The Big Picture
Key challenges
- A category dominated by one brand that buyers search for by name
- Hard seasonality: kayaks sell in summer, and a flat budget burns money all winter
- One ad account carrying several product brands without mixing up the data
- Amazon listing suppressions that kept threatening marketplace revenue
Key results
- 5.9× blended Google-attributed return, held over 23 months
- Cost per conversion down 46% (March) and 36% (April), year over year
- Top of the page 93% of the time, level with the category leader on impression share
- Suppressed Amazon buy box recovered, twice
Key services
- Paid Media: Performance Max, Search, Shopping, Demand Gen
- Paid Social: Meta
- Paid Amazon and marketplace operations
- Brand-term defense and auction strategy
- Weekly performance reporting
The story
TuckTec makes a folding kayak that costs less than the category leader’s. The problem was that nobody saw it. When we took over paid media in 2023, the job was to put a challenger brand in front of buyers who were searching for the big name.
Over 23 months the program held a 5.9× blended Google-attributed return across Performance Max, Search, Shopping and Demand Gen. Google’s own auction data put TuckTec at the top of the page 93% of the time, level with the category leader on impression share (how often an ad shows when it’s eligible to). Wherever the incumbent showed up, so did TuckTec.
The account also got cheaper as it matured. Cost per conversion in March 2026 came in 46% below March 2025, and April came in 36% below. Budgets moved with the paddling season: peak summer months ran roughly fifteen times the winter floor, instead of spending the same amount every month into a winter when nobody buys kayaks.
In 2025 the engagement grew to include Amazon: campaign management, plus the marketplace housekeeping that protects revenue. We got the buy box back twice after Amazon pulled it (without it, a listing has no Add to Cart button), straightened out how the product variations were grouped in the listings, and sent a marketplace performance report every week.
From brief to results
The challenge
A better-priced folding kayak nobody saw. Every relevant auction belonged to the incumbent, and demand disappears every winter.
The solution
A full-funnel Google program timed to the paddling season, a defense of TuckTec’s own brand searches against the leader, and Amazon run as revenue protection.
The results
A 5.9× blended return over 23 months, with the account getting measurably cheaper year over year.
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