Maximising PMax performance with B&Q

About B&Q

B&Q, the UK’s leading home improvement and garden living retailer, with over 300 stores and a robust digital presence. This case study explores how B&Q transformed its paid media strategy through a full shift to Performance Max (PMax), using Upp.ai’s AI-powered technology to drive visibility, efficiency and return on ad spend at scale.

Customer challenge

As B&Q made the strategic decision to move 100% of its shopping spend to PMax, it faced several key challenges: • Transitioning fully from standard Shopping campaigns to PMax while maintaining visibility and control • Ensuring new product ranges received fair exposure and gathered the right data • Scaling vendor-funded campaigns across a growing inventory • Managing performance across an inventory of over one million SKUs “It was quite a big change moving to fully PMax. It’s something we did gradually and over time. But we knew we needed better tools to support that shift.” B&Q recognised that while PMax offered automation, it still required strategic guidance and optimisation, particularly for businesses with large, dynamic inventories. This is where Upp.ai became an essential partner. “Before Upp.ai, new ranges struggled to gain traction because bid strategies favoured products with existing data. Upp.ai changed that and helped drive significant improvements in ROAS and efficiency.” Tara West, Head of Performance Media and SEO, B&Q

Solution

B&Q brought in Upp.ai to support its PMax transition and unlock greater efficiency and insight. The platform analyses data in real time and identifies opportunities to improve performance across all products, regardless of how much historical data they have. This enabled the team to surface relevant SKUs that may have previously gone unnoticed and provide fair exposure to new product ranges. Upp.ai also played a key role in scaling vendor-funded marketing activity, helping to drive greater value from these partnerships. One of the added benefits of using Upp.ai was the visibility into marketplace and pricing data, which went beyond what was available via traditional platforms like Google Merchant Center. These insights helped B&Q respond more effectively to market conditions and improve campaign decision-making. This strategic use of AI gave the team more time to focus on growth and vendor collaboration. “One of the big, unexpected wins was the insights we got from Upp.ai, pricing data that goes well beyond what’s available in Google Merchant Centre.” “When we shared the results with our vendors, they were really keen to expand their investment. That’s led to a significant increase in the vendor-funded budget we can access.” Tara West, Head of Performance Media and SEO, B&Q

Results

Since implementing Upp.ai, B&Q has achieved: • Marketplace product visibility increased by 40%, even as inventory grew from 250,000 to over one million SKUs • 16% improvement in (Marketplace) ROAS, driven by increased efficiency and broader product reach • Significant growth in vendor-funded marketing budgets, enabled by stronger performance and greater transparency with partners By automating much of the complexity behind campaign management, Upp.ai has allowed the B&Q team to focus on strategic growth while maintaining efficiency at scale.

Looking ahead

B&Q sees Upp.ai as a vital part of its strategy for long-term growth and competitiveness: “I think Upp.ai will become really commonplace amongst large retailers. If you have a large inventory, it is essential now.” “If Upp.ai was taken away from us tomorrow? We would be forced to go back into a really manual way of working. We’d be super busy creating tonnes of campaigns. We’d be less efficient with that, and I think ultimately we’d really lose that competitive advantage”

Award Wins

Our work with B&Q has won multiple industry awards. UK eCommerce Awards: Best use of AI for eCommerce Recognising B&Q’s innovative use of AI in Paid Search, using the Upp.ai platform to use real sales data for dynamic campaign optimisation at scale. Judges comments: “Upp.ai addressed a challenge that many brands faced with the rise of PMax, providing greater control and visibility. The approach is especially impressive as the cost is a percentage of spend, making the solution accessible to businesses of all sizes. An impressively smart, practical solution with clear impact.” Performance Marketing World: AI Innovation Award This category celebrates tools and platforms that use predictive or generative AI to significantly enhance performance marketing, improving targeting, personalisation, efficiency, automation or measurement in digital advertising. Judges comments: “An increasing issue with the emergence and growth of PMax has been the loss of control and insights into paid search activity and exactly how Google is delivering the performance that PMax campaigns are suggesting.” “This looks like a great way of taking back some of this control and additional insights in a way that actually helps the bottom line.” Read more. Ready to scale your Google PMax? Get in touch with our experts.

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Award wins

Looking ahead

B&Q sees Upp.ai as a vital part of its strategy for long-term growth and competitiveness.

“If Upp.ai was taken away from us tomorrow? We would be forced to go back into a really manual way of working. We'd be super busy creating tonnes of campaigns. We'd be less efficient with that, and I think ultimately we'd really lose that competitive advantage.”