Your first box loses money intentionally—it's customer acquisition. But Google Ads optimizes for first-box revenue, pushing budget to high first-box, low-retention segments.
Example: 2x first-box ROAS campaign has 80% month-1 churn, destroying LTV
Gift subscriptions and self-subscriptions have completely different retention curves. Mixing them in campaigns means optimizing for the wrong audience.
Example: Gift subscriptions (3-month) averaging in with annual self-subscriptions, skewing CAC targets
Monthly subscribers churn at 15-20%. Prepaid annual subscribers stay. But CPCs are similar, and campaigns don't differentiate landing pages or offers.
Example: Equal budget to monthly and annual campaigns, but annual has 8x LTV
Advertising current month's box when next month ships. Customers click expecting featured products, receive different items, and churn.
Example: November ad showing pumpkin theme, customer signs up, receives December holiday box
Competitor brand searches attract serial box-hoppers who subscribe, get the first discounted box, and cancel. High conversion, zero LTV.
Example: $5 introductory box converts at 5% on competitor searches, 90% cancel after box 1
With a single asset group, Google optimizes for aggregate ROAS by heavily favoring your top 5-10 products. The rest of your catalog gets almost no impressions. Worse, low-margin products drag down profitability while appearing successful in aggregate.
Fix: Segment products by performance tier: Winners (scale), Potentials (test), Underperformers (cut or fix). Create separate asset groups for each.
PMax claims credit for brand searches that would've cost $0.30 through a dedicated brand campaign. Without exclusions, you're paying 3-5x more for customers already looking for you.
Fix: Add brand exclusions to PMax and run a separate Brand Search campaign with exact match keywords.
Missing GTINs, generic titles, no custom labels, and missing sale prices hurt your Shopping ad performance. Single product for all subscription lengths
Fix: Create separate feed items for each subscription term (monthly, 3-month, annual)
Your 5x ROAS might look great until you realize 70% of sales are repeat customers who would've bought anyway. You're paying to acquire customers you already have.
Fix: Segment reporting by new vs returning customers. Set up customer match lists and analyze true CAC.
Not all campaign types work for subscription boxes stores. Here's what to skip:
Attracts box-hoppers with no loyalty
Hard to compete with one-time purchase products
Subscription requires education, display converts poorly
Follow these best practices to maximize your Subscription Boxes Google Ads performance:
Budget: 20-30% • Target ROAS: 3-5x first-box
Budget: 35-45% • Target ROAS: 2-3x first-box
Budget: 15-25% • Target ROAS: 3-4x
Budget: 15-20% • Target ROAS: 4-6x