Primary Research · v1 cohort, May 2026
The 2026 EcommercePOAS Benchmark
Headline Findings
Cohort medians. No averages skewed by outliers, no anonymised "client X recovered 400% ROAS" headlines.
Median POAS at handover
Across all six brands at the point of onboarding to JudeLuxe — below the 1.0x break-even line.
Median POAS after 12 months
Same six brands, same accounting, twelve months later. Doubling of profit-on-ad-spend without scaling spend.
Median contribution margin lift
Twelve-month uplift in contribution margin generated by Google Ads spend. Matches the JudeLuxe portfolio-wide average.
Wasted spend recovered in first 90 days
Median share of monthly Google Ads budget reallocated away from negative-margin SKUs and branded cannibalisation within the first quarter.
Branded-search cannibalisation at handover
Median share of Performance Max spend serving against branded queries on accounts without exclusion lists at point of onboarding.
Accounts with SKU-level COGS populated
Only one of the six brands had cost-per-item data flowing into Google Merchant Center at handover. The other five were bidding on revenue, not profit.
Per-Brand Journey (Anonymised)
Each row is a real JudeLuxe client. Identities anonymised; sector descriptors generalised; revenue and spend withheld.
| Brand | Sector | POAS at Handover | POAS at 12 Months | Margin Lift | COGS Populated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand A | Houseware & DTC | 1.2x | 2.3x | +94% | Yes |
| Brand B | Sports & Apparel | 0.8x | 1.7x | +71% | No |
| Brand C | Hospitality B2B | 0.9x | 2.1x | +110% | No |
| Brand D | Skincare DTC | 0.7x | 1.6x | +65% | No |
| Brand E | Premium Skincare DTC | 0.9x | 1.9x | +102% | No |
| Brand F | Pet Food DTC | 1.0x | 1.8x | +58% | No |
Source: JudeLuxe primary data, six retained UK DTC clients, onboarding window January 2024 – March 2025. Identities verified internally.
Why the Median Brand Starts Below Break-Even
Five of the six brands in the v1 cohort arrived at JudeLuxe with POAS below 1.0x. Every pound of ad spend was returning less than a pound of contribution margin. The accounts were not visibly broken on a ROAS dashboard.
The three structural drivers, ranked by recovery value:
- Performance Max bidding on revenue, not profit. Five of six accounts had no SKU-level cost-per-item flowing into Google Merchant Center. PMax was free to scale spend on best-sellers regardless of margin.
- Branded-search cannibalisation by PMax. Median 31% of PMax spend at handover was serving against branded queries. Conversions that would have happened in branded Search at a tenth of the cost.
- No commercial intent in account structure. Asset groups organised by product category, not by SKU job. Scale-, Profit-, Protect- and Recovery-SKUs treated identically.
Fixing these three structural surfaces accounts for roughly two-thirds of the median 12-month POAS lift. The remainder comes from ongoing SKU job reassignment under the BOI™ (Bid On Intent) framework.
Methodology
v1 is a small, deep cohort: six brands, every account audited line-by-line for the same period. We will republish quarterly as the cohort grows.
- Sample: 6 UK direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands, all £500k–£10M annual ad spend, all retained clients of JudeLuxe.
- Period: 12 months trailing from each brand's onboarding date. Earliest onboarding January 2024, latest March 2025.
- POAS calculated identically across all brands: (Revenue − COGS − Shipping − Payment Fees − Discounts − Returns) ÷ Ad Spend.
- Handover figures derived from each brand's final month under the previous arrangement (in-house or prior agency).
- 12-month figures derived from the most recent complete month under JudeLuxe management.
- Brand identities anonymised to protect commercial sensitivity; sector descriptors generalised to category level.
- Aggregate medians published; no individual-brand revenue or spend disclosed.
- Republished quarterly with rolling 12-month window as the cohort grows.
How to Cite This Research
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 2026 POAS Benchmark?
The 2026 POAS Benchmark is JudeLuxe's anonymised dataset measuring how UK ecommerce brands' Profit on Ad Spend (POAS) changes between handover and 12 months under POAS-first Google Ads management. The v1 cohort covers six DTC brands spending £500k–£10M annually on Google Ads.
What is the median POAS at handover?
Across the six v1 cohort brands, median POAS at the point of onboarding to JudeLuxe was 0.9x — below the 1.0x break-even line. Five of the six brands were generating less contribution margin than they were spending on Google Ads.
How much does POAS improve in 12 months?
Median POAS across the cohort improved from 0.9x at handover to 1.8x after 12 months under JudeLuxe management. Median contribution margin lift was +94%, matching the portfolio-wide JudeLuxe average.
How much wasted ad spend is typically recovered?
The median brand in the cohort recovered 18% of monthly Google Ads budget within the first 90 days — through brand exclusion lists, removal of negative-margin SKUs from Performance Max, and structural account rebuilds. Recovery rates ranged from 11% to 27%.
What is branded-search cannibalisation in Performance Max?
Branded-search cannibalisation is the share of Performance Max conversions that come from queries containing the brand's own name. Median across the cohort at handover was 31% — Performance Max effectively running as an expensive branded-search campaign. With brand exclusion lists applied, this typically falls to under 5%.
How is this benchmark different from the Q1 2026 PPC report?
The Q1 2026 UK Ecommerce PPC Benchmarks report measures point-in-time performance across 75+ accounts — CPC, ROAS, POAS, PMax share by sector. The POAS Benchmark measures change over time on a smaller, deeper cohort of six brands, tracking the same accounts from handover to 12 months.
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