Case Study 01 · OurBus Lines
Scheduled intercity coach · US East Coast
1.6× monthly revenue in six months, without buying the growth.
OurBus runs scheduled coaches on the US East Coast. I have worked with the company since 2017: first on organic and product, then on the paid engine, now as an adviser to the CEO.
- Monthly revenue
- 1.6×
- Revenue, year on year
- +46.9%
- Return on ad spend
- 21.0×
- Corridors live
- 40
January → June 2026, all channels
June 2026 vs June 2025, on +30.8% spend
Up from 18.7×
Expansion scored market by market
Figures supplied by the client and shown as multiples, growth rates and ratios. Absolute revenue withheld at the client's discretion. Channel shares computed from the account's own weekly scorecard.
01 — The Situation
A route business growing on demand it had not built a system to capture.
The demand was real. What was missing was an acquisition machine that could tell the difference between demand it created and demand it merely collected—and price each accordingly.
Where it started
- Paid spend concentrated in route-level search, the most expensive way to buy a booking.
- No separation between brand and generic demand, so brand traffic flattered everything else.
- Organic and app treated as side channels rather than the cheapest acquisition assets.
- Reporting that described what happened, not what to do about it.
Where it is now
- A six-channel portfolio managed against one blended cost target, each channel priced.
- Performance Max and brand search carrying volume; route search cut to the role it earns.
- An app-install engine acquiring at a fraction of web cost and feeding repeat demand.
- A Monday scorecard and Friday deep dive running as standing automation.
02 — What I Did
Restructure the paid engine, then let the cheaper channels carry the volume.
Before
Route search
- Share of spend
- 47%
- Share of bookings
- 25%
After
Performance Max + brand search
- Share of spend
- 46%
- Share of bookings
- 70%
- Biggest lever
Google Ads restructure
Split the account into six channels and priced each one, so every channel's real contribution became visible.
- Owned demand
App and organic as assets
An app-install engine at the lowest unit cost in the account, plus organic for the Lines domain, so paid is no longer the only source of growth.
- Data
RFM segmentation of every rider
Six segments, a suppression list and two lookalike seeds from the full transaction base, fed back into targeting.
- Cadence
Weekly scorecard automation
Three flag signals every Monday, a Friday deep dive on anything flagged, and a correction for conversion data that matures over two weeks.
03 — The Result
Every revenue channel outgrew the budget behind it.
If revenue only grows as fast as the money behind it, nothing has been built—it has been rented. Here growth and efficiency moved together.
Channel revenue growth against spend
June 2026 vs June 2025. Every channel grew faster than the budget behind it.
- OTA
- +67.6%
- App
- +53.3%
- Direct web
- +35.9%
- Ad spend
- +30.8%
Marketing cost as share of revenue
5.34%4.76%
Return on ad spend
18.7×21.0×
Next capital decision
A four-market expansion scorecard and a 25-corridor Canada census now sit under the CEO's next call.
- Direct web, app and OTA all grew faster than the 30.8% rise in spend.
- Marketing cost fell from 5.34% to 4.76% of revenue while the business grew.
- Revenue mix diversified: app and OTA gained share on a base that was itself 47% larger.
- A four-market expansion scorecard and a 25-corridor Canada census now sit under the CEO's next capital decisions.
“The channel that felt most like doing marketing was the one doing the least work per dollar.”
Work With Me
Have a growth problem worth solving?
Tell me where your marketing is leaking. I’ll help you see which demand you are creating and which you are only collecting.