Thrive Services Used
Amazon Pay-Per-Click
(PPC) Advertising
Project Overview
A premium sustainable beverage company sought rapid revenue growth in the highly competitive bottled water market. Despite a compelling mission and product offering, the brand struggled to scale advertising performance and gain visibility against category leaders with million-dollar budgets.
The client partnered with Thrive Internet Marketing Agency to overhaul their Amazon advertising strategy, applying a full-funnel PPC approach tailored to the nuances of their product category. The result is a surge in total revenue from $1.3 million to $2.7 million in just one year, with aggressive goals for continued growth in the upcoming year.
Through strategic bidding, message alignment and differentiation from plastic-based alternatives, Thrive helped the client achieve a 192% increase in ad-driven sales and maintained a 5% total advertising cost of sale (TACOS). These are impressive results given the client’s presence in a highly competitive category.
The Results
+$1.4M
Total Sales Revenue
+480K
Ad Sales
5%
Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS)
+460
Conversions (YoY)
Visual trends confirm the measurable impact of Thrive’s PPC strategy across multiple key performance indicators.
Over a 10-month stretch, ordered product sales climbed steadily from approximately 140K units to over 300K. This upward trajectory reflects strong month-over-month momentum and successful scaling of the account.
From a modest baseline of less than $20K, ad revenue surged past $80K per month, more than tripling compared to the previous year.
Amazon impressions followed a similar breakout pattern. While the brand previously had low, sporadic visibility, impressions spiked to 4 to 6 million per month after a year. The timeline aligns with Thrive’s refined targeting, brand message integration and competitive positioning strategy.
The Execution
To address the client’s stagnant growth, Thrive conducted a strategic audit that revealed under-optimized PPC campaigns and underleveraged brand messaging. The client faced significant competitive pressure since they operated in a category dominated by major players with multimillion-dollar ad budgets. They also had limited review volume and pricing disadvantages compared to lower-cost plastic and tetra-pack products.
Thrive tackled these challenges with a multi-layered strategy that included:
Message-Driven Targeting
Thrive leaned into the brand’s strongest differentiator: its commitment to eliminating plastic. The tagline “More Ocean, Less Plastic” was consistently used across listings and ads to reinforce sustainability as a core value and emotionally connect with eco-conscious consumers.
Segmented Competitor Strategy
Key competitors were divided into three categories: aluminum-based, plastic and tetra-pack. Thrive deployed tailored campaigns against each group, using unique bidding strategies and messaging angles highlighting the brand’s environmental and quality advantages.
Awareness Expansion Through Sponsored TV
To reach a broader audience and improve brand recall beyond the Amazon platform, Thrive launched Sponsored TV ads via the Amazon Ad Console. These campaigns played a critical role in building upper-funnel awareness.
Business Buyer Optimization
With a sizable portion of customers identified as small business buyers, Thrive implemented weekday-focused bidding strategies. This nuanced targeting approach improved ad efficiency and aligned campaign timing with buying intent.
Full-Funnel Amazon PPC Strategy
All stages of the buying journey were addressed with tailored ad formats and messaging. The coordinated structure helped reinforce the brand’s position and move users smoothly down the funnel.
The next steps include scaling the brand further through expanded promotional efforts, continuing to refine the client’s PPC campaigns and to improve customer segmentation for even better results.
