POAS Course Part #8: POAS After Refunds Case Study

How POAS After Refunds Drives Real Profit in High-Return Industries

Theoretical examples are helpful, but nothing shows the power of POAS After Refunds better than seeing it happen in the real world.
Here’s a fashion brand that used Reaktion to transform their profitability inside Google Ads.

📌 Case Study: Fashion Brand Cuts Google Ads Return Rate by 45.6%

Industry: Fashion (high return rates)
Challenge: Automated bidding + high refund volume = inflated ROAS + misleading performance
Solution: Reaktion’s server-side returns tracking + Shoptimizer + POAS After Refunds
Outcome: 45.6% reduction in return rate from Google Ads

🧩 What They Did (And How You Can Too)

1. Adopted Reaktion’s server-side return/refund tracking
They became early adopters of Reaktion’s advanced refund-aware tracking, giving them accurate profit signals even in a high-return industry.

2. Used Shoptimizer to shift Google’s bidding toward true top performers
By feeding Google real POAS After Refunds signals:

Overspending on high-refund products stopped
Budget shifted automatically to products that stay profitable
High-refund items were put on more controlled bid strategies

3. Combined automation with strategic bidding
For products with frequent refunds, they used more manual / capped bidding strategies, ensuring Google wasn’t blindly pushing unprofitable items.

4. Shifted KPIs from ROAS → Profitability (POAS After Refunds)
Reaktion opened up new conversations around the right targets:

What drives true profit?
What should Google optimize for?
Which products are actually worth scaling?

That KPI shift was a key factor in reducing returns and improving bottom-line profit.

🚀 The Result

A 45.6% drop in return rate from Google Ads, alongside more stable profitability and clearer optimization signals.

💡 Takeaway for Your Business / Agency

If you’re spending in a high-refund industry, POAS After Refunds is not optional — it’s essential.
Reaktion gives you:

Accurate refund-aware profit tracking
Better bidding signals
Clearer KPIs that actually reflect profit
Tools like Shoptimizer to automate the shift toward profitable products

If you’re not using these features yet, you’re almost certainly overpaying for refunded orders.

Get a near real-time view of what’s really happening on the go

Reaktion for iOS and Android gives your team a near real-time financial overview, clear insight into marketing performance, and an easy way to verify tracking health, all in one place, so you can make better decisions wherever work happens. If you are an agency, you can access all your clients in one app.