Creating a branded search term in a category of anonymous sellers

Nobody remembers who made their screen protector. The category is a wall of six-letter names, the same three stock photographs of a glass sheet at an angle, and a price. Every sale has to be bought at the moment of search, every time, from scratch — which is why margins in this part of the catalog collapse the instant a competitor bids harder.

The brand had no asset that outlived a click. A shopper who bought, liked the product and needed another one six months later went back to the search bar and started over, usually buying someone else. There were fewer than four hundred searches a month for the brand's own name, most of them probably its own team.

We built the only defensible thing in a commodity category: a name people look for.

• A visual identity that survives a thumbnail — one recognizable presentation used across every listing, ad and package, replacing the category's stock imagery.
• Brand-led video creative in placements where the shopper is not yet in a buying decision, so the name is seen before it is needed.
• DSP built for recall rather than immediate return, measured on branded search growth and new-to-brand orders rather than on last-click ACoS.
• A packaging insert that names the brand and the exact product bought, which is what makes a replacement purchase searchable.

Branded searches went from under 400 a month to 11k, and those searches convert at roughly three times the rate of category traffic while costing a fraction as much to win.

That is where the 34% fall in blended acquisition cost comes from — not from better bidding, but from a growing share of demand that arrives already asking for this brand. Repeat purchase rate tripled for the same reason: a customer who remembers the name can find it again. Revenue grew 84% over the period.