In early 2025, Homechoice - one of South Africa's leading homeware and fashion retailers - shifted investment toward non-digital channels, cutting the Google Paid Media budget by 60%. The performance targets, however, didn't move. TDMC was tasked with matching H1 2024's last-click revenue using less than half the spend, in one of the most competitive eCommerce categories in the country. Rather than spreading a shrinking budget thin, we narrowed focus to a single objective - profitable revenue - and let Google's automation and real-time signals do the heavy lifting. By H1 2025, Homechoice had spent 62% less on Google Paid Media, while total eCommerce revenue grew 13.6% year-on-year.
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Executive Summary
02
Introduction
Homechoice has built its position as one of South Africa's leading homeware and fashion retailers on a strong digital presence - one that, going into 2025, was about to be tested by a very different kind of budget than it had grown accustomed to.
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The Problem
A strategic reallocation of investment toward non-digital channels meant Homechoice's Google Paid Media budget was cut by 60%, while performance targets for the year remained exactly where they'd been set. The brief was to match H1 2024's last-click revenue results using just 40% of the media spend, in a highly competitive e-commerce environment where every competitor was still spending at full strength. On paper, it read as a tough ask. In practice, it felt closer to impossible.
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The Solution
With less budget to work with, the only way forward was to make every rand work harder - which meant narrowing focus rather than spreading it thin.
One objective: profitable revenue
Rather than chasing a broad set of goals across the funnel, the entire strategy was rebuilt around a single, unambiguous objective: profitable revenue. Every decision that followed - channel mix, campaign structure, budget allocation - was made in service of that one outcome.
Consolidating for stronger signal
Fragmented campaigns were consolidated across Google Ads, sharpening the signal Google's systems had to work with. Value-based bidding was implemented across the board, letting Google prioritise return on ad spend directly rather than splitting focus and budget across multiple funnel stages at once.
Performance Max as the real-time growth engine
Performance Max became the campaign's learning and optimisation core. By setting high ROAS targets within PMax, the campaign doubled as a live indicator of where real opportunity existed - both in audience signals and product demand. Custom scripts were layered in to extract deeper insight from PMax reporting, with those learnings feeding directly into Search and Shopping campaign decisions. Budget was no longer assigned by historic splits or fixed product priority lists - it followed what the data was showing in real time. Google's ecosystem, particularly the flexibility and automation built into Performance Max, gave the strategy room to adapt quickly and with confidence, rather than simply absorbing the cut and hoping for the best.
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Results
The numbers didn't just hold up against the budget cut - they outran it.
- 62% less spent on Google Paid Media in H1 2025 compared to the prior year.
- 13.6% year-on-year growth in total e-commerce revenue, despite the reduced spend.
- 11.7% increase in revenue from Google Paid Channels alone, as measured in GA4.
- Performance targets weren't just met - they were exceeded, on less than half the original budget.
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Conclusion
This wasn't a story about doing more with less in the abstract - it was a real test of whether discipline and data could outperform raw budget, and the results answered clearly. By focusing relentlessly on one objective and trusting Google's ecosystem to do what it does best with the right signals, TDMC helped Homechoice turn a significant budget cut into one of its most efficient growth periods yet - proof that performance, done right, isn't just about how much you spend, but how precisely you spend it.
