How a Global Accessories Brand Cut ACOS by 40% Across 13 Markets

This global multi-brand accessories company sells premium watch straps, wallets, and gloves across 13 countries. With nearly 1,000 active ASINs, the brand operates a highly complex catalog spanning multiple product families, materials, and styles.

While the company has a strong international footprint, performance varied significantly by region. Each market required a tailored approach to account for differences in demand, competition, and product preferences—particularly across North America and Europe.  

The Challenge

The brand faced a dual challenge: scaling globally while maintaining efficiency at the local level.

Their goal was to increase sales volume across every product family and country while maintaining a target Advertising Cost of Sale (ACOS) between 25–30%. However, efficiency varied widely by market, making it difficult to apply a one-size-fits-all strategy.

This was especially evident in Europe. In Germany, performance declined year-over-year despite consistent spend levels, signaling that budget allocation and product prioritization were not aligned with local demand.

At a global level, the account structure further limited performance. With hundreds of ASINs actively advertised across all regions, spend was diluted across low-performing products and keywords. Campaigns prioritized coverage over performance, reducing the ability to scale efficiently within each individual market.

Why Quartile

The brand needed a strategy that balanced global scale with local precision.

Quartile introduced a market-by-market approach, ensuring that each country’s performance was evaluated and optimized independently. This allowed the team to identify where inefficiencies were concentrated and apply targeted changes based on regional performance trends.

By combining this localized strategy with disciplined performance pruning, Quartile enabled the brand to improve efficiency globally while unlocking growth within underperforming markets.

The Solution

Quartile implemented a localized “trimming the fat” strategy to improve efficiency across all markets.

The first step was consolidation at the product level. Underperforming child ASINs were paused across each country, reducing wasted spend while maintaining coverage through top-performing variations. This was particularly effective given the nature of the catalog, where customers often select size or color after clicking.

Next, keyword optimization was executed at the market level. Broad, phrase, and exact match keywords that exceeded acceptable ACOS thresholds were removed within each country’s campaigns. This ensured that optimization decisions reflected local performance rather than global averages.

With efficiency stabilized, Quartile shifted into scaling mode. High-performing products and keywords were identified within each market, and bids and budgets were increased accordingly—allowing the brand to capture more demand where it was strongest.

Seasonality was also managed at a regional level. During Q4, glove campaigns were introduced and scaled based on performance within each market, ensuring that seasonal demand was captured efficiently without overextending spend.

Results & Impact

The localized strategy delivered consistent improvements across both efficiency and scale:

• ACOS improved across all 13 countries year-over-year during Q4  

• In the US, ACOS improved by 40%, significantly outperforming prior-year efficiency  

• Underperforming markets, including Germany, stabilized and contributed to overall growth  

• Sales increased steadily across regions, with strong performance during the peak holiday season  

These results highlight the importance of aligning global strategy with local execution—especially for brands operating across multiple international marketplaces.

Ongoing Value & Future State

With a localized and performance-driven structure in place, the brand is now positioned to scale more effectively across all regions.

Quartile continues to refine market-level strategies, optimize product prioritization, and align seasonal execution—ensuring that each country contributes to sustainable, efficient growth.