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Case study — Awesome Books

Scaling a global book retailer with explosive growth and sustainable profitability.

Awesome Books came to us with a bold ambition — to accelerate growth without sacrificing profitability. The task was clear but complex: scale sales at speed while maintaining a strict target ROAS and drive new customer acquisition without pushing CPA beyond pre-set limits.

Sales uplift
+300%
Within 6 months of engagement
New titles in inventory
20M+
Plus 5M second-hand books
In ad spend managed
Millions
Across multiple paid media channels
Brand
Awesome Books
Industry
eCommerce — Books & media
Region
Global
Engagement
Active engagement
— Platforms
About the brand

One of the UK's leading online book retailers.

Awesome Books is one of the UK's leading online book retailers and a pioneer in sustainable bookselling. Starting from reselling discarded books online, Awesome Books has grown into a global operation, now processing over 250,000 books every day.

With an inventory of 20 million+ new titles and 5 million second-hand books, they serve customers worldwide while championing environmental and social impact. The company has a simple mission: to save perfectly good books from landfill and give them a second life.

The challenge

Scale growth without sacrificing profitability.

The scope was vast. With millions of titles in inventory spanning both new and second-hand books, and a global customer base, the challenge was not just about running ads — it was about orchestrating a high-performing, multi-channel strategy that could thrive across multiple countries and platforms.

01

Strict performance benchmarks

Growth needed to come without sacrificing profitability. Every campaign and every optimization had to deliver against both immediate sales targets and the brand's wider growth vision, maintaining strict ROAS and CPA targets throughout.

02

Multi-region complexity

Operating across multiple countries and territories required a unified approach that could capture demand and drive growth consistently, regardless of local market dynamics.

03

Massive inventory at scale

With millions of titles in new and second-hand books, the challenge was ensuring the right products were surfaced to the right audiences in the right markets — at scale.

04

Low-hanging fruit and long-term growth

We needed to quickly capitalize on high-converting opportunities while laying the groundwork for sustainable, long-term market leadership across all channels.

Our approach

Deep audit. Unified data. Full-funnel structure.

We started with a deep audit of historical data and business metrics, mapping out performance drivers and identifying where ad spend was being wasted. Every leaky bucket was plugged before a single pound was scaled.

01

Waste elimination and performance audit

We began with a deep audit of historical data and business metrics, mapping out performance drivers and identifying where ad spend was being wasted. Every leaky bucket was plugged before scaling began.

02

Unified cross-channel ecosystem

We unified data across all channels, turning fragmented campaigns into a connected paid media ecosystem where each platform amplified the others. This allowed us to move beyond a channel-by-channel approach and orchestrate growth holistically.

03

Data-driven feed optimization

To unlock the full value of Awesome Books' vast inventory, we applied data-driven feed optimization, ensuring millions of titles were surfaced to the right audiences in the right markets.

04

Advanced customer segmentation

Alongside feed optimization, advanced customer segmentation enabled tailored messaging and offers for maximum relevance across different buyer types and regions.

05

Full-funnel structure

We implemented a full-funnel structure — capturing audiences from first touch to repeat purchase — ensuring every campaign contributed to both immediate revenue targets and sustainable long-term growth.

The results

300% growth. Zero compromise.

Within six months, Awesome Books had achieved explosive growth while maintaining the strict profitability benchmarks they set at the outset.

Sales uplift in 6 months
+300%

Delivered a 300% uplift in sales within the first six months while maintaining target profit margins and CPA.

In ad spend managed
Millions

Scaled campaigns to manage millions in ad spend efficiently across multiple paid media channels.

Full-funnel ecosystem
Global

Built a global full-funnel paid media ecosystem, ensuring complete visibility and synergy across all advertised countries and territories.

Consistently exceeded
KPIs

Consistently achieved and exceeded target KPIs, including ROAS and CPA, while driving sustained growth at scale.

ADSRUNNER is absolutely top class in their field. If you want a team that truly takes the time to understand your industry and objectives before creating a tailored strategy, ADSRUNNER is the one to go with. A refreshing contrast to other agencies that take a one-size-fits-all approach. Their experience shines through in the attention they pay to the data coming in each and every week. It genuinely feels like they are part of your team. We could not recommend them highly enough.
Mubin Ahmed
CEO, Awesome Books
What this proves

Foundations beat tactics, every time.

Plugging the leaky buckets first, unifying data across channels, and building a connected full-funnel ecosystem created a platform for compounding growth. Most accounts do not need cleverer bidding — they need cleaner infrastructure connecting business reality to ad platform decisions.

— The platform behind this work

Results like these are run on our proprietary infrastructure — AI agents monitoring the account 24/7, every change approved by a senior strategist before it ships, and a unified data layer the client owns.

Could we do this for your brand?

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