43% lower cost per purchase for a lab-supplies store
A B2B store selling microbiology test supplies paid $88 in Google Ads for each online order. We cut the campaigns that didn't pay back, rebuilt brand search and tightened who saw the ads. A year later, the same quarter brought 23% more orders at $50 each, on 31% less spend.
- Client
- Lab-supplies online store, US
- Industry
- B2B e-commerce
- Year
- 2026
- What we did
- −43%Cost per online purchase, $88 to $50
- +23%Online purchases, 83 to 102 a quarter
- −31%Ad spend, $7,371 to $5,117 a quarter
Source: Google Ads, client account, Purchase Complete conversions, Jul–Sep 2025 vs Jul–Sep 2026
The challenge
The store sells microbiology test supplies to labs and manufacturers, and it also offers lab testing as a service. Google Ads ran both. Over the year to spring 2026, an online order cost between $73 and $109 in ad spend a quarter.
The account had three problems. Two lab-service campaigns were spending without bringing in orders. Brand search, where most sales start, was due a rebuild. And Shopping ads were shown to people who were only “interested in” the target area rather than in it.
What we did
- June: paused the two lab-service campaigns that weren’t paying back. Rebuilt brand search from scratch: a new ad group, 16 keywords, a fresh ad, sitelinks and callouts, location settings and negative keywords.
- July: blocked searches from competitor labs, job seekers and industry research on every search campaign. Turned a search term that had already sold into its own keyword. Set Shopping to show only to people in the target area.
- August: added competitor labs to the account’s shared negative list. Added the store’s lead product, which people search for by name, to brand search. Paused seven keywords that hadn’t shown once in 30 days.
- September: turned off Search Partners, which had spent $84 with no sales. Linked the approved sitelinks the campaigns were missing, taking each from 2 to 6. Paused a keyword with 26 clicks and no sales in 90 days.
The result
Cost per online purchase by quarter. Source: Google Ads, client account.
In July–September 2026 the account brought in 102 online purchases at $50 each. In the same quarter a year earlier it was 83 at $88, on $2,254 more spend. Comparing like-for-like quarters rules out seasonality.
We don’t compare against April–June 2026. The store’s purchase tag stopped firing for about a week in early June, so that quarter undercounts orders. The chart leaves it out for the same reason.
Related reading: Google Ads · Google Shopping & PMax · Profit-first Google Ads structure for e-commerce