AI Tools PPC / Google Ads

VeldFire Outdoor:
340% ROAS with a Custom AI Keyword Engine

Client
VeldFire Outdoor (name changed)
Industry
Outdoor & Camping E-commerce
Location
Gauteng, South Africa
Project Duration
6 weeks build + ongoing
340%
ROAS Improvement
(from 89% → 340%)
-62%
Cost Per Conversion
Reduction
4.8×
More Keywords
Under Management
R2.1M
Additional Revenue
in 12 Months

Wasting Budget on the Wrong Keywords

The Core Problem

VeldFire was spending R45,000/month on Google Ads with an 89% ROAS — effectively losing money on almost every rand spent. Their campaigns had 800+ keywords, most of them untargeted, cannibalising each other, and attracting the wrong buyers.

The client had tried two previous agencies. Both had added more keywords, raised bids, and produced reports that looked detailed but changed nothing. The fundamental issue was never addressed: there was no intelligent system mapping search intent to purchase intent at scale.

Their product catalogue had over 2,400 SKUs across 47 categories — tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment, navigation tools, first aid. A human keyword strategist can manage perhaps 200–300 keywords with real precision. At 800+, they were just guessing.

  • 89% ROAS — losing money on the majority of ad spend
  • 800+ keywords with no systematic intent mapping
  • 47 product categories, 2,400+ SKUs to manage
  • No negative keyword strategy — attracting irrelevant traffic
  • Manual bid management that couldn't scale

A Custom AI Keyword Intelligence Engine

We built a keyword intelligence system trained specifically on the outdoor and camping product category, South African search behaviour, and VeldFire's specific product attributes. The system didn't just find keywords — it scored intent and predicted purchase probability.

Intent Classification

Every keyword scored on a purchase intent scale. Informational, navigational, and transactional queries separated automatically.

Negative Keyword Mining

Automated identification of search terms that drain budget — DIY, rental, second-hand, school projects. Pruned 340 wasteful terms in week one.

Bid Intelligence

Dynamic bid recommendations per keyword based on conversion probability, margin, and seasonal patterns in the outdoor market.

Weekly Auto-Refresh

The engine crawls search trend data weekly. New high-intent keywords are surfaced automatically before competitors discover them.

The build took 6 weeks: 2 weeks of data ingestion and training, 2 weeks of engine development, 2 weeks of testing and calibration against live campaign data before we switched it on fully.

From Brief to Results in 6 Weeks

Week 1–2

Data Audit & Ingestion

Full audit of existing campaign data. 18 months of search term reports processed. Product catalogue structured and loaded into the training pipeline.

Week 3–4

Engine Build & Training

Intent classification model trained. Negative keyword rules defined. Bid logic built. Integration with Google Ads API established.

Week 5–6

Live Testing & Calibration

Engine ran parallel to existing campaigns. Predictions validated against actual conversion data. Thresholds tuned for the SA market specifically.

Month 2–3

Full Deployment → First Results

Existing campaigns restructured. 340 negative keywords added. ROAS climbed from 89% to 210% in the first 6 weeks of live operation.

Month 6–12

Compound Growth

As the engine accumulated more data, precision improved further. ROAS reached 340% by month 10. Ongoing weekly optimisation continues.

"I'd been told for two years that our campaigns were 'performing well given the market.' What SO Websites showed us was that we'd been burning money on the wrong keywords the entire time. Within 3 months we turned a loss-making ad spend into our most profitable marketing channel."
M
Marketing Director, VeldFire Outdoor
Client since 2024

Before vs After — By the Numbers

Return on Ad Spend

89%
Before
340%
After

Every rand spent on ads now returns R3.40. Previously returning less than the cost of the click.

Cost Per Conversion

R420
Before
R160
After

Cost to acquire a customer fell 62% as the engine eliminated wasted spend on low-intent searches.

Negative Keywords Added

0
Before
340
First month

340 irrelevant search terms blocked in the first month alone. Budget immediately redirected to high-intent buyers.

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