This sports nutrition brand was already selling in retail stores, but had no Amazon presence, no search visibility, no reviews flywheel, and no reliable way to capture shoppers searching for energy gels, electrolyte drink mix, and endurance fuel on Amazon.
The goal was to acquire New-to-Brand customers, increase visibility in competitive sports nutrition searches, and convert one-time buyers into repeat customers through Amazon Subscribe & Save while scaling Amazon PPC with controlled spend and measurable growth.
Despite strong retail and Direct-to-Consumer sales, the brand struggled on Amazon because it had no system to protect or scale visibility in Sports Nutrition searches. Competitors were bidding on the brand name, which forced the brand to pay higher Amazon customer acquisition costs to win back its own traffic.
The team was investing in Amazon PPC campaigns, but had no clear way to track which search phrases were driving real sales, causing wasted spend on clicks that didn’t convert into long-term growth. Large numbers of shoppers viewed product pages and added items to cart, but the brand had no Amazon retargeting strategy to bring those buyers back, meaning high-intent customers were lost. Because buyers were not enrolling in the Save & Subscribe program, Amazon saw the products as one-time purchases, which reduced repeat order signals needed for search ranking growth.
The product catalog also lacked grouped variations, splitting reviews and sales across separate pages, which limited ranking for high-volume searches like electrolyte drink mix 2-packs, endurance carb bundles, sports nutrition packs, and running nutrition refills. The internal team was stuck doing daily maintenance inside Seller Central instead of growing the Amazon channel, and needed an Amazon marketing agency that could protect branded traffic, reduce wasted Amazon PPC costs, re-engage missed buyers, and scale New-to-Brand orders through Subscribe & Save incentives Amazon can measure and reward.
Our strategy wasn’t to push products in front of more shoppers. It was to align how Amazon interpreted the brand with how real customers actually search, buy, and reorder sports nutrition products.
We rebuilt the brand’s Amazon presence around four strategic decisions.
Before running ads, we restructured the catalog so Amazon could correctly interpret, index, and rank the products. Instead of treating listings as static product pages, we aligned them with how real shoppers search in the sports nutrition category.
Listings were optimized around high-intent keywords customers actually use, including energy gels, electrolyte drink mix powder, endurance carb bundles, sports drink 2-packs, and running nutrition refills. This helped Amazon accurately classify the products into relevant subcategories, strengthen keyword relevance, and consistently approve them for advertising.
As a result, the brand’s listings became easier for Amazon to understand and easier for buyers to discover.
Since the brand was new to Amazon, we used Amazon PPC to accelerate visibility and generate the behavioral data Amazon relies on to rank products. Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns were structured to reach shoppers actively searching competitor brands and category-level terms.
Instead of increasing bids blindly, we prioritized visibility where purchase intent was high but brand presence was low. Bids were adjusted strategically to ensure the brand appeared in critical moments when buyers were ready to purchase.
This approach allowed us to identify which search terms were driving real buyers, not just clicks, and scale visibility without inflating ad spend.
To move beyond one-time purchases, we designed Subscribe & Save as a core growth lever rather than a simple discount feature. In a consumable category like sports nutrition, repeat behavior is a key signal Amazon uses to evaluate relevance and ranking potential.
During high-demand periods such as Prime Day and holiday sales, we increased Subscribe & Save discounts up to 30% to reduce friction for first-time buyers and encourage subscription enrollment. This helped convert initial purchases into recurring monthly orders, improved average order value, and strengthened repeat-purchase signals across the catalog.
Using Amazon Marketing Cloud, we identified high-intent shoppers who had shown interest but hadn’t completed a purchase, including product page viewers, cart abandoners, wishlist savers, and ad clickers.
These audiences were re-engaged with controlled ad frequency, while spend was reduced on shoppers who had already been exposed to ads multiple times without converting. This ensured budget was allocated toward incremental conversions rather than repeated exposure with diminishing returns.
We further segmented these audiences into:
This segmentation allowed us to focus PPC investment on incremental New-to-Brand customers Amazon already had within its ecosystem but the brand wasn’t reaching effectively. Instead of relying on random keywords or reactive daily optimizations, we used data-driven audience insights to direct spend toward measurable growth opportunities while protecting the ad budget.
In less than one year, the brand moved from zero Amazon presence to a channel that consistently delivers new customers, repeat orders, and stable revenue.
The objective was never just to generate sales.
It was to design an Amazon channel that compounds growth month after month, instead of depending on one-time campaigns or unpredictable ad spikes.
The most significant outcome was the brand’s ability to reach customers who had never interacted with it before. Rather than relying on branded searches, we focused on capturing demand where it already existed in the sports nutrition category.
7,157 New-to-Brand customers acquired in 10 months
$324,544 in New-to-Brand sales from first-time buyers
These results confirmed a critical insight:
When the brand appeared in the right high-intent searches such as energy gels, electrolyte drink mix powder, endurance bundles, and running nutrition refills, customers were willing to purchase without prior brand familiarity.
We didn’t stop after the first purchase. By using Subscribe & Save discounts during Prime Day and holiday shopping periods, we made it easy for first-time buyers to set up automatic reorders for products they already search on Amazon, including energy gels, electrolyte drink mix powder, endurance carb bundles, and running nutrition refills.
In 7 months, Subscribe & Save signups grew from 0 to 107 active subscribers, delivering 404 repeat orders and $41,029 in recurring revenue. These are real Amazon customers who continue buying on a schedule, helping the brand grow naturally in Amazon search rankings while adding predictable revenue every month.
Even while scaling, the brand maintained disciplined ad efficiency by focusing on search terms that reflected genuine buyer intent, such as sports nutrition refills, hydration powder 2-packs, endurance fuel bundles, and energy gels multi-packs.
With 12.29x return on ad spend and 8.13% average advertising cost of sales, the brand generated $48,908.60 in Amazon PPC ad-driven sales from only $3,977.93 in spend.
As more first-time buyers returned to purchase again, Amazon began receiving stronger repeat order signals. The brand recorded a repeat purchase rate of 11.7%, meaning nearly 1 in every 8 new buyers reordered.
At the same time, the average reorder time dropped to 6.2 weeks, showing that customers were not just buying again, they were buying sooner, which is a major advantage for consumable nutrition products like electrolyte drink mix powder, energy gels, carb refill packs, and running nutrition bundles. Faster reorders signaled improving product stickiness, higher customer loyalty, and better long-term sales stability.
To scale Amazon PPC without wasting ads spend, we used Amazon Marketing Cloud insights to prioritize shoppers who had already demonstrated purchase intent in category searches such as sports nutrition, hydration powder 2-packs, endurance bundles, and running nutrition refills.
We re-engaged shoppers who had viewed products or added items to cart but hadn’t purchased, reduced exposure to audiences that had already seen ads multiple times without converting, and maintained visibility without overspending.
This ensured the brand reached more real Amazon buyers, more New-to-Brand customers, more Subscribe & Save signups, and fewer wasted clicks or impressions. The result was stable performance, controlled Amazon PPC costs, and stronger repeat order growth Amazon could rank.
This case study shows what happens when Amazon PPC management, listing optimization, and customer lifecycle strategy are executed as one system, not as disconnected tasks.
Instead of relying on short-term ad spikes or organic volatility, the brand rebuilt its Amazon presence around how customers actually search, buy, and reorder sports nutrition products. By improving catalog structure, strengthening search relevance, and using Amazon Marketing Cloud insights to interpret buyer behavior, Amazon could correctly classify demand and scale visibility.
The result wasn’t just higher sales, it was measurable New-to-Brand acquisition, growing Subscribe & Save adoption, shorter reorder cycles, and predictable recurring revenue. Ad spend shifted from generating clicks to building long-term visibility and customer value.
Amazon PPC and Subscribe & Save worked together to build real growth Amazon can track.
Traffic became steady. Orders became repeatable. New customers kept increasing.
Subscribe & Save became a normal part of sales, not just a one-time boost.
At AMZDUDES, we don’t just run Amazon ads. We interpret data, design category positioning, and build structured growth systems that connect customer acquisition, conversion, and retention into measurable, scalable outcomes.
If you’re an Amazon brand owner, brand manager, or 3P seller facing unpredictable sales and reactive Amazon PPC management, it’s time to build a structured Amazon growth system.
Most Amazon brands treat Amazon PPC, listing optimization, and customer data as separate functions. As a full-service Amazon marketing agency, AMZDUDES brings them together into a unified Amazon growth strategy.
We don’t just optimize campaigns or rewrite listings.
We interpret Amazon data, identify structural gaps, and redesign how your brand is discovered, converted, and retained through Amazon advertising and organic growth.
We help Amazon brands:
Instead of relying on guesswork or short-term ad spikes, we apply the same Amazon growth framework used in this case study, designed for brands that want predictable, scalable, and profitable Amazon growth.
Let’s review your Amazon listings, PPC campaigns, and customer data to identify growth opportunities and build a roadmap for sustainable scaling.
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