End-to-end Google Ads management for a sports nutrition brand
End-to-end Google Ads management through marathon season for a DTC sports nutrition brand. Orders grew 13% and gross sales 9% year on year.
Client: STYRKR
Site: styrkr.com
Sector: Direct-to-consumer sports nutrition
Scope: End-to-end Google Ads management, from attribution audit to seasonal campaign planning.
Engagement: March - May 2026
At a glance (March to May 2026)
| 16x | 3.5x | ~79% | +13% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Return on ad spend (Triple Whale) | Return on spend, new customers | Google Ads orders that are repeat purchases | Orders, year on year |
The situation
The client is is a direct-to-consumer sports nutrition brand on Shopify, selling energy gels, bars and electrolytes to endurance athletes. Coming into the 2026 spring season, the account ran on Performance Max and Shopping campaigns. The brand held strong organic rankings for marathon nutrition queries but had limited paid coverage of non-brand terms.
Marathon season is the brand's peak window. UK search volume for gel-related queries in March and April runs well above the annual average, and athletes tend to buy weeks ahead of race day. The goal was broader than a single campaign. The need was to manage a paid-search programme that could capture peak demand and hold the existing organic position, then carry the account through to the summer hydration season.
The work
The engagement began in March 2026 with a data attribution audit, establishing a reliable measurement foundation across the account so that decisions could rest on clean conversion data.
From there, the account moved from a Performance Max and Shopping setup to a managed structure combining Search with PMax. New non-brand Search campaigns were built across the brand's core themes, energy gels, energy bars and electrolytes, each with tightly themed ad groups and tested ad variants. Brand search was rebalanced where organic already held the top position, freeing budget for prospecting through Shopping and PMax. Over roughly nine weeks, four new Search campaigns were launched and refined, with budgets and bidding adjusted as each accumulated conversion data.
The London Marathon campaign
The spring gels campaign ran through marathon season as the proof point for the non-brand approach, targeting generic gel and marathon-nutrition queries the brand was not capturing organically. Click-through rates ran well above the typical benchmark for non-brand search, and the campaign reached its single highest day of conversions on London Marathon day itself.
The generic gel queries such as "running gels" and "energy gel" converted several times more efficiently than the marathon-branded terms, which behaved more like awareness traffic. That finding informed how budget was weighted for the rest of the season.
The results
Measured year on year against the same March to May window in 2025:
- Gross sales grew 9% and orders grew 13% (sessions up 0.7%).
- Paid Google returned around 3.4x on ad spend over the period, with paid conversion rate up around 70% YoY.
- Returning customers made up close to 58% of Google-channel orders, a healthy repeat rate for a consumable product.
What's next
The same managed structure now extends into the summer hydration season. UK demand for electrolyte and hydration terms peaks around June and July, well above the gel category, and a dedicated electrolyte campaign ahead of that peak is the next step. Liaising with creative team on new display campaigns with multimedia and fresh engaging video based on winning thematics.
Scope
Data attribution audit, account restructure, ongoing Google Ads management across Search and seasonal campaign planning.
