Case study Results / Hospitality · Events
£29,000 in. £656,000 back.
An event hospitality business selling packages under two brands, one for the general market and one for high-net-worth buyers, in the run-up to a major event. The ad account recorded £328,000 of revenue. The business actually took £656,000, because the account only ever sees half the money. Both numbers are here, and so is the reason they differ.
£328k tracked · £656k with balances · 22.6x true return · two brands
One of thirteen case studies, published from more than a hundred accounts since 2021. We publish the ones we can put a source against. See all thirteen →
01 The numbers
The account sees half the revenue.
This client takes a 50% deposit online and collects the balance by bank transfer a few days before the event. Google Ads can only ever count the deposit, so every report the platform produces is exactly half right. Read literally, the account returned 11.3x. Read properly, against money the business banked, it returned 22.6x.
This is worth saying out loud because it cuts the other way far more often. Most accounts we inherit report more revenue than the business ever receives. This one reports less, and nobody had noticed.
02 What we did
What we did
Tracked every step of the purchase, then reconciled it to the bank. The platform number and the business number were never going to match here. Knowing the multiple between them is what turned the reporting from misleading into useful.
Split the two brands by who they are for. A general-market buyer and a high-net-worth buyer respond to different messages, different creative and different price framing. Running them through one campaign structure would have averaged both into nothing.
Built a funnel across the run-up. Demand Gen at the top to create awareness while the event was still distant, Search and dynamic search ads through the middle as people began looking properly, and heavy remarketing at the bottom to close in the final weeks.
Matched the landing page to the segment. Each brand and each package tier sends its traffic somewhere built for it, with the messaging the ad promised. Expensive packages do not sell off a generic page.
Spent hardest into the peak. A seasonal account has one window. Exclusions and negatives kept the budget efficient early so it was available when the auction actually mattered.
Does your account know what you banked?
Deposits, part payments and offline balances all break platform reporting. The free audit checks what your tracking is really telling you. Walked through with you, live on a call or as a recorded video.
Free audit · live or recorded · no obligation