How an Industrial Brand Restored Growth with B2B Audience Targeting

This US-based industrial abrasives brand sells flap discs, cut-off wheels, and surface preparation tools. The business serves a balanced mix of B2B and B2C customers, with a strong concentration of repeat buyers driving a significant share of revenue. Operating at scale, the brand prioritizes profitability and efficiency alongside growth.

The Challenge

By early 2025, growth had slowed in an otherwise mature and well-optimized account. Year-over-year performance dropped to low single digits, despite strong historical growth.

The constraint was not demand—but efficiency. The brand operated under strict profitability guardrails, requiring consistent Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and tightly controlled Total Advertising Cost of Sale (TACOS). With an advanced campaign structure already in place, traditional tactics like keyword expansion or broad bid increases offered limited upside without risking performance targets.

At the same time, the customer base revealed an important dynamic: a relatively small segment of high-frequency buyers—often aligned with professional or business use—drove a disproportionate share of revenue. However, existing campaign strategies did not explicitly prioritize these higher-value audiences.

The challenge was clear: unlock growth not by reaching more shoppers, but by reaching the right ones—especially those more likely to purchase repeatedly.

Why Quartile

The brand needed a more precise approach to targeting—one that could differentiate between casual buyers and high-value customers.

Quartile enabled this by leveraging Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) insights through Pro Suite to identify and activate audiences based on real purchasing behavior. This allowed campaigns to prioritize users with stronger intent and higher lifetime value, including repeat and professional buyers.

Equally important, Quartile provided a controlled framework to test this strategy without risking performance. This ensured that any shift toward audience targeting would maintain the brand’s strict efficiency requirements.

The Solution

Quartile introduced an audience-first strategy within Sponsored Products, designed to prioritize high-value customer segments.

Using Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), Quartile analyzed purchasing patterns to identify audiences with strong conversion rates and repeat purchase behavior. These segments often reflected more consistent, use-case-driven buyers—such as professionals or frequent purchasers—who were more likely to generate sustained revenue.

Through Pro Suite, these audiences were layered directly into existing Sponsored Products campaigns. Bid modifiers were applied to increase investment toward these high-probability segments, ensuring that spend was concentrated where it would drive the most impact.

The rollout began with controlled testing in core campaigns. As results validated the approach, the strategy was expanded across a larger share of the account, ultimately influencing more than half of total ad spend.

Rather than increasing budgets, Quartile reallocated spend toward higher-quality traffic—shifting the account from volume-based growth to value-based growth.

Results & Impact

The shift to audience-driven targeting delivered measurable improvements:

• Year-over-year growth accelerated to 17%, restoring historical performance levels  

• Revenue reached new highs without increasing overall efficiency risk  

• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) remained stable, proving growth came from better targeting—not higher spend  

• Total Advertising Cost of Sale (TACOS) held steady, reinforcing disciplined execution  

These results demonstrate that in mature accounts—especially those with strong repeat or B2B-like purchasing behavior—growth comes from prioritizing high-value audiences, not expanding reach indiscriminately.

Ongoing Value & Future State

With audience-based optimization now embedded into the account, the brand is positioned to continue scaling efficiently.

Quartile continues to refine AMC audience insights and expand targeting strategies, helping the business further prioritize high-value and repeat customers while maintaining strict profitability controls.