How to scale Google Ads spend profitably for a toy and baby store

Scaling a toy store is a calendar exercise. Much of the year's sales arrive in a short season, some of the biggest costs of that peak arrive after it ends, and baby products run on a different clock entirely. The figure above is one of those late costs: retailers told the NRF and Happy Returns they expect 17% of holiday sales to be returned, across all categories. The sequence below plans spend around the season rather than reacting to it.

1. Build budget before the peak. Circana's global toys advisor has said the second half of the year accounts for over 60 percent of annual toy sales. Campaigns need time to gather data and settle before demand arrives, so start raising budgets on proven products weeks ahead, before competition peaks.

2. Set peak targets from last year's return-adjusted POAS. Use what last December earned after January's returns, not what its ROAS said at the time.

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

   Last December's campaigns showed POAS 1.6 at checkout and 1.2 after returns. Plan this December's targets on 1.2, and only scale campaigns that clear your floor on that basis.

3. Pull back before the return wave. Orders placed close to the holidays are likely to be gifts, and gifts that miss the mark come back. Taper spend on gift-led campaigns as the last delivery dates pass, rather than running them flat out into the new year.

4. Run baby essentials separately. Baby consumables and gear sell through the year and repeat. For context, Triple Whale's Google Ads benchmarks put the median baby brand at a 3.71 ROAS and a $24.14 cost per acquisition, against 3.22 and $25.12 for toys, arts and collectibles. Give baby products their own campaigns and targets, so a holiday surge in toys doesn't reshape bidding for products that sell all year.

5. Keep peak discounts targeted. Offer promotions where they win shoppers who are comparing, not across the whole range. A discount lowers the margin on any order that would have happened without it.

6. Keep the feed in step with stock. When a bestseller sells out at the peak, make sure it drops out of Shopping and Performance Max, and pause any search ads pointing to it. Clicks that land on a sold-out page are pure loss, and they come at the most expensive time of year.

7. Re-set targets in January. After the peak, bring toy targets back to off-season levels and review which campaigns kept their POAS once returns were counted. Those are the ones to fund first next year.

What this looks like through the year

Plan the peak in the summer, scale in the autumn, taper through late December, and close the books on the season only when January's returns are in. Run baby products on a steady monthly review alongside it.

Keep a record of each season by campaign: spend, POAS at checkout, and POAS once returns were counted. That record is the only honest baseline you'll have when you plan the next peak.