A third-generation soccer retailer with three brick-and-mortar locations and a Shopify Plus site partnered with SCUBE after online growth stalled. Paid media was active, but the fundamentals were not doing the work they should have. Product data was under-leveraged. Shopping was not carrying demand. Search left revenue on the table.
The objective was not short-term efficiency gains. The client wanted paid media to scale while maintaining control over return and customer growth, without requiring constant hands-on management.
SCUBE rebuilt the paid media system around cleaner inputs, clearer structure, and consistent execution across Google and Meta. Over the first six months, Google Ads revenue increased 86%, ROAS improved 58%, and new customer acquisition increased 92%. Over a three-year period, total online revenue more than tripled. During that same period, Google Ads grew into the primary demand capture channel, increasing from 21% to 52% of total online revenue, while Google Ads revenue itself grew nine-fold.
The result was not a one-time lift. It was a system that could support growth over multiple seasons.
Performance was capped by structure, not effort.
The catalog was broad, seasonal, and uneven in contribution, yet it was treated as a flat surface inside paid channels. Product data existed, but it was not being used to control where spend flowed or which items carried demand.
Search campaigns blended brand and non-brand intent, masking where revenue was actually coming from. Shopping programs were built for completeness rather than contribution. Meta Ads ran intermittently, without clear separation between prospecting, consideration, and conversion.
Measurement added friction. Reporting made activity visible but obscured which products, queries, and audiences were responsible for profit versus noise.
The result was familiar. Spend moved. Revenue grew incrementally. Confidence in the system did not.
SCUBE approached the account as a system design problem rather than a channel optimization exercise. The work focused on clarifying signals, sequencing demand capture, and rebuilding foundations that could support scale.
Tracking was rebuilt to deliver consistent, clean conversion signals across platforms. GA4 was reconfigured to reflect the ecommerce infrastructure and reduce discrepancies between reported performance and business reality.
The goal was directional clarity that could support decisions without constant interpretation.
Search campaigns were restructured to clearly separate brand demand from non-brand demand, exposing where incremental growth actually lived.
Shopping campaigns were rebuilt around product performance tiers rather than catalog completeness. Supplemental feeds were introduced to isolate best sellers, mid-tier contributors, and low-performing products. Items that could not compete on price, availability, or fulfillment were excluded from paid paths.
As structure improved, Google Ads shifted from a traffic source into a predictable demand capture layer.
Meta Ads were rebuilt to support the full funnel rather than operate as a sporadic acquisition tool. The product catalog was integrated for dynamic remarketing. Campaigns were structured to separate prospecting, consideration, and conversion.
Creative and messaging were aligned with promotions, fulfillment advantages, and seasonal demand patterns rather than generic branding.
Across both platforms, ROAS functioned as a guardrail. It prevented waste, but it did not define success. Stability, contribution, and revenue behavior did.
Within the first six months:
Over a three-year period:
Performance was assessed over time rather than through isolated peaks. As structure improved, paid media became more predictable and easier to scale.
“We’re past the worst part, and now it’s time to focus on growth. It was critical for us to partner with a team that could rebuild our advertising system and help move the business forward.”
— Owner, Third-Generation Soccer Retailer
The result was not better ads. It was a paid media system that could scale without quietly breaking.
The SCUBE Game Plan is a focused review of how complex, spec-driven catalogs behave inside paid channels. It’s designed to surface what’s contributing to performance, what’s masking underlying issues, and where structure is quietly working against you. If there’s a fit, we walk through the findings in a ~60 minute conversation, looking at:
The goal is a clearer picture of how the system is behaving, so decisions stop relying on averages or assumptions.
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