How to scale Google Ads spend profitably for an apparel store

Scaling an apparel account on ROAS can mean scaling the wrong campaigns: the ones with the most returns and the deepest markdowns can look best. The sequence below scales on profit instead.

The number above is the share of apparel returns where the reason given was fit or size, in Loop's data from Shopify merchants. A separate survey by Coresight Research found that 69.8% of US shoppers who had returned apparel bought online named size or fit as a reason. The two measure different things, one a share of returns and the other a share of shoppers, but in both, fit is the most common reason apparel comes back. That's why step 5 is part of scaling rather than a merchandising afterthought.

1. Decide which POAS you're scaling on. Use POAS net of returns, measured on orders old enough to have passed your return window. Checkout POAS overstates the result by however much of that revenue comes back.

2. Split campaigns by margin band. Keep full-price, markdown and clearance products in separate campaigns, or at least separate listing groups with their own targets. One target across all three lets the bidding push easy-to-sell, low-margin stock.

3. Turn a POAS goal into a ROAS target. Target ROAS equals target POAS divided by your margin after returns.

   Illustrative arithmetic with made-up round numbers, not a benchmark.

   A store keeping 40% margin after returns that wants POAS 1.3 needs a target ROAS of 1.3 ÷ 0.40 = 3.25, entered in Google Ads as 325%.

4. Know your acquisition ceiling. The most you can pay for an order and still break even is your order value multiplied by your margin after returns. For context, Triple Whale's Google Ads benchmarks put the median apparel and accessories brand at a $25.40 cost per acquisition and a $99.39 median order value. Your own ceiling comes from your own order value and margin, not from the median.

5. Don't scale into broken size runs. When a bestseller is out of its core sizes, the ads keep buying clicks from shoppers whose size isn't there. Pause or exclude those products until they're restocked, and put size guidance on the pages you're sending traffic to: measurements per size, how the item is meant to fit, and what the model is wearing.

6. Scale in small steps and wait. Raise budgets or loosen targets gradually on campaigns that are clearing your POAS floor, then give the bidding time to settle. Don't read results from the days immediately after a change, and don't read them before the returns on that spend have come in.

7. Re-set targets at each season change. The full-price window and end-of-season clearance need different targets. Budgets that were right in the first weeks of a season will overspend by its end, as more of what sells is marked down.

What this looks like week to week

Review campaigns on a lag equal to your return window. Add budget only where return-adjusted POAS is above your floor. Hold where it's close, and cut or restructure where it's below. Re-check your margin bands whenever the markdown calendar changes.

Track return rate by campaign as well as by product. A campaign whose orders come back far more often than the rest of the account is paying for the wrong clicks, whatever its ROAS says. Coresight's 23.4% average US online apparel return rate is a rough line to measure against until you have enough history of your own.