How a Honey Brand Scaled Sponsored Brands by Over 20x on Amazon

A family-owned honey producer offers raw, unfiltered varietal honey with a focus on traceability and minimally processed ingredients. Competing in a health-conscious, ingredient-driven category, the brand relies on strong visibility and efficient advertising to differentiate in a crowded marketplace.

The Challenge

The issue wasn’t poor performance—it was lack of impact.

Sponsored Brands campaigns were technically efficient, but they were operating at such a small scale that they contributed almost nothing to overall growth. Investment levels were too low to generate meaningful visibility, traffic, or revenue.

This created a misleading dynamic. On paper, performance looked strong. In reality, the channel wasn’t influencing the business.

As a result, the brand remained overly dependent on lower-funnel campaigns, missing opportunities to capture shoppers earlier and build consistent category presence.

The core challenge was clear: transform Sponsored Brands from a low-volume, low-impact tactic into a scalable growth driver—without sacrificing efficiency.

Why Quartile

Quartile identified that the constraint was not efficiency—it was scale.

Sponsored Brands requires sufficient investment and structure to generate meaningful impression share. Without that, even well-performing campaigns remain invisible.

By combining disciplined scaling, audience intelligence through AMC, and structured segmentation, Quartile created a framework where Sponsored Brands could operate as a true mid-funnel growth engine.

The goal was not just to improve performance—but to make the channel matter.

The Solution

Quartile rebuilt Sponsored Brands with scale and structure in mind.

Campaigns were segmented into branded and non-branded strategies, separating high-intent demand capture from discovery efforts. This created clarity in both targeting and budget allocation.

A full keyword audit eliminated low-engagement targets, concentrating spend on high-performing queries. Investment was focused on a small group of hero products to maximize conversion efficiency.

To improve targeting quality, Quartile leveraged Amazon Marketing Cloud audiences through Pro Suite—specifically targeting high-value shoppers. This allowed for more aggressive bidding while maintaining strong performance.

Budgets were scaled gradually, increasing only when efficiency benchmarks were met. AI-driven bidding and hourly optimization ensured that performance remained controlled as spend increased.

Placement strategy was refined to prioritize top-of-search visibility, maximizing exposure in the highest-converting positions.

The shift was intentional: give the channel enough scale to perform, while maintaining strict control over efficiency.

Results & Impact

The transformation was both immediate and substantial:

• Ad-attributed sales increased by over 2,000%, turning Sponsored Brands into a meaningful revenue driver  

• Traffic scaled from minimal levels to sustained high-volume engagement, dramatically increasing visibility  

• ROAS remained consistently strong, even as spend scaled significantly  

Sponsored Brands evolved from a negligible contributor to a meaningful share of total account revenue, supported by a significant increase in budget allocation.

Audience targeting further improved efficiency:

• 33% higher conversion rate from AMC audiences  

• 35% lower ACOS compared to non-audience campaigns  

These results demonstrate that Sponsored Brands is not just a branding tool—it can be a scalable, performance-driven growth engine when properly structured and funded.

Ongoing Value & Future State

With Sponsored Brands now operating at scale, the brand benefits from a more balanced full-funnel strategy. Upper- and mid-funnel investment now feeds consistent demand into lower-funnel conversion campaigns.

Quartile continues to refine audience targeting and scaling strategies, ensuring sustained growth while maintaining strong efficiency.