their own product, not a third-party tool.

View example

Smarter Ecommerce (smec)

Mention

Davies recommends a Pmax brand script created by Smarter Ecommerce (smec) to help advertisers judge whether brand traffic is inflating Pmax results, and thanks Ben Fisher for sharing it.

Read more

They cite the tool as useful input to a brand-versus-non-brand decision. The posts don’t disclose whether there’s a sponsorship, partnership, or paid relationship with Smarter Ecommerce; ask Davies before a campaign.

View example

Colossal Search

Mention

Colossal Search appears in Davies’s LinkedIn handle, the only connection established by the posts.

Read more

They don’t say whether Davies owns, works for, or otherwise represents the business; ask them to clarify before treating it as an affiliation.

View example

Sources for this section

Topics and similar creators

Martin Davies writes short, single-decision posts about Google Ads for ecommerce, each built around something a reader can run, change, or test.

Read more

A strong entry point is the post introducing the profitability calculator: it lays out the cost layers a ROAS figure hides — product margin, shipping and fulfilment, payment fees, and VAT — and reports break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend, and net margin after ads.

  • The diagnostic posts form a practical sequence: read the impression share report before rewriting campaigns, check whether Performance Max is buying brand traffic, then look at Final URL Expansion and the landing pages it has fed.
  • Each post names and links to the report, script, or setting it rests on, so readers can check the reasoning.
Google Ads Ecommerce Performance Max Profitability measurement Google Ads account audits Tool-led decision posts Ecommerce brand leadership

Robin Tesselaar

Writes about Google Ads for ecommerce from the same starting point: ROAS is not return, margin determines whether an account is profitable, and brand-driven conversions flatter the dashboard.

Read more

Both set break-even ROAS from gross margin and treat separating brand from non-brand as a first step in Performance Max.

Tesselaar goes deeper into the arithmetic and platform mechanics, working through marginal ROAS, nCAC and customer-acquisition goals, and gives numbered checklists with more steps than Davies. They focus on a narrower set of decisions — a setting to switch off, a report to run, a calculator to use — and link each to a named instrument.

Read original · Original 2

Jordan Fry

Writes about the same measurement gap: brand-search ROAS that would have happened anyway, a target ROAS set from real margin rather than account history, and the risk that a blended number is easier to flatter than total revenue against total spend.

Read more

Both use concrete account figures to make the point.

Fry's posts focus on Google feature changes and how to use them, such as self-serve Conversion Lift on Search and Performance Max and a beta Target ROAS calculator.

  • They end with a question to the reader.
  • Davies's posts focus on decisions inside the account — a setting, a script, a profit calculator — and read as instructions rather than commentary on new features.

Read original · Original 2

Josh Gregory

Makes the same case that ecommerce scaling failures are rarely about bids or creatives, and usually come down to structure and measurement: checking margin and acquisition cost before raising budgets, and structuring campaigns to keep targeting sharp as spend grows.

Read more

Both write for ecommerce brands moving past roughly £25k–£30k a month in paid media.

Gregory frames the problem across Meta and Google, devoting much of each post to funnel gaps, creative testing cycles, landing pages for cold traffic, and client acquisition offers such as free audits. Davies writes almost entirely within Google Ads and leaves the cross-channel view out of the argument.

Read original · Original 2

Sources for this section

Audience

Martin Davies’s posts speak to ecommerce businesses making Google Ads decisions, especially around profitability, Performance Max settings, and diagnosing sales changes.

Read more

That makes the content relevant to a Google Ads profitability audit. Before booking, ask for recent audience data tied to the audit; for professional roles or seniority, request survey results or another documented source.

Sources for this section

Partnership options

Martin Davies's posts do not offer a partnership or sponsorship.

Read more

Across five of their own LinkedIn posts, they share practical Google Ads advice for ecommerce businesses and promote a self-built ecommerce profitability calculator.

  • The posts include no media kit, rate card, sponsorship policy or brand-collaboration example, and state no inquiry route; no official sponsor page is available here.
  • Buyers should ask whether they accept paid collaborations and request available formats, rates and a contact route.
Sources for this section

Campaign fit

A campaign to shortlist

Good fit: a B2B ecommerce agency briefing Martin Davies for a Google Ads profitability audit and optimization plan for a UK ecommerce client turning over roughly £1m–£5m.

Read more

The posts closely match a campaign for this kind of audit.

  • They argue that ROAS, blended revenue and a general sense that ads 'feel profitable' hide product margin differences, shipping and fulfilment costs, payment fees and VAT.
  • They describe a profitability calculator showing break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads.
  • They also supply a pre-change diagnostic — an impression share report by day, run for the past 30 days or from before sales dipped — to separate lower market demand from competitor pressure, and warn that repeated large edits before campaigns leave the learning phase compound poor performance.
  • For Performance Max, they give specific default checks: disable Final URL Expansion for ecommerce and inspect where it sent traffic; use a brand-script method to compare brand versus non-brand clicks, conversions and share of brand revenue before deciding whether to move brand to search campaigns.
  • This is a good fit where the deliverable is expert technical input, audit design or optimization recommendations.
  • No sponsorship format or partnership inquiry route appears in the posts, so ask whether a paid creator partnership is available and document the terms before planning a sponsored campaign.

When to choose a specialist

Poor fit: a consumer or lifestyle brand seeking a paid creator campaign for broad awareness, product placement or reach-based results, such as a fashion, homeware or food brand wanting sponsored posts, unboxings or lifestyle video.

Read more

The posts are narrow, operator-focused Google Ads advice for ecommerce businesses.

  • They do not show consumer-facing creative work, product-review formats, a media kit, rate card, sponsorship policy, disclosed brand collaboration or partnership inquiry route.
  • They also provide no audience composition information — for example, seniority, job roles or buyer group — to support an awareness or reach promise.
  • A campaign that needs creator media, lifestyle visuals or follower-count-driven reach would be a poor fit based on what the posts show.
  • Ask whether Davies accepts paid collaborations and what audience and partnership terms they can offer before considering a campaign.
A worked campaign example

Worked campaign angle for a Google Ads profitability audit and optimization plan: 'Profit leak audit before scaling spend.' Week 1 — demand or competition?

  • Run the impression share report by day for the past 30 days or from before the sales dip.
  • If impression share holds steady, treat the problem as lower market demand; if it falls, flag competitor sales or aggressive competitor activity.
  • Do not restructure campaigns until this is checked, because panic edits before learning completes can compound poor performance.
  • Week 2 — build the profit gate.
  • Collect product margin, shipping and fulfilment costs, payment fees and VAT for the client's main products.
  • Calculate break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads.
  • Use these as the stop/go gate before recommending more spend; the calculator shown in the posts uses demo data, and per-product profitability was stated as in development, so confirm the client inputs rather than assuming the tool covers them.
  • Week 3 — audit Performance Max settings.
  • Check whether Final URL Expansion is on, list the landing pages it has used, and match those pages against margin and buyer intent.
  • Disable or tightly limit expansion if traffic is reaching irrelevant, low-intent or low-margin pages.
  • Pull brand versus non-brand clicks, conversions and share of brand revenue over time; if brand takes a high share of Pmax traffic, test moving brand to search campaigns and negating it in Pmax, and set expectations that reported ROAS may fall in the short term even if total profit improves.
  • Week 4 — deliverable.
  • Give the agency a prioritized optimization plan with three parts: the demand-versus-competition diagnosis, the break-even profit gate, and the Pmax setting and brand-split changes.
  • Add a before/after reporting frame that replaces account-level ROAS with net margin after ads, and list information needed to close gaps, such as real client margin data and confirmation that the calculator handles per-product profitability.
  • This turns their operator posts into a practical audit angle rather than a generic creator promotion.
Sources for this section

Who else to consider

Robin Tesselaar

Choose Robin Tesselaar when the disagreement is about the metric, not campaign settings.

Read more

The posts explain why a 4x ROAS campaign can lose money while a 2x campaign can be the most profitable, and identify three ways ROAS misleads: it ignores margins and favours high-volume, low-margin products; it rewards warm, returning audiences that would often have converted anyway; and its average hides diminishing returns, so a channel with a 5x headline can deliver only 1.5x on the next pound spent while a 4x channel returns 3x.

  • The recommended alternative is concrete: POAS (gross profit divided by ad spend), a break-even ROAS of 1 divided by gross margin—2.86x at a 35% margin—new-customer acquisition share from the CRM, nCAC over the last 90 days, and marginal rather than blended ROAS.
  • The Performance Max post adds five structural moves: a dedicated exact-match branded search campaign so Performance Max competes only for cold traffic; asset groups split by margin, with different targets for high-margin and clearance lines; CRM and high-value purchaser lists as signals; conversion value rules so a $20 sale and a $200 sale are not treated as the same signal; and search themes used to diagnose queries the campaign does not yet own.
  • Choose this option when the deliverable is a rebuilt measurement and bidding framework, particularly if the client's Performance Max blends margin into one average that favours whatever sells most easily.

The posts offer frameworks, not a delivered audit scope for the demand side.

  • They do not diagnose a sales dip: there is no impression-share report by day to distinguish lower market demand from competitor activity, or guidance on how repeated large edits during the learning phase can compound poor performance—both checks Martin Davies recommends.
  • The posts do not mention the specific default of disabling Final URL Expansion for ecommerce; their Performance Max advice focuses on structure and signals, so a buyer would still need a separate review of landing pages.
  • Nor does Tesselaar offer a client-ready tool: Martin Davies' profitability calculator covers break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads, while Tesselaar recommends setting targets from margin inside the account.
  • Ask for the audit scope, pricing, availability and engagement terms: the two posts do not document them.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

Jordan Fry

Choose Jordan Fry when the question is what the ads actually caused.

Read more

The posts explain that Conversion Lift is now self-serve on Search and Performance Max, without a Google representative: Google holds back a group of users who never see the ads and compares them with users who did, so the gap represents sales the ads caused rather than sales they took credit for.

  • The worked example is a brand search line at 10.1x ROAS and $242K of revenue in September; the point is that a dashboard cannot show how much of that would have happened anyway.
  • The second post covers Google's Target ROAS calculator, based on profit margin: a 15% margin returns 6.67x, break-even at 1 divided by margin; if the real margin after shipping, returns and fees is 12%, break-even rises to 8.33x—with the same account and campaigns, but a very different bid.
  • The advice is to treat the calculator as a floor, not a target, and not to change live bids based on a beta tool alone.
  • Choose this alternative when the agency needs to test or price an incrementality claim before defending brand ROAS to a client, or tie a target ROAS to real margin rather than account history.

The test's thresholds limit its use: at least 1,000 observed conversions, a campaign budget of at least $5,000, and availability that is not yet open to every account.

  • The post says most small and mid-size accounts will not qualify, a real risk for a client with roughly GBP 1m-5m in online revenue: the headline recommendation may not be runnable.
  • If the test is unavailable, the fallback is broad: do not treat brand ROAS as proof, and compare total revenue with total ad spend across every channel.
  • Beyond brand search, the posts address one metric decision—the Target ROAS floor—rather than landing-page settings, campaign structure or a demand-versus-competition diagnosis.
  • Ask about tool access, pricing and the inquiry route; the posts do not document them.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

Josh Gregory

Choose Josh Gregory when the likely problem lies in the system around the ads, not the ad settings.

Read more

The reviewed scaling post covers what breaks once budgets pass roughly GBP 25K-30K a month on Meta or Google—falling ROAS, climbing acquisition costs and unpredictable results—and identifies where the money goes: no working path for cold audiences once warm buyers stop covering the budget; Google and Meta planned in isolation, so clicks and customer journeys overlap; and no lifetime-value or offer strategy behind paying more for a new customer.

  • The listed fixes are structural: weekly creative testing cycles, margin and CAC checks before budgets rise, offers that make sense for first-time buyers, a funnel mapped from awareness to purchase, and landing pages built to convert cold clicks.
  • The second post explains how spend can dilute performance when it rises too quickly—broader targeting, weakened best audiences and lower conversion rates—and recommends tighter campaign structure to control budget, audience signals and exclusions to keep targeting sharp, and alignment between search terms, product feeds and creative.
  • The posts also state an inquiry route not mentioned by the other reviewed creators: free Google Ads audits for ecommerce brands over the following month, arranged by message.

The material offers diagnosis and checklists, not worked account evidence.

  • It gives no figures comparable to the 10.1x brand ROAS and $242K revenue in Jordan Fry's test example, or the break-even and margin outputs from Martin Davies' calculator, so an agency cannot see how Gregory reasons through a real P&L at GBP 1m-5m.
  • The coverage spans Google and Meta, leaving less room for Google Ads specifics: Final URL Expansion, the brand-versus-non-brand script method, impression share by day and break-even margin maths are not covered.
  • Ask for the free audit's scope, cost and deliverables before proceeding; the post does not specify them.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3 · Source 4

Sources for this section

Build your campaign brief

Editable Markdown templates for planning a campaign with this creator.

Blank campaign brief template

Completed brief — Google Ads profitability audit for a £1m–£5m UK ecommerce client

Consumer awareness campaign — Martin Davies's posts do not indicate a fit.

Sources for this section

Research methodology

  • Martin Davies has five full LinkedIn posts here, not just titles or excerpts.
  • They cover ecommerce Google Ads profitability, a calculator reporting break-even ROI, gross profit before ad spend, net profit after ad spend and net margin after ads; a daily impression share diagnostic for separating weaker market demand from competitor pressure; turning off Final URL Expansion in Performance Max; and checking how much Performance Max traffic is brand traffic.
  • Each post names and links the report, script or tool it rests on, so readers can check the reasoning.
  • The posts here have no publication dates, so no ordering or change-over-time claim is made, and one script discussed is attributed to its makers, Smarter Ecommerce, and the person who shared it.
  • Similar-creator comparisons draw on two posts each from Robin Tesselaar, Jordan Fry and Josh Gregory.
  • The posts here provide no information about books, shows, earlier career material, audience composition data or sponsorship disclosures, so those remain gaps rather than findings; the absence of a documented sponsorship format in the posts here is not a statement that Martin Davies never accepts sponsorship.

Brands they talk about