BEST CASE STUDY

How a Dutch E-Commerce Grocery Store Turned Every €1 of Google Ads Spend Into €7.47 in Sales

A 30-day Google Ads performance marketing case study for Real Dutch Food.

Project Overview

Project Information

Company

Real Dutch Food

Industry

Food & Grocery (E-commerce)

Location

Tilburg, The Netherlands

Role

Digital Marketing and Communication Strategist

Agency

RankRezz

Employment Type

Full-time

Duration

6 April – 5 May 2025

Marketing Channel

Google Ads (Search & Shopping)

Goal

Online sales, profitable customer acquisition and international customer growth.

Background

The Starting Point

Real Dutch Food has been shipping a taste of home to Dutch customers abroad since 2006. From its base in Tilburg, the store sends more than 3,200 authentic Dutch products worldwide — the everyday groceries and treats that are almost impossible to find outside the Netherlands.

The business had already earned genuine trust, holding a 9.3 out of 10 customer rating from more than 1,700 verified reviews. Reputation was not the problem. Neither was traffic.

The real challenge was economic. Acquiring international customers profitably is difficult when worldwide shipping costs sit between the sale and the margin. Every euro of ad spend had to work harder than it would for a purely domestic retailer, because every order carried a heavier fulfilment cost.

I managed and optimised Google Ads campaigns for Real Dutch Food while working as a Digital Marketing and Communication Strategist at RankRezz, where improving the profitability of this account was part of my full-time role.

Scope of Work

My Responsibilities

Campaign Architecture

Keyword Research

Intent Mapping

International Geo Targeting

Google Shopping Management

Budget Allocation

Conversion Tracking

Purchase Value Tracking

Negative Keyword Strategy

Performance Monitoring

Client Communication

Reporting

Approach

Strategy

The account was rebuilt around a single principle: spend should follow value, not volume. Five stages took it from a broad, blended setup to a structure where every euro could be traced to the intent and the market that earned it.

Stage 1

Intent-Mapped Campaign Architecture

Each campaign was rebuilt to serve one clearly defined search intent. Separating brand traffic from generic discovery traffic — and both from Shopping — meant budget, bids and ad copy could be tuned to the true value of each audience instead of being averaged across all of them.

Stage 2

Geographic Value Targeting

Not every country is equally profitable when you ship worldwide. Bids were adjusted market by market, weighing what an order was actually worth after fulfilment rather than treating every destination the same.

Stage 3

Purchase Value Tracking

Conversion tracking was configured to pass the real purchase value of every order back into Google Ads, not just a conversion count. The distinction matters: a campaign optimising for conversions treats a small order and a large one as identical wins. Once revenue was flowing into the platform, Smart Bidding could shift to value-based bidding — pursuing the customers who spent more rather than simply the customers who were cheapest to convert.

Stage 4

Emotion-Led Ad Copy

Ad copy was written for people buying food that reminds them of home. The messaging leaned on the reasons customers actually search: the taste they miss, the certainty that it is the real thing, and the confidence that it will arrive wherever they now live.

Stage 5

Negative Keyword Optimisation

Search term reports were reviewed continuously and non-commercial queries were excluded before they could absorb budget. Across the campaign period this built a negative keyword library that steadily tightened traffic quality.

Ongoing Work

Continuous Optimisation

A campaign structure only stays profitable if it is maintained. Throughout the 30-day period the account was reviewed on a fixed weekly rhythm, with budget moved towards what was working and pulled away from what was not.

Verified Results

Campaign Results

★ Google Ads Performance

Real Dutch Food — Food & Grocery (E-commerce)

0 %

return on ad spend · 6 April – 5 May 2025

Every €1 spent generated approximately €7.47 in tracked revenue across the 30-day campaign period, from more than 150,000 impressions and 3,450 clicks at a 2.30% click-through rate. Source: Google Ads dashboard.

Metric

Result

Impressions

150,000+

Clicks

3,450+

CTR

2.30%

Actual ROAS

746.72%

Return per €1

€7.47

Campaign Period

6 April – 5 May 2025

Source

Google Ads Dashboard

“A 746.72% return on ad spend means the account stopped being a cost line and started being a growth channel.”

Beyond the Numbers

More Than Revenue

The return on ad spend was the headline, but the lasting value was the infrastructure left behind — assets the account keeps using long after the campaign period closed.

What the Project Built

What It Left Behind

Takeaways

Lessons Learned

Track Revenue, Not Just Conversions

Purchase-value tracking gave Smart Bidding better information to work with, and the quality of its decisions improved with it.

Relevance Beats Reach

Intent-focused targeting consistently outperformed broad targeting, even though it reached fewer people.

Structure Creates Profitability

Segmenting campaigns by intent surfaced optimisation opportunities that a single blended campaign would have hidden.

Stable Performance Enables Scaling

A consistent ROAS is what turns a budget increase from a gamble into a decision.

Capabilities

Skills & Tools

Skills

Tools

Google Ads Consultation

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