A full-service book publisher drowning in wasted ad spend. Three campaigns fighting Amazon for scraps with less than 10% search impression share. Kaliber turned 3 campaigns into 64 — and turned a near-death channel into their growth engine.
Amazon and BookBaby dominated the self-publishing search market. Gatekeeper was invisible — spending money but barely showing up. No MQL, SQL, or LTV tracking meant budget allocation was a guessing game. Previous agencies didn't go deep enough — the result was $300K in historical spend with diminishing returns and a client ready to pull the plug on Google Ads entirely.
Limited budget and low ad rank meant Gatekeeper was invisible. Amazon and BookBaby owned the self-publishing search market.
MQL, SQL, and LTV were not being tracked. Previous agencies never required this level of detail — so budget allocation was flying blind.
Three campaigns trying to serve every intent, every audience, every stage of the funnel. No segmentation, no personalization, no control.
Single Purpose Campaigns. 3 became 64. Every campaign built around a specific intent, a specific audience, a specific stage of the funnel. The strategy: dominate small subsets of the market before scaling — because you can't outspend Amazon, but you can outmanoeuvre them.
64 campaigns each owning their specific intent. Search impression share jumped from <10% to 53.45% — Gatekeeper became visible where it mattered.
Implementing MQL, SQL, and LTV tracking revealed which campaigns drove real business value. Budget shifted from volume to value — CPA dropped 80%.
Personalized messaging at each funnel stage drove conversion rates up 22.7% and total conversions up 2,029%. Cost per conversion fell from ~$97 to $19.64.
With clear ROI visibility, Gatekeeper increased their Google Ads investment by 333%. They went from almost quitting to making it their primary growth channel.
You can't outspend Amazon. But with 64 campaigns each dominating a niche, you don't have to. Precision beats budget every time.
Gatekeeper was about to kill Google Ads. The channel wasn't broken — the structure was. The same budget, restructured, produced 333% more revenue.
Without MQL/SQL/LTV tracking, every dollar felt like a gamble. With it, the team scaled investment 333% because they could see exactly what was working.
Single Purpose Campaigns let small advertisers compete with giants. Each campaign has one job, one budget, one audience — and that focus compounds over time.
Rob Price, Co-Founder · Gatekeeper Press
Google Ads went from a channel they almost killed to their primary driver of new business. Investment grew 333% because the results justified every dollar.
As the campaigns matured, Kaliber leveraged AI and additional data sources to further drive results — introducing new channels while maintaining efficiency.
The SPC methodology proved that a small publisher in Ohio could compete with Amazon's ad budget — by being smarter, not bigger.
Gatekeeper Press — a full-service book publisher and distributor based in Columbus, Ohio — had spent over $300K on Google Ads with diminishing returns. They were running just 3 broad campaigns trying to cover the entire self-publishing market, but with less than 10% search impression share they were invisible next to Amazon and BookBaby. No MQL, SQL, or LTV tracking meant there was no way to tell which spend was driving real business value versus wasted clicks. Previous agencies hadn't required this depth of measurement, so budget allocation was flying blind. The client was on the verge of shutting down Google Ads entirely.
Kaliber implemented the Single Purpose Campaign framework — restructuring 3 broad campaigns into 64, each built around a specific intent signal, a specific audience, and a specific funnel stage. Keywords and audiences were categorized by intent, enabling personalized messaging at each stage. Proper conversion tracking with MQL, SQL, and LTV metrics was implemented for the first time, giving the team visibility into which campaigns drove real business value. The strategy was to dominate small, winnable subsets of the market rather than competing with Amazon across the board. As campaigns matured, AI and additional data sources were leveraged to compound growth across new channels while maintaining efficiency.
Revenue grew 333%. Search impression share jumped from less than 10% to 53.45% — Gatekeeper became visible where it mattered most. CPA dropped 80%, with cost per conversion falling from approximately $97 to $19.64. Total conversions reached 2,917 — a 2,029% increase. Conversion rates climbed 22.7%. The client went from preparing to abandon Google Ads to making it their primary growth channel, increasing their investment by 333% because they could finally see exactly what was working. The SPC methodology proved that a small publisher could compete with Amazon's ad budget through precision, not spend.