Prebo Digital is a South African performance marketing and marketing technology agency specialising in paid media, ecommerce growth, conversion optimisation, product feed intelligence, SEO, and AI search visibility. This case study explores how a restructured paid media strategy helped electronic components distributor Communica increase revenue by 91% and improve return on ad spend by 52% during the first 12 months of the partnership.
What Made This Strategy Different
Managing paid media for an ecommerce catalogue containing more than 25,000 SKUs requires more than campaign-level optimisation.
Prebo Digital combined improved conversion measurement, a re-engineered account structure, product-level performance analysis, conversion rate optimisation, and data-led international expansion. This enabled Communica to grow revenue substantially faster than advertising spend while building a stronger foundation for continued ecommerce growth.
Campaign Summary
Services: Paid Media, Google Ads, Conversion Rate Optimisation, Data and Measurement
Industry: Electronic Components and Equipment
Regions: Southern Africa
Key Result: 91% revenue growth and a 52% improvement in ROAS during the first 12 months
Strategy: Paid media restructuring, improved measurement, product-level optimisation, and international expansion
The Challenge
Communica is one of Southern Africa’s leading distributors of electronic components and equipment, serving retail and B2B customers across an extensive product catalogue.
Despite consistent investment in paid media, the business had reached a performance plateau.
The primary challenges included:
- Stagnating revenue despite continued advertising investment
- Fragmented campaign structures that weakened performance signals
- Incomplete conversion tracking and limited ROAS visibility
- Complex performance management across more than 25,000 SKUs
- Untapped growth opportunities across Africa and the UAE
The commercial objective was clear: unlock profitable revenue growth without relying on proportional increases in advertising spend.
The Paid Media Growth Strategy
Prebo Digital re-engineered Communica’s paid media activity around stronger measurement, clearer commercial signals, and more precise investment decisions.
The strategy focused on five key areas:
Paid Media Account Restructuring
Communica’s campaign architecture was rebuilt to consolidate performance signals and improve budget allocation, bidding, and campaign efficiency.
The revised structure enabled advertising platforms to learn from stronger data while giving the team a clearer view of performance across campaigns, brands, and product categories.
Conversion Measurement and ROAS Visibility
Prebo Digital conducted a detailed measurement audit to identify and resolve conversion-tracking gaps.
This created a more dependable view of revenue and return on ad spend, allowing optimisation decisions to be based on commercial outcomes rather than traffic or platform activity alone.
Product-Level Performance Optimisation
With a catalogue of more than 25,000 SKUs, Communica needed visibility beyond campaign-level results.
Prebo Digital introduced deeper product and brand performance analysis to identify:
- Products generating profitable revenue
- Brands with untapped growth potential
- Products receiving spend without producing sufficient returns
- Categories requiring different bidding or budget strategies
This enabled more precise investment decisions across Communica’s extensive product range.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Paid media improvements were supported by conversion rate optimisation to maximise the value of traffic reaching the Communica website.
Prebo Digital identified opportunities to reduce friction within the customer journey and improve the likelihood of visitors progressing from product discovery to purchase.
International Market Expansion
Campaign and sales data were used to identify growth opportunities beyond Communica’s established markets.
Prebo Digital launched campaigns across selected African markets and the UAE, allowing Communica to test and scale new sources of demand through a structured, evidence-led approach.
Results After 12 Months
Within the first year, Communica achieved substantial improvements in both revenue growth and paid media efficiency.
Key Results
- Revenue increased by 91%
- Return on ad spend improved by 52%
- Advertising spend increased by only 36%
- Product and brand performance visibility expanded across more than 25,000 SKUs
- New paid media activity launched across selected African markets and the UAE
Communica’s revenue grew considerably faster than its advertising investment. The improvement was therefore not driven by increased spend alone, but by stronger campaign structures, more accurate measurement, and more precise optimisation.
The Next Phase of Growth
With stronger paid media foundations in place, Communica and Prebo Digital are extending the strategy through product feed intelligence, scalable organic visibility, and AI search discovery.
Advanced Product Feed Optimisation with ShopRank
ShopRank provides product-level feed intelligence, performance segmentation, and ongoing optimisation across Communica’s extensive ecommerce catalogue.
The platform helps improve the accuracy and relevance of product data while making it easier to identify which products and brands are driving performance.
Organic and AI Visibility with straider.ai
straider.ai helps Communica address search demand at scale through structured, performance-informed content.
The platform supports visibility across Google and AI discovery environments by building relevant content around Communica’s products, categories, applications, locations and customer needs.
In a separate straider.ai case study, we show how Communica became South Africa’s #1 AI-recommended electronic components supplier – demonstrating how the partnership is extending growth beyond paid media into organic and AI-powered discovery.
