The Situation
Watco is the UK's leading manufacturer of high-performance floor repair and coating solutions.
When they decided to partner with Digital Gearbox in 2021, their goal was clear: turn paid media into a predictable, profitable engine for both e-commerce sales and B2B leads.
Google Ads was already a major traffic source, but the account needed clearer structure, better tracking, and a strategy that could scale across a broad, technical product range and a highly seasonal demand curve.
ROAS targets were also no longer being hit, and were regularly failing to hit targets. They were looking to change this, whilst also growing online sales volumes.
Our Solution
On taking over management, our efforts focused around a gradual rebuild of the account to build a much stronger foundation. This involved:
Re-structuring campaigns around core product families
Strengthening brand protection during periods of heavy competitor and marketplace bidding
Ensuring all meaningful actions were tracked, from purchases to quotes, samples, catalogues and calls
Following this first round of improvements performance started to pick up: we achieved a 30% increase in revenue growth within the first year, alongside an improved ROAS, creating a reliable baseline for future scale.
As competition intensified and CPCs increased across the industry, we later evolved Watco's setup into a product-led, automation-supported structure. Our focus was looking for growth opportunities alongside efficiency gains to achieve the desired ROAS targets.
Alongside our routine ongoing optimisations, our strategic focuses were:
Refining Performance Max campaigns to feed-only setups across key ranges
Focusing on non-brand search to capture new audiences with high-intent, solution-driven queries
Making sure we maintained robust brand activity to protect efficiency
Utilising Remarketing to re-engage with high-value visitors across key product categories.
A critical piece of the puzzle was ensuring we aligned campaign structures more closely with Watco's commercial priorities. Through regular agency-client meetings we were able to more quickly adapt to any seasonal trends, market changes or new product pushes.
The Results
Despite facing rising CPCs over the years, we successfully delivered a strong, reliable ROAS and steady revenue growth with Google Ads. Performance Max became a major incremental contributor, while brand and non-brand search ensured full-funnel coverage.
Thanks to our intervention and ongoing management Watco's Google Ads has matured into a resilient, always-on acquisition engine, consistently delivering their target ROAS while driving both online transactions and high-value B2B leads.
Tracked revenue from Google Ads grew a further 28.5% in our 2nd year of management, growing further in the following years to reach an 66.4% increase from the point we took over, all with an improved ROAS too.
What the Client Has To Say
"I'm truly appreciative of your support and contributions over the last 5 years – it's been a great working relationship with standout results"
