Hi Mark,

Thanks for sending these over. It's great that you're keeping an eye on how we stack up against Fenixlighting, and these are exactly the right questions to ask. The good news is the account is in much better shape than those figures suggest. Here's the short version:

• Competitive benchmarking tools estimate other companies' ad traffic from the outside, and those estimates can be well off, especially for Shopping-style ads. The traffic figures in that email look quite a bit lower than what we see in the account. We had 14,059 paid clicks in September, and our brand campaign has brought in 6,494 clicks since September 17. I've attached the account's numbers.
• Our clicks did come down this year, by design. We moved budget toward shoppers who buy, and store sales are up on last year.
• Even with the fall-promo increase, Google ad spend is running at about 10.5% of store sales in October, well under your 15% target.
• We are bidding on our brand terms. Since October 7, our ad shows on about 90% of searches for "fenix flashlight(s)" and "fenix headlamp(s)".
• The brand-defense campaign you asked about is already running.
• We'll bring you one decision on October 26.

Benchmarking tools are useful for sizing up competitors, but they can't see inside our own ad account, so I've attached the reports behind every Google number below, pulled directly from Google Ads. You or your agent are welcome to dig in. The store-sales figures come from Shopify and are attached too.

1. What happened to paid traffic: strategy, budget or drift?
Strategy. From December through mid-September, all of our Google spend ran in Performance Max, Google's automated campaign type. It mostly shows product listings with photos and prices rather than text ads on keywords.

Our clicks did come down, from 66,159 in April to 14,059 in September, and that was deliberate:

• Low-value clicks: after April we moved away from low-cost clicks that brought in little in sales. In April each click averaged $0.59 and brought in about $1.50 in sales. By July and August each click brought in $5.30–5.80, three and a half to four times as much.
• Spend: we brought spend from about $37K–43K a month in April–June to $23K–24K in July and August. That put total ad cost back under your 15–16% target, from about 20% of sales in June to about 11–12% in July and August.
• Google-credited sales: these held at $94K–100K a month from April through August, on that lower spend. September is still filling in as late orders are credited.
• Store sales: August and September together were $569,813, up 3.1% on last year. We compare the two months together because last year's Labor Day sale was split across the end of August and the start of September.

2. Are we bidding on "fenix flashlight" and "fenix flashlights"?
Yes. On September 17, Maksym launched a dedicated brand Search campaign. It bids to a target return. We tell Google how much in sales we want for every $1 spent, so it bids up on searches from people likely to buy and holds back on those who aren't. Maksym started it with a $2-per-click cap to confirm it was profitable before scaling. Over its first three weeks it brought in about $2.50 for every $1, and that figure is still rising as late orders are credited.

We added budget as the results came in, starting September 30, and added more after your October 4 note about leaning in for the fall promo. On October 7 we raised the cap to $4 a click and set the target at $4 in sales for every $1. We still pay well under that: the average since then is $1.38.

For searches of exactly "fenix flashlight", "fenix flashlights", "fenix headlamp" and "fenix headlamps":

• our ad now shows about 90% of the time, up from about 40% before October 7
• we're in the #1 position about 40% of the time, up from about 20%

You're right that you've been seeing Fenixlighting above us. Before October 7 we held the #1 spot only about 1 in 5 times, so on most of your searches they would have been on top. Since the change we're #1 about 2 in 5 times and in the top ad positions about 8 in 10 times, so you'll still see them above us sometimes, just much less often.

Part of that is by design. Because the campaign bids to a target return, Google doesn't bid the same on every search. For each one, it looks at signals like the searcher's location, device, time of day and browsing history, and estimates how likely that person is to buy. It bids up for likely buyers and holds back for people who probably won't buy, which is what keeps the return high. Someone who searches our brand often but rarely buys through the ad, including you checking on us, is likely to be treated as a low-chance buyer. Google may bid low for you or not show our ad at all, so you'll probably see Fenixlighting on top more often than a real shopper does. We also don't run brand ads between 1am and 5am, when few people buy. Google's free Ad Preview tool shows what a typical shopper sees, and Maksym is happy to walk you through it.

Other advertisers, Fenixlighting included, bid on these same searches. How often we take #1 comes down to the return we tell Google to target and how much we're willing to pay per click. A lower target or a higher cap would win #1 more often, but we'd pay more for each sale. That's the decision we'll bring you on October 26.

3. What would a brand-defense campaign cost?
It's already running, so there's nothing new to set up. At the October 8–11 pace:

• "fenix flashlight", "fenix flashlights" and "fenix headlamps" cost about $200 a day, around $6,000 a month.
• Adding the singular "fenix headlamp", which gets more searches than the plural in our data, brings it to about $260 a day, around $8,000 a month.
• The whole brand campaign, covering all Fenix searches, is spending about $800 a day. We've raised its budget step by step since launch, from $30 a day on September 17 to $970 today, as results came in and after your October 4 note. If performance holds, Maksym plans to keep increasing it.

As you suggested on October 4, we've stepped up total Google spend for the fall promo, from about $550 a day in late September to about $1,000–1,500 a day now. The early return is strong: from October 8 to 11, Google-credited sales were $20,632 on $4,785 of spend, about $4.30 for every $1. Sales are keeping pace with the higher spend. So far in October, Google ad spend is about 10.5% of store sales ($11,319 on $108,339), comfortably under your 15% line.

4. What would it take to cover our brand terms?
They're largely covered.

• Since September 17, our brand campaign has brought in 6,494 clicks, and 684 different searches containing "Fenix" have sent us clicks. So we have a strong presence on our own name.
• Across all brand searches, our ad now shows about two-thirds of the time, and about 90% of the time on the main terms above.
• The remaining question is how hard to compete for #1, which we hold about 40% of the time on the main terms. Winning it more often means paying more per click, so we want to price it with real data rather than guess.

What's next

• Maksym launched a small test today on non-brand searches, meaning people looking for flashlights in general rather than Fenix by name, to find new customers.
• On October 26 we'll send you updated coverage and sales numbers, with a price for being #1 most of the time, and you can decide yes or no.
• Nothing is needed from you before then.

Happy to hop on a call anytime.

Note: Google keeps crediting late orders to the original click for several weeks, so Google-credited sales run higher than first reported. July is up about a quarter since our first July report.

Best,
Dusty