Underserviced by Their Agency and Rising Brand CPCs
Hotter Shoes is one of the UK’s most recognisable footwear brands, but despite their scale they felt their Google Ads account wasn’t receiving the attention it deserved. Their existing agency was reactive rather than proactive — there was no clear testing plan, no meaningful transparency into what was being done, and performance was suffering as a result.
Compounding this was a specific issue with rising brand CPCs — the cost of bidding on their own brand terms was climbing, eating into budget that should have been working harder elsewhere in the account.
Transparency, Structure and Smart Network Optimisation
My first priority was giving Hotter Shoes the visibility they had been missing. I created a shared tracking document that gave the client full transparency into the testing plan — what was being tested, why, and what the results were. This was paired with a real-time reporting dashboard so they could see account performance at any point without having to wait for a monthly report.
To tackle the rising brand CPCs, I dug into the data and identified that costs were being inflated by the Google Search Partner Network. The Partner Network was generating very little meaningful volume — so I made the decision to opt out entirely and concentrate spend solely on Google Search, where the results were.
- Shared tracking document with full testing plan visibility
- Real-time reporting dashboard updated continuously
- Identified inflated CPCs on the Google Search Partner Network
- Opted out of Search Partner Network to focus budget on Google Search
- Saved budget reinvested into the structured testing plan
A Happier Client, Lower CPCs and a Budget That Works Harder
The transparency measures made an immediate difference to the client relationship — Hotter Shoes could finally see exactly what was being done in their account and why, giving them the confidence it was being proactively managed.
The brand CPC reduction freed up meaningful budget that was then channelled directly into the testing plan, creating a compounding effect — savings from one initiative funding further improvements across the account.