Positive Sparks Marketing Ltd

Pay Per Click Advertising and Conversion Rate Optimisation Agency based in Cornwall but with clients across the world. We are one of the very few commission based PPC agencies in the world. Our aim is to be commission based with every client we work with. Our approach works with most businesses with an established online presence, but is particularly effective for e-commerce brands selling 100 or more products. Want to know how might work with you? Get in touch and we’ll run a free audit with an outline of how we can scale your business together.

Founder

The Digital Sparks Podcast

With over 100 episodes published so far, the Digital Sparks podcast is a weekly opportunity for me to interview a special guest who is an established voice in web marketing, online productivity or digital entrepreneurship. We stream across iTunes and all well known podcast directories and attain up to 2K listeners per episode. See bit/ly/digitalsparks

Presenter / Founder

Phil Byrne Ltd

Based in Wicklow, Ireland, I worked as a digital consultant to a variety of companies in both the UK and South East Ireland. I helped my clients craft and deliver web marketing strategies that covered all aspects of traffic generation and audience engagement. Clients include Rathwood Furniture, Camino Ways, Noble Express, Yorkshire Lavender and West Yorkshire Steel. njunction with my team.

Managing Director

LiveWorkAbroad.com

Having left the UK in 2010 to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I created the website liveworkabroad.com to document my experiences running a company remotely. The website interviewed a different remote worker every month and was one of the original websites out there promoting what is now known as the digital nomad lifestyle. 

Owner

CheapHotelChains.co.uk

Cheap Hotel Chains was one of the original hotel deal comparison websites. I used my skills in both web design and SEO to push the website towards the top of the organic Google rankings for a variety of location-specific hotel focused keyword searches.

The H2 Company

Based in the heart of the city of Leeds, The H2 Company was a full-service creative agency.  I was director of the web and digital services offered by the company and worked with a team of eight employees. These services included website design, web and email hosting, internet marketing, SEO, Adwords and Email marketing. We fulfilled web marketing strategies for a range of clients in both B2C and B2B markets including Raddisson SAS, EMI Music, William Hill and Opera North. 

Director

UM Media

UM Media offered website design and hosting for arts, music and literary organisations. Clients included Complete Music, Yorkshire Dance, Red Ladder Theatre and Leeds Markets.

Business Owner

I am a Pay Per Click Marketing and Web Analytics Professional with over 20 years of experience in the online world. I founded Positive Sparks Marketing Ltd, a commission based PPC agency that works with e-commerce brands across the world to generate more sales and optimise their conversion rates. 

My passion is to help businesses grow and scale online via a share of the revenue generated by our PPC campaigns, rather than ongoing fixed fees. I also a past host of the Digital Sparks podcast, where I previously interviewed established voices in web marketing, online productivity, and digital entrepreneurship. I have multiple publications on remote working and digital nomadism and am always looking for new challenges and opportunities to collaborate with like-minded professionals and clients.

90% of Google Ads accounts fail this profit checklist
(Clicks don’t pay the bills, profitable campaigns do)

Run your account through this 10-point profit audit:

1:Conversion Tracking – GA4 + Enhanced Conversions / CAPI set up right
2: Account Structure – Brand / Generic / Competitor split, intent-based
3: Budget Allocation – Back winners, cap tests, adjust for seasonality
4: Keyword & Search Term Review – Cut losers, add negatives, avoid overlap
5: Creative & Ad Copy – 2–3 variations/ad group, test benefits vs objections
6: Bidding Strategy – Smart bidding with clean data only
7: Landing Page Performance – <3s load, match ad copy, track bounce
8: PMAX Vs Standard– Stop brand cannibalisation, segment by margin + AOV
9: Audience Layering & Signals – Remarketing, lookalikes, exclusions
10: Reporting & ROAS Attribution - Attribution that shows true revenue and margin

💡 Which of these 10 points is your biggest blind spot right now?

♻️ Repost to help someone plug their leaks before scaling.

Phil Byrne

Commission Based PPC Advertising Pro. Digital Entrepreneur. Founder of Positive Sparks, Digification & The Digital Sparks Podcast

Most Shopify brands run ads like they’re static billboards.

We build Google Ads funnels that react instantly to data, behavior, and trends.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

 ✔ Funnel Automation – Budgets, landing pages, and SKUs adjust automatically.
 ✔ Creative Performance Agents – AI flags fatigue and swaps assets before ROAS drops.
 ✔ SKU Routing Engines – Traffic flows to your most profitable products.
 ✔ Modular Landing Pages – Dynamic PDPs match query intent and source.
 ✔ Profit Modeling Layers – Loss-making campaigns are paused before they waste budget.

We don’t gamble on ads. We optimise, adapt, and scale what works.

Want the full breakdown of our Conversion Intelligence + Funnel stack?
Drop a 🔥 below and we’ll send it over.

Most eCommerce brands run the wrong campaign type.

They throw budget at Performance Max or Search and hope for scale.

But mismatched campaigns won’t deliver profitable ROAS.

And the real wins come from knowing:

 – Search Ads capture bottom-funnel, high-intent buyers
 – Shopping Ads dominate results with product images and prices
 – Performance Max leverages Google’s AI when time is limited
 – Display Ads retarget and keep your brand top-of-mind
 – Video Ads tell stories and build trust on YouTube
 – Discovery Ads spark demand with visual placements across feeds

That’s the difference between ads that burn budget… and ads that scale your store profitably.

👉 Want a free audit to map the right mix for your brand? DM me today.
🔁 Repost to help another founder stop wasting spend on the wrong campaign type.

Campaign types

Micromanaging your Google Ads is killing performance.

You’re not losing money because Google doesn’t work.
You’re losing it because you’re fighting the system.

Here’s what smart advertisers fix:

1: Letting Performance Max cannibalise Search
 → PMax often steals high-intent traffic with worse ROI. Use exact-match to protect your best terms.

2: Only bidding on bottom-of-funnel keywords
 → Looks good short-term but caps growth. Layer in broader terms to fuel remarketing and scale.

3: Skipping negative keywords
 → Every irrelevant click drains budget. Structured lists aren’t optional—they’re guardrails.

4: Tracking conversions poorly
Weak data makes every decision weaker. Audit tracking monthly or you’re optimising blind.

5: Overbuilding campaign structures
 → More campaigns don’t give you control. They drain signal strength and confuse the algorithm.

6: Resetting learning too often
 → Big changes need 7–14 days to stabilise. Stop hitting reset before the system adapts.

7: Optimising for clicks instead of outcomes
 → Clicks feel good, but revenue pays the bills. Align campaigns with profit, not vanity.

Want me to audit your account for signs of over-management? DM “AUDIT”, I personally review every message.

How to build a PPC team that actually delivers not just follows SOPs

Hiring someone to run campaigns is easy.

Finding someone who actually grows the business takes more.

Too many £500K plus brands waste budget hiring operators instead of strategists.

Here’s what actually works
↳ Hire for thinking, not just task execution
↳ You need someone who understands margin, LTV, and buying behaviour
↳ Train with real campaigns
↳ Let them analyse actual performance data, not just theory
↳ Give them ownership
↳ When they manage real budgets, their decisions improve
↳ Optimise for profit, not clicks

The best PPC teams measure success by revenue, not impressions

Most agencies don’t train like this. At POSITIVE SPARKS MARKETING LTD, we only earn when you sell. That’s why we build strategists not just button pushers.

Are your PPC hires growing your business or just managing ad accounts?

Google just rolled out a Shopping Ads change that could reshape your campaigns.

Until now, you couldn’t exclude audiences from Shopping campaigns.

That limitation is finally gone.

Here’s what’s new:
 – Audience exclusions are now available in Shopping
 – Advertisers can block low-value or irrelevant traffic
 – Campaigns can be refined with far greater precision

For eCommerce brands, this means:
 ❌ Less wasted spend on clicks that never convert
 ✅ More control over who sees your product listings
 ✅ New strategies for scaling Shopping profitably

It’s a small feature update, but it opens up a big opportunity for anyone serious about ROAS.

👉 Have you seen the audience exclusion option in your shopping account yet?

Every wasted ad pound has the same root cause.

Forgetting how people actually make decisions.

The best campaigns aren’t built on bigger budgets.

They’re built on psychology.

Here are 9 principles that make ads convert in 2026:
 – Anchoring
 – Social Proof
 – Loss Aversion
 – Curiosity Gap
 – Authority Bias
 – Distinctiveness
 – Contrast Effect
 – Scarcity & Urgency
 – Commitment & Consistency

They’re very important that separate wasted spend from consistent ROI.
👉 Which of these are you already using?

🔁 Repost to help other founders scale smarter.
Follow Phil Byrne 🔔 for more PPC strategies that drive profitable growth.

psychology principles

Most B2B brands are running LinkedIn ads blind.

The smart ones just watch what works for their competitors and then double down on it themselves.

I built the LinkedIn Ads Spy Kit to help you track, decode, and outperform the exact ads your market is seeing right now.

Inside you’ll learn:
 • Where to source competitor ads (LinkedIn Ad Library, Taplio, PhantomBuster, etc.)
 • How to map their campaigns by funnel stage (awareness to decision)
 • Spy questions that reveal strategy gaps you can exploit
 • Creative frameworks to turn their angles into your winning hooks
You don’t just spy. You steal insights, adapt, and scale smarter.

Comment “spy kit” and I’ll send you the PDF.

Repost if you know someone wasting budget on LinkedIn ads without a clear strategy.

18 PPC Tools Every Performance Marketer Should Actually Know

✅ Claude+MCP
✅ Lovable
✅ Fireflies.ai
✅ Zapier 
✅ n8n
✅ UXPilt
✅ Cursor
✅ ChatGPT
✅ ChatGPT Image Creator
✅ Negative Review Bender (Ads)
✅ Negative Review Bender (LPs)
✅ HormoziGPT
✅ Trellis
✅ SpyFu
✅ AdEspresso
✅ TrueROAS
✅ Microsoft Clarity + Copilot AI
✅ Shopbox AI
✅ Inventory Planner from Sage

Anything missing from this list? Add yours below.
Or tell me which one you rely on most.

You’re reading your Google Ads dashboard.

But are you reading your buyers?

Because every campaign signal is a psychology lesson.

Search terms?
 → Reveal beliefs and desires.

Timing patterns?
 → Urgency vs hesitation.

Add to cart, no purchase?
 → They don’t trust the offer yet.

Short sessions vs long sessions?
 → Curiosity without clarity.

This is how great media buyers separate clicks from intent.
Not just optimising ads… but decoding behaviour at scale.

The brands that win aren’t guessing.
They’re listening to what buyers reveal in the data.

Follow me for more buyer psychology breakdowns.
🔁 Repost if you believe ad performance reflects human behaviour decoded.

We want to increase brand awareness!

You hear it a lot.

But when you press for real goals, it’s almost always the same answer….They want sales.

They don’t want to chase vanity, but what matters most for them is revenue
Because traffic that doesn’t convert isn’t helping anyone.

👉 That’s why we tie PPC performance to actual revenue.

We look at what matters profitable conversions, clear attribution, and repeatable wins. The kind that let you grow with confidence.

It’s also why we don’t charge fixed fees we only get paid when you do.

If your current agency’s still bragging about CPMs and brand lift… maybe it’s time for a rethink.

Want a PPC partner who’s aligned with your bottom line?
Let’s talk.

Personalisation can double your Shopify conversion rates fast

Make every click land on a store built just for them

Stage 1 (Traffic & Intent) — Identify where the click came from and if they’re a high-intent visitor.

Stage 2 (Golden 5 Seconds) — AI storefront adjusts to behaviour and channel. No engagement? Trigger exit intent and retarget.

Stage 3 (Product Discovery) — Measure browsing depth, recommendation clicks, wishlist adds, and cart momentum. Strong signals? Push to upsell or checkout.

Stage 4 (Checkout & Recovery) — Detect drop-offs, remove objections, and recover sales 

Comment “Shopbox” and we’ll show you what your funnel could look like.
Shopbox AI

Most buyer personas are built for slides, not sales.

They sound clever in a meeting.
Then collapse inside a real ad account.

Here’s why:
→ They don’t help you write better ads
→ They’re based on assumptions, not actions
→ They treat every customer like they shop the same
→ They ignore what actually stops a customer buying


A strong persona does one thing well:
It helps you sell.

It gives you clear hooks, objections to tackle, moments to trigger, and angles that match how real people buy.

This post breaks down 6 common mistakes and how to build personas that drive profit, not just marketing meetings.

📌 Save this if your next campaign starts with “Who are we selling to?”

Want help building personas that actually drive revenue?

DM “Persona” and I’ll show you how we build them inside live ad accounts.

Why Commission-Based PPC beats traditional retainers for Shopify brands?

Tired of paying the same fees, whether you’re growing or stagnating.
Retainers protect the agency, not your profit.

Here’s why commission-based PPC works:
1. Pay only for actual sales. Spend is directly tied to return.
2. We focus on profit, not vanity metrics. It's all about margins, not just ROAS.
3. Daily optimisations. We don’t wait for end-of-month reports to make changes.
4. Aligned incentives. When your store grows, we grow—no risk for you.
5. No overhead costs. You’re not paying for project managers, meetings, or decks.

Have you ever tried commission-based PPC for your Shopify ads?
 → DM me “AUDIT” and let’s discuss how this can help your brand scale.

Most Shopify brands scale ads by spreading budget too wide.

We scale them by doubling down on the 20% that drives 80% of results.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:
 ✔ Product Focus – Funnel budget to proven winners, cut the rest.
 ✔ Campaign Structure – Prioritise funnel stages that actually convert.
 ✔ Creative Testing – Kill weak ads fast, scale top performers.
 ✔ Profit-Based Automation – Rules built around margin, not just volume.
 ✔ Data Accuracy – Track only the signals that drive decisions.
 ✔ Audience Targeting – Retarget best buyers, build lookalikes from them.
 ✔ Budget Allocation – Push spend into profitable campaigns only.
 ✔ Weekly Review – Cut losses quickly, back winners with data.
 ✔ Customer Journey Mapping – Personalise creatives and landing pages to behaviours.
 ✔ Scaling Mindset – Focus on clear ROAS targets and profit-first growth.

If you found this useful, repost to share with your network.

Follow Phil Byrne for more strategies that scale profitably

You’re getting clicks. But are you getting the right leads?

That means your ad grabbed attention but it didn’t convert into qualified opportunities.

So what’s the missing piece in your LinkedIn Ads strategy is:

1: While you're guessing targeting by job titles,
→ We’re uploading CRM + firmographic data.

2: While you’re A/B testing creatives,
→ We’re letting LinkedIn’s AI optimise for lead quality.

3: And most media buyers are still tweaking bids and placements as if it’s 2021:
→ Adjusting budgets, chasing impressions.

But in 2025, LinkedIn rewards strategic depth:
→ CRM-based intent targeting
→ Automated lead quality optimisation
→ AI-driven campaign adjustments
→ Verified leads delivered straight to sales

Because the best ads don’t just grab attention. They deliver real, qualified leads.

Follow me for more ad strategy breakdowns.
🔁 Repost to help someone in your circle optimise their LinkedIn Ads for 2025.

Shopify’s latest update could break your tracking (And your ROAS)

Most eCommerce brands don’t realise how fragile their tracking setup actually is.

And Shopify’s latest move is about to expose that.

Here’s what’s changing:

Script Tags, checkout.liquid, and Additional Scripts on your Thank You and Order Status pages are being deprecated.

From 28 August 2025 (Plus stores) and 26 August 2026 (non-Plus), these legacy tracking scripts will stop working completely.

For any store still using the old approach, here’s what happens:
❌ Purchase events stop firing
❌ Retargeting audiences vanish
❌ Attribution data goes dark

And when platforms like Google, Meta, or Microsoft can’t see sales… the algorithm stops optimising.

Your campaigns look broken, and ROAS collapses almost overnight.

Migrate to Checkout Extensibility and rebuild tracking with Customer Event pixels. It’s the only way to protect purchase tracking going forward.

This isn’t a minor patch. It’s a very important shift in how Shopify handles conversion tracking and ignoring it will kill your PPC performance fast.

👉 Have you already migrated your Shopify tracking setup, or are you still relying on the legacy scripts?

Most eCommerce brands don’t lose money on ads because of high CPC

They lose it because of hidden issues inside their PPC campaigns.

Here are the most common challenges I see brands making (and why they matter):

 ❌ Ignoring negative keywords → You end up paying for clicks that will never convert.
 ❌ Skipping ad extensions → Missed chance to boost CTR and trust instantly.
 ❌ Weak ad copy → If your message doesn’t sell, no bid strategy will save it.
 ❌ Broad audience targeting → Wasted spend on people who’ll never buy.
 ❌ Poor budget management → Overspending on non-performers, starving winners.
 ❌ Neglecting mobile optimisation → Most traffic is mobile. Bad UX kills conversions.
 ❌ Ignoring tracking & analytics → If you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
 ❌ Not testing campaigns → Guesswork replaces strategy. Winners stay hidden.
 ❌ Not optimising for buyer intent → High impressions, low conversions.
 ❌ Lack of audience segmentation → Generic targeting = generic results.
 ❌ Unfocused ad spend → ROAS collapses when everything is spread too thin.
 ❌ Neglecting retargeting → Lost revenue from warm audiences left behind.
 ❌ Targeting the wrong keywords → You chase traffic, not buyers.
The truth is that  PPC success is never about running the perfect campaign.

 It’s about systematically eliminating these issues until every dollar spent pushes you closer to profit.

🔁 Repost to help another brand save their ad budget.

You don’t have an Ads problem. You have a post-click problem.

Most eCommerce brands burn budget after the click, not before it.

Here’s where the money disappears:

↳ Slow site speed wiping out up to 40% of visitors
 ↳ Landing pages that don’t match the ad promise
 ↳ 7 out of 10 carts abandoned at checkout
 ↳ Retargeting cut off too early
 ↳ Poor tracking leaving campaigns blind

Fix these issues, and suddenly your ROAS looks very different.

👉 Want a free audit to uncover where your funnel’s main issue is? You can book one from the featured section.

🔁 Repost to help another founder stop wasting ad spend.

90% of your ad clicks are disappearing 

Most Shopify ad accounts don’t fail because of expensive traffic.

They fail because of sloppy fundamentals.
Not the obvious wrong platform mistakes.

These are some important issues like:

No attribution in place → inflated ROAS
Creative testing random → no learnings to scale
Every SKU pushed → budgets spread thin
Product pages leaky → ads work, site doesn’t
No AOV levers → bundles, upsells ignored
Retargeting scattered → warm leads left cold
Retention untracked → LTV is just a guess

Weak margins don’t come from lack of spend. 
They come from lack of structure.

The profit is already in your account but if it’s buried under wasted clicks and broken systems… it’ll never surface.

That’s why, before scaling, we strip away the noise.
Fix every issue and only then put budget behind growth.

P.S. What’s one mistake you see Shopify brands repeat again and again?

Taplio

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