What The Client Is All About?
The Client is a US-based packaging and shipping supplies company that helps businesses of all sizes get high-quality packaging solutions with fast turnaround times. The Client designs, prints, manufactures, and distributes a wide range of corrugated boxes, mailers, protective materials, tapes, and warehouse supplies tailored for eCommerce, retail, and B2B shipping needs.
Most Google Ads campaigns chase the same audiences: retargeting past visitors, targeting branded keywords, or casting wide nets with interest-based segments. But what if the highest-intent buyers you’ll ever reach are already shopping, just on your competitor’s website?
That was the question we set out to answer for The Client, a packaging brand competing in a crowded market. The result was one of the most efficient campaigns we’ve run in years. Here’s exactly what we did and what happened.
The Hypothesis
The idea was straightforward: people browsing competitor websites are already in buying mode. They know the product category. They’ve self-selected as serious shoppers. If we could put The Client in front of them at the right moment, we’d be skipping the expensive awareness and consideration phases entirely.
Our hypothesis: targeting competitor audiences using custom intent segments and demographic layering would increase purchase conversion volume and reduce cost per acquisition — because we’d be reaching high-intent shoppers already familiar with similar products.
The baseline we were working against was sobering but honest: a $50.99 CPA and a 1.98x ROAS from the account’s existing campaigns. Not terrible, but with real room for improvement.
The Setup
We ran two Performance Max campaigns between September 5 and December 11, 2025 — 98 days in total.
Campaign #1 – Targeted established players in the packaging space: Boxery, Packlane, and BoxGenie. These are well-known brands with significant market presence. We built custom intent audiences using their website URLs, competitor-specific product keywords, and relevant search behaviours. The daily budget was set at $31.
Campaign #2 – Took a different approach. Instead of going after the biggest names, we targeted a second tier of competitors: Papermart, Arka, and Packing.com. These brands have real audiences but less advertiser saturation. We tightened the demographic targeting to users 25 and older across 60% of asset groups – a deliberate move to filter for buyers with more purchasing authority and intent. The daily budget was lower, set at $12.50.
Both campaigns used purchase-focused conversion tracking and conversion-based bidding strategies. We built out 380+ competitor-specific search themes across the five targeted brands to give the Performance Max algorithm plenty of signal to work with.
Then we waited through the 30-day learning phase and let the data accumulate.
The Results
The numbers came in stronger than expected.
| Metric | Baseline | Test | Change |
| Cost per Acquisition (CPA) | $50.99 | $26.40 | -48.2% |
| ROAS | 1.98x | 7.36x | +272% |
| Conversion Rate | 0.44% | 5.39% | +1,125% |
| Total Conversions (30 days) | 77 | 39 | -49.4% |
| Ad Spend | $3,926 | $1,029 | -73.8% |
| Conversion Value | $7,578.58 | $7,578.58 | 0% |
The most striking number: the same conversion value $7,578.58 was achieved with 73.8% less spend. We didn’t just improve efficiency; we effectively got the same revenue output for roughly a quarter of the cost.
Conversion rate jumped from 0.44% to 5.39%. That’s a 1,125% increase, and it makes sense. These weren’t cold audiences stumbling across a packaging ad. These were people who had already visited a competitor’s site, already understood what they needed, and were actively evaluating options. The ad served as the tipping point.
CTR dropped slightly (0.79% to 0.56%), which is worth acknowledging. Competitor-targeted audiences see fewer impressions than broader campaigns, so total click volume was lower. But the people who did click converted at a dramatically higher rate. It’s a quality-over-quantity trade-off that heavily favours quality here.
What Made the Difference
Three factors drove the majority of the performance lift.
Competitor Selection Strategy
Campaign #2, which targeted the less saturated competitors, outperformed Campaign #1 significantly. Campaign #1 delivered a solid 6.07x ROAS and $28.95 CPA strong numbers. But Campaign #2 hit 16.94x ROAS and a $15.97 CPA. The less-saturated competitor audiences were less competitive in the auction and more responsive to The Client’s messaging.
The lesson: when building competitor targeting, don’t default to the biggest names. The most obvious competitors attract the most advertisers, which drives up costs and reduces efficiency. Mid-tier competitors with genuine audience volume can be significantly more cost-effective to target.
Demographic Layering
Applying the 25+ age demographic filter to Campaign #2 improved efficiency by roughly 45%. Packaging purchases — especially for business or e-commerce use cases — are often made by people with decision-making authority, purchasing budgets, and professional context. Filtering for this demographic removed spend on segments less likely to convert and concentrated the budget where purchase intent was highest.
Lower Budgets, Better Performance
This one surprises people, but it’s not uncommon with Performance Max. Campaign #2’s lower daily budget ($12.50 vs. $31) created tighter bidding conditions that pushed the algorithm to be more selective about when and where it spent. The result was more efficient auction participation and better return per dollar. Bigger budgets can sometimes cause Performance Max to over-expand into lower-quality placements to hit spend targets.
What This Means for Packaging Brands
For The Client, this experiment validated a scalable playbook. The Campaign #2 framework, mid-tier competitor targeting plus demographic precision plus controlled budget, is ready to expand to additional competitors and new markets.
More broadly, this experiment is a case for rethinking how ecommerce and B2B brands approach audience strategy on Google Ads. Competitor website targeting isn’t new, but it’s underused, partly because the results can feel counterintuitive. You’re not targeting people who’ve heard of your brand or visited your site. You’re targeting people who are already deep in a purchase journey, just with someone else.
When you show up there with messaging specifically designed to differentiate your product and give them a reason to switch, the conversion rates reflect that intent.
Conclusion: A Clear Success
The targeted competitor audience experiment delivered exceptional performance improvements:
- CPA dropped nearly in half
- ROAS soared over 7x
- Conversion quality skyrocketed
- Spend dramatically decreased while sustaining revenue
This approach validated our hypothesis and provided a scalable model for future growth.
