Google Ads for a Luxury Watch Buyback Website in Monaco

The client

The client's website is monacowatch.com. The business specialises in the premium wristwatch segment: buying and selling watches from well-known global brands (Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe and others). It also offers watch repairs, but this is currently a low priority for the client and is not actively promoted in the campaigns. Google Ads covers Western Europe: France, Monaco and Germany.

We already work with this client in two other areas. The client came back to us in January 2024: over the years of working together we had built strong mutual trust, and our team had shown a clear focus on results. The goal was to increase traffic, qualified enquiries and orders across the client's lines of business.

At the start of the new project we ran a detailed account audit to lay the groundwork for further optimisation by our team.

Audit findings and recommendations

Web analytics and conversion tracking

• Move to GA4: the account used outdated conversion actions imported from Universal Analytics (UA). We needed to check that conversions were set up and firing correctly in the GA4 property.
• Wider tracking: new important events had to be passed, imported into Google Ads as conversions, and the basic GA4 property setup completed.

Account and campaign structure

• Ad group audit: in one ad group all keywords were paused. The group either had to be paused completely or the keywords updated and re-enabled if they were still relevant.
• Keyword grouping: we recommended revising keyword clustering. In particular, the brand campaign contained keywords with very different meanings (brand and generic queries were mixed).
• Removing duplicates: the account had to be cleared of repeats, so that identical keywords with the same match type were not used within one structure.

Ads and extensions (assets)

• Better RSA quality: improve the ad strength of the current responsive search ads, add new headline variants and pin some of them to specific positions so the ad text stays logical and clear in search results.
• More extensions: add all available extension types relevant to the niche (especially images) to ad groups that lacked them.
• Control over automation: check that existing extensions match the ad language, especially those created automatically by the system.
• Responsive formats: add responsive search ads to ad groups that did not use them.

Targeting, Display and new formats

• Audience signals: add relevant audiences in Observation mode based on system recommendations.
• Traffic quality: regularly review search terms and promptly exclude irrelevant traffic with negative keywords.
• Display: strengthen responsive display ads with more high-quality images and varied headlines.
• Performance Max: build, set up and launch Performance Max campaigns.

Campaign setup

Geography, languages and schedule: ads were to cover France, Monaco and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) around the clock on desktop and mobile. Ad languages were English and French, plus Italian for Monaco.

Strategy and ads: the client's existing ad copy was to be kept as much as possible, but due to platform restrictions all new ads were created as responsive search ads. Because of the keyword confusion and broken analytics, we set up and launched all campaigns from scratch.
Google Ads was linked, but there was no access to Merchant Center. Due to the legal specifics of buying such goods, online payment could not be added to the site. To save time, we created and set up a new account ourselves. The client designed the Performance Max banners in-house.

Web analytics and tracking (GA4 / GTM): GA4 had no purchase data for the previous 12 months, and tests showed that form conversions were not being passed at all. We restored full access to the container, reviewed its code and rebuilt tracking from scratch.

Watch repair ads: the client asked us to launch a new local direction for Monaco and the French Riviera. Ads were to run in three languages: English, French and Italian.

To pass Merchant Center review and launch Shopping ads, the client needed to make the following changes to the site:

• Checkout and payment. Buyers must be able to complete an order on their own without a manager, including as a guest without mandatory registration. At least one online card payment method is required, and payment system logos had to be added to the footer.
• Return and exchange policy. A separate page was needed stating whether returns are accepted (if not, "No exchanges or returns"), for which products, conditions, deadlines, the refund procedure and who pays for shipping.
• Delivery. Add links in the header, footer and product page. Create a delivery page with clear rates and timeframes for each region (ideally up to 7 days). At least one home delivery option is mandatory.
• Content and product pages. Use only two clear statuses: "In stock" and "Out of stock". Review text had to match the language version of the site. For pre-owned items, this status must be stated explicitly on the product page.
• Contacts and technical fixes: the phone number on the site must be able to receive messages for Merchant Center verification. On the Contacts page, the Maps loading error had to be fixed and opening hours and form response time added.

In January 2024 we enabled Google signals in GA4 and gave the client recommendations for the site: create a unique About Us page and link to it from the header and footer. The text had to be at least 3–4 paragraphs long, describe the company's values, advantages, working principles and attitude to customers, and be original (not copied from other sources). At the same time we added GTM tags to track these events:

Clicks on contacts and social media:

• Phone number click
• Email click
• Telegram click
• WhatsApp click
• Facebook click
• Instagram click

Clicks on external links:

• Trustpilot click
• Google Maps click

Form submissions on the site:

• "Sell your watch" form submission
• Contact page form submission
• Order/purchase form submission on the product page

While setting up analytics, we found a peculiarity in data collection: GA4 was receiving some events and page views, although spot checks of site pages found no direct gtag snippet (from UA or GA4). At the same time, GTM events did not arrive until the GA4 configuration tag was restored in the container. We used Debug mode to check for duplicate events, and everything worked correctly with no repeats. We also asked the client's technical team to check whether the current GTM tag conflicted with any other internal settings or plugins on the site.

Since the client operates in the EEA, Consent Mode V2 had to be implemented by March 2024. Implementation options:

• If the cookie consent banner is provided by a certified Google partner, consent mode is enabled directly in its settings.
• If the banner is not from a Google partner platform, consent mode has to be set up manually (in code or through GTM).

Why this matters: consent mode directly affects ad personalisation features. Without it, for example, remarketing in Performance Max campaigns does not work.

In February we checked event data in GA4. Clicks on the phone number, WhatsApp and Telegram, as well as the Contacts, Buy and Sell form submissions, were marked as conversions and imported into Google Ads. We added ad extensions and launched new Performance Max campaigns segmented by geography: France, Monaco and Benelux. We finished editing the actions counted in the Conversions column in Google Ads. We switched off the client's campaigns (most of which had almost no or zero impressions), except for two that were recording conversions, and switched on our search campaigns. In the two remaining client campaigns, we edited conversion tracking at campaign level.

Dubai campaign

In March 2024 the client asked us to create and set up a separate campaign with these parameters:

• Direction: buyback.
• Location: UAE, Dubai.
• Languages: all languages enabled in the account.

We tested the Maximise Conversions strategy, with ads in English.

The campaign received 1,047 clicks from 13,549 impressions. The CTR was high (7.73%), showing that the ads were relevant to search queries. The average CPC was €1.35 – higher than the account average, but justified for an expensive market like Dubai in a premium niche.

Conversions: 120.

Conversion rate: 11.46%, so roughly every 9th user who clicked on an ad submitted an enquiry.

Cost per conversion: €11.81, a low and favourable cost for premium watch buyback in Dubai.

In August the Dubai targeting was switched off at the client's request.

29 May – 11 July: campaigns were paused due to force majeure on the client's side.

When work resumed, the first thing we did in GA4 was exclude from conversion tracking the events set up earlier (not by us) that had no data for the previous month. We also checked that conversions were being passed correctly, and everything worked.

According to the client, most deals (purchases and sales) take place in the physical store in Monaco. So we agreed to launch a test local Performance Max campaign for Monte Carlo with the Buyback objective, in English and French.

In May 2025 we reviewed the account and found that campaigns were losing about 31% of impressions on average due to limited budget. The highest losses were in "[ITF] Продажа - БеНиЛюкс" (52.48%, as the daily budget was too low) and "[ITF] Выкуп - Монако" (34.44%). Losses due to rank were even more critical, averaging 63% and peaking in "[ITF] Продажа - Франция" (80.63%) and "[ITF] Продажа - Монако" (74.01%). The first problem required higher budgets, the second – adjustments to bid strategies (which could raise the cost per conversion). We therefore recommended gradually raising daily budgets in "[ITF] Выкуп - Монако" and "[ITF] Продажа - Монако" to win a larger share of impressions and clicks. For local campaigns we used Performance Max, as standard Local campaigns became obsolete in 2022–2023 when Google moved them to PMax.

On 3 June 2025 we were asked to strengthen the Sales campaigns. Optimisation work:

• Gradually raising budgets for Sales (first step: +15%).
• Restarting the previously paused PMax campaigns (France, Benelux) for sales only.
• Reviewing and expanding keywords, including in Dutch, which the client had previously rejected.
• Checking purchase form tracking on the site – everything worked correctly.

A question came up about events:

• Click phone is a custom event we set up on the site. It records clicks on the phone number directly on the web page.
• Clicks to call is a standard automatic Google Ads event in the local actions category. It tracks clicks on the call button in the ad itself (or right after it is viewed).

In other words, these conversions record completely different user actions at different stages (on the site and in the ad interface).

Disapproved ads

From time to time we faced ad disapprovals and promptly filed appeals to restore them.

A mass block happened in August 2025, when Cloudflare's AI protection settings cut off Google Ads crawlers from the site. After the client switched off this filtering, we resubmitted appeals for ads and sitelinks. All elements passed review and went back into rotation. We repeated these steps periodically.

Adjusting goals (Telegram / WhatsApp). In September, after checking the data with the client, we found that the real number of messenger enquiries did not match the recorded figures. As the data was unreliable, these conversions were made secondary in Google Ads and removed from the key events in GA4.

In September 2025 we created and launched a brand search campaign. Monaco was set as the location, and ads were created in English and French.

In response to the client's request to boost the Buyback direction, we proposed the following optimisations:

• Keywords: review and expand the keyword list, including Dutch keywords (as was done successfully for Sales).
• Performance Max: restart the paused Buyback asset groups within the existing [ITF] PMax - БеНиЛюкс - Продажа and [ITF] PMax - Франция - Продажа campaigns.
• Budget scaling: increase daily budgets for search and PMax campaigns (subject to approval of the previous point), with special attention to [ITF] Выкуп - БеНиЛюкс, which had a low impression share due to budget limits.

In December 2025 the client asked us to expand the brand campaign, which had targeted only Monaco, to all of France and Italy. Since adding France and Italy increased potential reach by almost 130 million users, the current budget was too small, and we proposed increasing it. All optimisation work was agreed with the client and we updated the targeting. In April we agreed with the client to stop showing ads in Benelux.

In April 2026 the client decided to merge its websites chronocash.eu and monacowatch.com, so we prepared a campaign migration plan.

1. Moving campaigns: copy all German-language campaigns that led to chronocash.eu and move them to the monacowatch.com Google Ads account.
2. Switching traffic: once moved and set up, switch off these campaigns in the old chronocash.eu account and launch them in the new monacowatch.com account at the same time, so ads keep running without interruption.

During this period we also launched campaigns targeting Bavaria (in German). Later we agreed to launch a brand campaign with "Chronocash" keywords leading to the site's home page. In parallel we reminded the client again that information about the rebrand had to be added to the landing page.

In June the client reported a drop in Buyback enquiries. We analysed the current campaigns to find the causes and options for optimisation (including whether cross-negative keywords and additional reach campaigns made sense). The campaigns showed "Limited by budget", and lost impression share due to budget confirmed there was not enough funding to capture all available traffic. We also recommended raising the current target CPA (tCPA) by up to 20%: the low tCPA could artificially limit the campaigns' participation in auctions and reduce their chances of winning.

Campaign development and scaling plan for July 2026:

• New market test: launching and analysing a new location, Austria, was approved.
• Scaling in Germany: expanding ads to the whole of Germany was approved. Two options are being considered: a new campaign for the whole country or wider location settings in the existing German campaign.
• Budget limits: to support scaling and new regions, the total ad budget was increased to €3,000.

Comprehensive optimisation of the Google Ads accounts and analytics

During the reporting period we carried out a large set of work: technical web analytics setup, in-depth optimisation of search and Performance Max campaigns, and fixing critical review errors.

1. Web analytics, technical audit and ad review

We started by checking the site against Google Merchant Center requirements and prepared a list of recommendations. In parallel we audited Google Tag Manager and removed all outdated tags. A lot of attention went to web analytics:

• The GA4 property setup was completed: Google Signals enabled and user data retention extended.
• Conversion events from the site to GA4 were set up and checked, and their counting settings updated.
• All key conversions were imported into Google Ads, where we adjusted which actions are counted in the Conversions column at account and campaign level.

During review a critical problem arose: a large number of ads and assets were disapproved due to a 403 error. After a quick audit confirmed that landing pages loaded correctly, we submitted official appeals, and the ads passed review. A similar successful appeal was filed for asset groups in Performance Max campaigns.

Later we dropped Shopping ads in favour of other campaign types.

2. Keywords, ads and budgets

As part of regular account management we ran diagnostics, reviewed Google's automated recommendations (dismissing irrelevant ones) and added target audiences in Observation mode. To improve CTR and ad position, we added ad extensions and new responsive search ads, and requested integration of the "Message on WhatsApp" extension. Reworking the content significantly improved the ad strength of the current responsive search ads.

Keyword work covered the following:

• Expansion and localisation: we collected Dutch keywords, and the approved ones were added to the Benelux campaign. As the site has no Dutch version, ad copy and landing pages remained in English.
• Negatives and clean-up: ongoing search term analysis helped identify and block irrelevant traffic with negative keywords. In particular, high-cost queries without conversions were excluded, and the Tag Heuer and Tudor brands were removed from the ads.
• Bids and budgets: based on accumulated data, we reallocated and adjusted daily budgets and optimised bid strategies for maximum efficiency.

3. Results and settings by direction and geography

Buyback (France, Benelux, Monaco)

• France: the campaign was expanded with new ad groups to capture long-tail traffic. Testing strategies (Maximise Conversions and tCPA) showed that sharp budget increases lead to a disproportionate rise in cost per conversion.
• Benelux: we created a new English-language ad group, "EN sell watch near me", with targeted keywords. The campaign received extra funding by gradually moving the remaining budget from the paused PMax Sales campaign. Maximise Conversions and tCPA are currently being tested.
• Monaco: we rebalanced the budget several times and flexibly switched the bid strategy between Maximise Conversions and tCPA.

Sales (France, Benelux, Monaco)

• France: we cleaned up search terms with low efficiency (high cost per conversion or no results despite high spend). The budget was raised gradually, but we declined further expansion suggested by the system, as it would have raised the cost per conversion by 25%. The campaign runs on Maximise Conversions and tCPA.
• Benelux and Monaco: both search campaigns for Sales are currently paused. Before that, we tested strategies (Maximise Conversions, Maximise Clicks and tCPA) and made targeted budget adjustments.

Special and brand campaigns

• [ITF] Бренд: the campaign was moved to a stable updated budget. We tested Maximise Conversions and tCPA.
• MWC - search (EN): the campaign was paused as it had no active keywords left, and the "EN luxury watches" ad group had to be switched off due to high irrelevant spend.

4. Performance Max campaigns

Automated campaigns were developed in three locations:

1. PMax Monaco: settings were fully updated and the campaign relaunched. It started on Maximise Conversions and was then moved to a target cost per conversion.
2. PMax Benelux (Sales): the campaign was paused as it had brought no conversions since September. Its whole budget was gradually reallocated to the more effective search campaign [ITF] Выкуп - БеНиЛюкс.
3. PMax France (Sales): the campaign is stable; its budget was increased in steps, and bid strategies were adapted to market conditions, switching from Maximise Conversions to tCPA.

As part of overall scaling, three new Performance Max campaigns were activated in March (for Benelux, Monaco and France, excluding the repair category), which significantly expanded audience reach.

To optimise the German campaigns, we reduced the budget and capped the cost per conversion for [ITF] Выкуп - Бавария, Мюнхен. In [ITF] Магазин - Бавария, Мюнхен we enabled Maximise Conversions. In the new [ITF] Бренд Chronocash - Германия campaign we removed the CPC cap.

We restructured the Performance Max campaigns. In [ITF] PMax Выкуп - Бавария, Мюнхен the signals were split into separate asset groups: updated search themes, remarketing and interests. Buyback asset groups for France were moved to a separate campaign, with audience signals in the form of search themes.

In the search themes of all Buyback PMax campaigns we combined the watch brands provided by the client with transactional queries ("buyback", "sell") in the languages of the target countries (English, French and German; we decided not to use Italian in the ads).

Results

Performance of the campaigns we set up over the whole period of cooperation:

• 5,203.46 – total conversions
• €11.16 – average cost per conversion (low for the client's niche, indicating a strong return on investment)
• 122,379 – total clicks
• €0.47 – average cost per click
• 2,151,190 – total ad impressions
• 2.66% – average account conversion rate

With the high average order value in this niche, a lead cost of €11.16 makes advertising highly profitable, with a fast return on ad spend and high margins. An average conversion rate of 2.66% at a CPC of €0.47 is a healthy level for a competitive European market. The ads attract a target audience with strong purchase intent, and the landing pages convert visitors into real enquiries. Campaign optimisation delivered more than 2.15 million ad impressions and over 122,000 targeted visits to the site. This brought 5,203 conversions and significantly raised the client's brand awareness in local markets.

Over the spring months (01.04.2026–31.05.2026), the team carried out extensive optimisation of the campaigns.

In total, the account received 6,809 clicks at an average cost of €0.47. The system recorded 490.60 conversions at an average cost of €6.58. Every 22nd impression led to a click, and every 14th click led to a conversion.

Most conversions came from [ITF] PMax - Монако (375 conversions), with a cost per conversion of €0.65 and a conversion rate of 67.93%.

[ITF] Бренд brought 26 conversions at a cost of €13.36 per conversion and a conversion rate of 1.26%. It is the best result among classic search campaigns, delivering a stable volume at a low price.

[ITF] PMax - Франция - Продажа brought 21.88 conversions at €18.79 per conversion, with a conversion rate of 1.29%.

May vs April 2026 comparison:

The campaigns show positive dynamics in key performance indicators compared with the previous period:

• Clicks: +18.07%
• Conversions: +70.13%
• Cost per conversion: −41.51%
• Conversion rate: +43.77%

Total account spend grew by 19.27%, which increased clicks by 26% and impressions by 209.59%. The average CPC across the account fell by 5.34% (to €0.47), bringing more traffic for less money. The account shows conversion growth of 80.35%, while the cost per conversion fell by 33.86% (mainly thanks to the PMax Monaco campaign).

The brand campaign performed very well: with almost the same number of clicks (+3.57%), conversions grew by 26.85%, the conversion rate improved by 22.48% and the cost per lead fell by 15.02%. This points to growing direct interest in and trust for the brand in spring.

The account shows steady traffic growth, meaning wider ad reach and new users. At the same time, the growth in conversions and conversion rate shows that scaling is linear: a systematic increase in traffic leads to more enquiries and better ad performance.