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Case study
Five Competing Brands, One Focused Growth System
29% year-over-year growth on only 15% more ad spend, from a portfolio cut from five brands to three.
- Client
- PE-backed consumer platform
- Industry
- Consumer & Retail
- Service
- Brand Development
- Stage
- PE-Backed
The challenge
Five acquired brands competing in a commoditized, price-driven category with no post-acquisition go-to-market strategy.
Five brands, each running on its own
A large private equity-backed consumer business ran five acquired brands in an increasingly expensive, commoditized category. The market had gone price-driven, and the brands were competing against each other. Integration had never really happened: each brand still carried its own positioning, messaging, systems, vendors, and marketing priorities.
Six problems underneath
Below the portfolio problem sat six more, from how the brands were positioned to how the marketing team was organized.
- Value propositions that lacked differentiation
- Paid media messaging not aligned to consumer intent
- A marketing model too complex to operate efficiently
- Homegrown systems, and data that was unavailable or unreliable
- Vendor relationships not tied to performance
- A team organized around brands, not consumer targets
The approach
We evaluated the portfolio, clarified what role each brand should play, and rebuilt the performance marketing system around it.
Two tracks, run together
The demand work ran in four steps: an audit of search intent across the category's major keywords, a messaging framework for each brand, paid search copy rewritten for three target brands, and website and landing pages aligned to the ad promise. Alongside it, we reviewed media partners for cost efficiency and performance, and assessed how the marketing team was structured and how it worked. Both tracks fed one system.
A role for each brand
The search-intent audit showed what consumers were actually looking for, and where each brand could credibly compete. That is what clarified the role each brand should play.
One promise, end to end
Brand-specific messaging frameworks separated the brands. Paid search copy was rewritten against real consumer intent, and the site was aligned so the on-site experience matched the ad promise.
A team built around the consumer
We assessed how the marketing team was structured and how it worked, and recommended moving from teams aligned to brands to a structure built around consumer targets.
The results
Growth came in 29% year over year on only 15% more ad spend.
Growth outpaced spend
Revenue grew 29% year over year while ad spend rose 15%, so growth outpaced spend by roughly two to one. Both bars start from zero, so the gap you see is the gap there was.
Five brands to three
Cutting the active portfolio from five brands to three created focus and ended the internal competition.
Every major KPI improved
Every major KPI moved the right way, from conversion rate, which rose, through customer acquisition cost, which fell.
Partner costs came down
Media partner expense came down from 8.5% of gross media, once the partners had been reviewed for cost efficiency and performance.
A leaner way to operate
The marketing organization was restructured around consumer targets rather than legacy brand silos, which produced unified objectives, clearer accountability, and a leaner operating model.
Still openThe largest remaining opportunity is SEO, still gated on the CMS rollout across the portfolio.
Why it matters
Private equity-backed platforms often acquire multiple brands before integrating their go-to-market strategy.
What keeps complexity from getting expensive
Without clear brand roles, consistent data, aligned vendors, and a performance-oriented operating model, complexity gets expensive fast. Turning portfolio complexity into a focused growth system is what produced stronger year-over-year growth, better media efficiency, lower partner expense, and a structure that can scale.
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