hiccapop: How an Established $34M Brand Got Its Growth Back

The account was stable, but it needed active management to grow.

The placement strategy wasn't being applied product by product. Many exact-match keywords were missing. Automation rules weren't running. Dayparting wasn't being used effectively.

The brand had done $34M in 2024, but throughout 2025, every month was down year over year.

Nathan wanted to refresh his PPC knowledge, implement automation, and build a proper system. The challenge was finding the time to execute it while running the rest of the business.

Nathan enrolled in the full three-phase training program at the start of 2025 - Organization, Optimization, Scaling. He went through all of it.

The material gave him clarity on strategy and how the pieces fit together. The harder part was execution.

PPC needs consistent attention - ideally every day, at minimum every week - and Nathan had a business pulling him in multiple directions at once.

In May 2025, we helped him bring on Sam, his first dedicated Amazon PPC Manager. Nathan told us "Sam changed my life!" when we met him at an MDS event in Milan.

Sam quickly grew into a broader brand and operations role, which was a win for the business but left PPC without a dedicated owner again.

By the end of 2025, revenue had dropped 22.7% for the full year. TACoS was sitting at a healthy 4.7%, but the brand needed someone pushing growth, not just maintaining efficiency.

Part Two: A Direct Conversation and a New Hire

In late December 2025, we sat down with Nathan for an honest conversation.

The brand had real potential - bestsellers across categories, room to grow - but it needed someone in the account every day.

Nathan was open to hiring a dedicated PPC manager, and we helped him find and train Stefan.

Stefan joined in mid-January 2026 and went through the complete training program. He became the most active user of our tech stack out of everyone we work with - using it for campaign analysis, placement performance, keyword coverage, and catching issues in minutes that would otherwise take hours to find.

We stayed close throughout: weekly meetings, daily back-and-forth on what to look at, what to change, what to prioritize.

January 2026 was the first month revenue stopped declining year over year. February was Stefan's first full working month - and the first month in over a year that revenue was actually up.

March was when everything came together. Pricing, promotions, and PPC all running in sync. It was the strongest revenue month the brand had seen in a long time. May followed with another strong performance.

Through all of it, TACoS held at 4.5-5% - exactly where Nathan wanted it.

"We're not guessing, we're not wondering. You guys are doing it regularly and that gives us confidence to follow those sequences and strategies that you've already designed."