European Search Awards 2026 - Winner & Silver

Most Innovative Campaign (PPC: Small) Winner · Silver, Best Use of Search – Retail / Ecommerce (PPC): Small · Most Innovative PPC Campaign - Global Search Awards 2025 Winner · PPC Campaign of the Year - National Digital Awards 2026 Winner. European Search Awards organiser results corroborate the awards, not the client metrics.

Cornerstone case study · Sports Retail · large catalogue

From chaos to control across a very large catalogue - how BOI® and POAS rebuilt UK Soccer Shop's Google Ads

The campaign behind our European Search Awards 2026 Winner + Silver double. ROAS replaced with POAS as the optimisation target, inventory and contribution margin read straight off the P&L into the bid layer.

Ongoing

Gross cash recovered from aged stock (45-day programme): £520k+
Working capital freed (separate measure): £287k
Inventory turnover improvement: 35%

Period: A 45-day aged-stock recovery programme for the gross cash figure. The separate working-capital figure is client-reported without a published comparison period.
Basis: £520k gross cash recovered from ageing stock during the 45-day programme and £287k working capital freed are separate client-reported measures, not additive. Neither is profit, incremental lift or ad spend saved. Turnover measured on the client's own inventory reporting.
Source: Client-reported from their finance data. Catalogue size: the 6.43M figure is an item count whose definition (products, variants or feed offers) is not documented, so it should not be read as active advertised SKUs.

How we define and measure these figures

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It looked stable while the realisable margin on ageing stock fell away underneath it, because ROAS was being measured against gross revenue. It was replaced with POAS, so every decision is judged on what reaches the P&L.
The client reported £520k gross cash recovered from ageing stock during a 45-day programme and £287k working capital freed. These are different measures, not amounts to add together, and neither is profit. Inventory turnover improved 35% in the client's reporting.
Ageing stock moved from full-margin targets towards cash-recovery objectives. Defensive branded-search activity was intended to address competing sellers; it does not demonstrate complete protection or incremental lift.
The account risked continuing to optimise to shared revenue targets while stock aged. The counterfactual effect on sales or competing sellers was not measured.

Situation

UKSoccerShop sells a catalogue where value decays on a fixture list. A player transfers, a season ends, and stock that was full margin last month is capital sitting in a warehouse.

The account was reported as healthy while cash was tied up in ageing stock and competing sellers appeared on branded searches.

Diagnosis

ROAS was being measured against gross revenue, so the account looked stable while the realisable margin on ageing stock fell away underneath it.

Stock age turned out to be the hidden variable. SKUs past 90 days were being bought at full-margin targets when their real commercial job was cash recovery, not profit.

Branded search was leaking. Counterfeit sellers were appearing against terms the brand itself had built.

Decision

The call

Cash back, inside the floor.

Give each SKU in the catalogue a commercial job and bid against that job rather than one blended target, using the BOI® framework.

The campaign architecture for new releases was left intact. Stock-aware layers were added rather than rebuilding what already worked.

Execution

SKUs mapped by stock age, margin and competitive pressure, then segmented with custom labels.

Cash-recovery protocols built for aged stock, bidding against release of working capital rather than advertised margin.

Defensive branded-search activity intended to address competing sellers; no complete-protection or incremental-lift claim was measured.

Measurement moved to POAS so every decision was judged on what reached the P&L.

Result

The client reported £520k gross cash recovered from ageing stock during a 45-day programme and £287k working capital freed as separate, non-additive measures. Neither is profit. Inventory turnover improved 35% in the client's reporting.

The work won Most Innovative Campaign (PPC: Small) at the European Search Awards 2026 and Silver in Best Use of Search – Retail/Ecommerce (PPC): Small.

Principle

A profitable SKU and a profitable decision are not the same thing. When capital is trapped in stock, the right bid is the one that gets the cash back, even when it reports worse.

The Proprietary Method

What BOI® did differently

This account moved from a shared revenue target to product-level commercial objectives, assigning products different jobs and constraints.

01 · Scale SKUs

New-release shirts, in-season kits, high-margin replicas

Bid aggressively against full contribution margin. No stock-age penalty.

02 · Recovery SKUs

Aged stock 90+ days, departing players, last-season kits

Bid against cash-recovery value, not advertised margin. The client reported £520k gross cash recovered from ageing stock; the £287k working-capital measure is separate and not additive.

03 · Protect SKUs

Branded search, defensive terms, counterfeit-targeted queries

Defensive branded-search activity intended to address competing sellers; no complete-protection or incremental-lift claim.

04 · Profit SKUs

High-margin lines unconstrained by stock or competition

Bid to a contribution-margin target, not a ROAS target. The CFO's number, not Google's.

Judges' citation

"A full system rebuild, replacing incremental optimisation with a POAS-led framework that reshaped how performance is measured and managed."

- European Search Awards 2026

About the BOI® framework →

Recognition

Full awards record →

"Highly recommended. Immediate uplift to a decade long campaign. Quickly improved ROAS after mess left by underperforming previous agency and now starting to scale the account. Highly dedicated team."

Simon Prestwell, Owner, UKSoccerShop