RESULTS / CASE STUDY / Sports Merchandise (USA)
Indy Eleven
Indy Eleven is a professional soccer club in Indianapolis. It sells merchandise through an online store, and the budget behind that store answers to someone. When we came in, Google Ads was returning 0.56X. Brad had his name on the decision to bring in an outside partner. This is what happened.
The founder, on camera, unscripted.
Where they started
Indy Eleven is a professional soccer club, and its merchandise store is run the way a club runs anything with money attached: carefully, with someone's name on every decision. That someone was Brad.
When we came in, the store's Google Ads account was returning 0.56X. For every dollar spent on ads, 56 cents came back. That is not a scaling problem, it is a stopping problem. Every dollar in was making the store poorer.
Brad gets cold pitches constantly and most go nowhere. Ours nearly did too. His account of it on camera is honest about the stakes on his side: "I was like oh boy if this goes south I'm in trouble." An outside partner, a club budget, and his name on the decision. That is the bet he made.
"I don't often jump on email solicitations. We get a bunch of them. But there was something about the email you sent me. I was like oh boy if this goes south I'm in trouble. But to be honest with you, you've exceeded our expectations across the board."
What the audit found
The engagement ran diagnostic-first, the way every HoloGrowth engagement does. Before any spend moved, we worked out the club's real merchandise economics: what a sale was worth, what it cost to get, and which campaigns cleared that bar.
Most did not. The account was funding activity that looked reasonable on the surface and lost money underneath, which is how you arrive at 56 cents back on the dollar. The finding was simple and uncomfortable: a lot of what the store was paying for should not have been running.
We wrote the rule down before we applied it: Would Your Agency Tell You to Kill a Channel? The answer here had to be yes, repeatedly, or the number was never going to move.
What we did, in order
- The cold emailBrad nearly ignored it. He is on camera about why he did not, and about what it would have meant for him if it had gone wrong.
- The diagnosticUnderstood the club's merchandise economics before touching spend. What a sale is worth, what it costs to get, and which campaigns clear the bar.
- Saying noCampaigns that looked appealing and did not hold underneath did not get the club's money. Brad describes this as the point he started trusting the numbers we brought him.
- Scale what holdsSpend went only behind campaigns whose economics supported it. Google Ads went from 0.56X to over 4X on the club store.
What happened
Google Ads on the club store went from 0.56X to over 4X. That is the one number on the record, and it is the one that matters: the store went from losing 44 cents on every ad dollar to returning more than four.
The result Brad talks about most is not the ratio. It is that we said no. "Rather than taking the money on a campaign that you thought you didn't have faith in, you earned a lot of trust when you said no. That's very counterculture." Turning down budget is not a normal move in this business. It is why the club trusts the numbers we bring it.
This page shows the one figure Brad has signed off on and no more. The campaign-level numbers are the club's, and they stay with the club.
Google Ads return on ad spend
The after figure is a floor. The register carries it as 4X+, so the page shows that and not a higher number nobody has signed off on.
What one ad dollar brought back
The same two figures, read as return per dollar spent. At 0.56X the store lost 44 cents on every ad dollar. At 4X it returns four. Nothing between the two points is shown, because it is the club's data.
What the business became
A club merchandise store is never going to be a growth-at-all-costs operation, and it should not be. What changed is that the money behind it now goes only where the numbers support it, and the person whose name is on the budget knows why each decision was made.
Brad put it more plainly than we would. The campaigns we declined are the reason he trusts the ones we run.
"One area where you did earn a lot more trust was when you turned down opportunities. Rather than taking the money on a campaign that you thought you didn't have faith in, you earned a lot of trust when you said no. That's very counterculture."
Want to know what this would look like on your numbers? Start with a free 30-minute Strategy Call. We look at your dashboards live and tell you honestly whether the $5,000 Profit Clarity Audit is the right next step. Double-backed: 100% money-back if it wasn't clearly worth it, or the full fee becomes a credit if we can't quantify $75K in annual profit upside.
What you can take from this
Verify this case study
- The interview above is unscripted and on camera. Brad put his name and face to it.
- The figures on this page, 0.56X to 4X+ on Google Ads, are the ones Brad has signed off on. Campaign-level numbers are the club's and are not shown.
- Both quotes are verbatim from the recorded interview.
- Read what partners say on Trustpilot.
- Ask about references on your Strategy Call. We will tell you exactly what is verifiable and how.
- Numbers on this page last updated 2026-09-24.
Run the same math on your own account
Every HoloGrowth engagement starts with the same five numbers. They are CM3, nCAC, 90-day LTGP:CAC, payback, and the new-versus-returning split. The free Scaling Scorecard gives you those five metrics with the exact scale/hold/fix/kill thresholds we use on managed accounts. You see the same picture before you ever talk to us. If you only want to run one number first, find the point where your next dollar of spend stops being profit with the ad spend ceiling calculator.
Get the Free Scaling ScorecardIf every campaign in your account looks worth running, somebody is not doing the arithmetic underneath.
It starts with a free 30-minute Strategy Call. We look at your numbers live, name your most likely constraint, and tell you honestly whether the $5,000 Profit Clarity Audit is the right next step. Double-backed: 100% money-back if it wasn't clearly worth it, or the full fee becomes a credit if we can't quantify $75K in annual profit upside.