One of the most common questions I hear from small business owners and ecommerce sellers is this:
“My average order value is only £25. Is it even worth running a Google Ads retargeting campaign?”
It is a fair question.
When your products are lower priced, every click matters more. Your margins are tighter, your room for testing is smaller, and one badly structured campaign can make Google Ads feel like a complete waste of money.
In fact, many advertisers with low average order value products try Google Ads once or twice, fail to make it profitable, and then assume the platform simply does not work for their business.
But that is not always the right conclusion.
The truth is this:
If your AOV is low, regular cold traffic campaigns can be harder to make profitable, but Google Ads retargeting can still be one of the best campaign types you run.
Let me explain why.
Why Low AOV Businesses Struggle With Google Ads
If your average order value is only £25, you do not have much room for inefficiency.
Let’s say your gross profit margin is already limited. If your cost per conversion climbs too high, your campaigns become unprofitable very quickly. That is why many low-ticket sellers struggle with broad search campaigns, display campaigns, or poorly managed Performance Max campaigns.
The problem is not always that Google Ads is bad.
The problem is often that the business starts with the wrong campaign type.
Cold traffic campaigns target people who may have never heard of your brand before. You have to pay to attract them, educate them, build trust, and convert them — all in one journey. That is expensive, especially when the final purchase value is only £25.
This is exactly why retargeting can make more sense.
Why Retargeting Is Different
Retargeting focuses on warm traffic.
These are people who have already visited your website, viewed your products, added something to cart, or engaged with your business in some way. They are not strangers anymore.
That changes the economics of the campaign.
You are no longer paying to generate awareness from scratch. You are paying to bring back someone who has already shown buying intent.
That is why retargeting usually has several advantages:
- higher conversion rates
- lower wasted spend
- better audience relevance
- stronger return on ad spend potential
- easier path to profitability than cold traffic campaigns
If someone came to your store, looked at your product, and left without buying, that does not always mean they were not interested. Sometimes they got distracted. Sometimes they wanted to compare options. Sometimes they needed another touchpoint before making a decision.
A retargeting campaign gives you the chance to re-enter that buying journey.
Can Retargeting Work With a £25 AOV?
Yes, it can.
But it depends on a few things.
Retargeting is not automatically profitable just because it targets warm traffic. It still needs enough data, enough audience size, and proper tracking.
If you have a £25 AOV business, I would not judge the opportunity based on order value alone. I would look at these factors first:
1. Your Website Traffic Volume
Retargeting only works if enough people are visiting your website.
If you barely get any traffic, then your audience lists will stay too small and your campaigns will struggle to deliver consistently. But if your website already receives a decent number of visitors every week or every month, then retargeting becomes much more realistic.
No traffic means no remarketing fuel.
So the first question is not just:
“What is my AOV?”
The better question is:
“How many qualified visitors am I getting?”
2. Your Audience List Size
Your retargeting list size matters a lot.
If your audience pool is too small, Google will have very limited room to optimize. On the other hand, if you have enough visitors in your remarketing lists — especially product viewers, cart abandoners, and engaged users — then you have a much better chance of making the campaign work.
This is where many businesses make a mistake.
They launch retargeting too early with almost no data and then assume it does not work. In reality, the audience was simply too small.
3. Your Tracking Setup
This is a major one.
If your Google Ads remarketing tags, Google Tag Manager setup, conversion tracking, and audience creation are not configured correctly, then even a good retargeting strategy can fail.
A lot of accounts do not have a traffic problem.
They have a tracking problem.
If Google cannot properly identify your audience or measure the conversions accurately, you are basically running blind.
This is why I always recommend checking your Google Tag Manager setup, your conversion actions, your audience definitions, and your attribution before making any major decisions about profitability.
4. Your Offer and Website Experience
Retargeting brings people back, but your website still has to close the sale.
If your product page is weak, your trust signals are poor, your checkout is clunky, or your offer is not competitive, then retargeting alone will not save you.
The campaign can bring back the visitor.
Your website has to do the rest.
That means pricing, product presentation, shipping clarity, return policy, mobile experience, and credibility all matter.
Is a £25/Day Retargeting Budget Enough?
In many cases, yes.
A simple £25/day retargeting campaign can be a reasonable starting point, especially for a small or growing business.
Retargeting does not always require a massive budget because the audience is narrower and more focused. You are not trying to reach the whole market. You are trying to reconnect with the people who already interacted with your brand.
That said, the right budget always depends on:
- how much traffic you get
- how large your remarketing audience is
- how competitive your market is
- how long your buying cycle is
- what type of product pages and checkout flow you have
So yes, £25/day can work, but it works best when the fundamentals are already in place.
Will You Run Into the Same Problem Again?
Not necessarily.
If your previous Google Ads campaigns were unprofitable, that does not automatically mean retargeting will fail too.
It is possible the earlier campaigns failed because they were targeting cold traffic with weak structure, poor tracking, broad targeting, or the wrong bidding strategy.
Retargeting is different because it sits lower in the funnel.
You are targeting users who are already familiar with your brand. That usually gives you a better chance of improving conversion efficiency.
So if you are asking:
“Am I going to run into the same problem?”
My answer would be:
Not if the previous problem was campaign structure rather than product-market fit.
That is why auditing the account first is so important.
My Honest Opinion
If I were in your position and I had:
- a £25 average order value
- decent website traffic
- a healthy remarketing audience
- proper Google Tag Manager and remarketing setup
Then yes, I would definitely test retargeting.
I would not blindly spend big money on it.
I would not expect miracles overnight.
But I would absolutely consider it a smart move.
Retargeting is often one of the safest ways for low-ticket businesses to re-engage missed buyers and recover lost opportunities.
It is not about forcing Google Ads to work.
It is about using the right Google Ads strategy for your business model.
Final Thoughts
A low average order value does not automatically mean Google Ads is a bad idea.
It usually means you need to be smarter with your campaign selection.
For many low-ticket businesses, broad cold campaigns are hard to scale profitably. But retargeting warm traffic can still be a very practical and effective option.
If your website gets enough traffic, your audience list is strong enough, and your tracking is set up correctly, then a simple low-budget retargeting campaign may be one of the best ways to get more value from the traffic you already have.
So yes — if you are asking me whether Google Ads retargeting is worth it for a business with a £25 average order value, my opinion is:
Yes, I would definitely do it.
Just make sure you do it properly.
If you want help with your Google Ads account, campaign setup, retargeting strategy, or a complete account audit, you can hire me and my team through the link in the description or contact us directly.
We are also offering free Google Ads audits for businesses that want to know what is working, what is broken, and what needs to be fixed to finally make Google Ads profitable.
