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Work / Ecommerce retailer, Philippines

From 11% to 43% search impression share in a restricted category

A Philippines ecommerce retailer in a category Google barely lets advertise. Revenue up 66% year over year, non-brand revenue up 115%, and now the most visible advertiser in its category in the country.

43%Search impression share, up from 11%
+66%Revenue
+115%Non-brand revenue
−15%Cost per purchase
Sector Ecommerce, restricted categoryMarkets PhilippinesChannels Google Ads, Ad copy testing, Policy and compliancePublished November 2026Client Name withheldLed by Vishal Vaibhav Dhanuka

Whose work this is

A Zero Filter Growth client. We don’t name them here. Every figure comes from the Google Ads account, and the year-over-year numbers use the same purchase tracking in both years.

The client

An online retailer in the Philippines, in a category Google barely lets advertise. Ads get blocked in the country on policy grounds, so a good part of the job is staying eligible to show at all.

What we did

There was no single trick. It was the same work, month after month:

  • Constant optimization. Bids, budgets and account structure.
  • Launches and keyword expansion. Search was rebuilt into tiers by return on ad spend. Performance Max was retired in September 2025.
  • Copy testing. Challenger ads against the incumbents, with every claim checked against the site.
  • Policy and compliance. Ads blocked in the country went from 48 of 336 to 11 of 321 in three weeks.
  • Stock. A daily check of the ads against the store catalogue.

What moved

January to October 2026 against the same months of 2025:

  • Revenue up 66%, on 53% more spend
  • Purchases up 81%
  • Cost per purchase down 15%, from $21.15 to $17.90
  • Return on ad spend from 3.60 to 3.89

Non-brand is the number to look at, because people searching the brand name would mostly have found the store anyway:

  • Non-brand revenue up 115%
  • Non-brand return on ad spend from 2.38 to 2.81
  • Non-brand cost per purchase down 21%, from $30.66 to $24.07

Visibility

Search impression share was 11.3% in January 2023. It was 35.7% in October 2026 and 43.5% in the first nine days of November 2026.

In the May 2026 auction insights, the store had the highest impression share on its category’s generic searches, at 27% to 37%. The nearest specialist competitor had 14% to 16%.

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