NuWave Drinks entered one of the most crowded corners of the drinks market. The alcohol-free category has grown quickly and with that growth has come a flood of new brands all competing for the same shelf space.
NuWave arrived with genuine product advantages, a drink with real points of difference but a strong product alone does not win in a market this busy. Visibility, positioning and commercial momentum all had to be built from a standing start.
By the time we began working together, NuWave had already partnered with two performance marketing agencies. We were the third, which meant we inherited a situation that called for more than another round of campaign tweaks. It needed a clear diagnosis of what had not worked, a credible plan to put in front of shareholders and the operational firepower to execute across every channel at once.
In short, the challenge was threefold. Establish a young brand in a competitive and fast-moving category. Rebuild confidence after two agency relationships that had not delivered. And turn a promising product into a commercial performer against clear new-customer and revenue goals.
We stripped everything back to basics. Rather than carry forward assumptions from the previous two agencies, we treated the account as day one and rebuilt the foundations across every channel before chasing performance. In a competitive category, the brands that win have the cleanest fundamentals, not the loudest campaigns.
To deliver against a broad brief, we built a dedicated team around the account. NuWave had one clear point of contact, supported by specialists who each owned their discipline: PPC, SEO, a Klaviyo strategist for email and retention, and a Meta strategist working alongside a designer who handled creative across paid social and the wider brand.
Overseeing it all was our founder, Shane, who managed progress across the team while staying close to the client relationship and the handover. That gave NuWave a senior point of accountability throughout, keeping the specialists aligned and the work tracking back to commercial goals rather than drifting into channel silos.
The rebuild showed up fast. In the first full month after handover, NuWave delivered 24% growth versus the previous period and 124% versus the same month last year. Early figures, but a clear signal the new foundations were working.
Email told the same story. With the Klaviyo programme rebuilt from the ground up, open rate climbed almost 49%, click rate rose more than 244% and placed-order rate more than 253%, all on a delivery rate holding steady near the top of the range. More of the audience turned into engaged readers, and more of those readers into buyers.
Those gains came from genuine all-hands activity across email, paid social, SEO and back-end optimisation, coordinated through one team pulling in the same direction.
In NuWave’s own words, Climb & Conquer are the third agency the brand has worked with but the first to truly prioritise its commercial goals, with a team that feels like “a digital army dedicated to growing the business.” The founder describes himself as fully confident he now has a genuine partner in growth, and recommends Climb & Conquer for CPG start-ups without reservation.
What our client says
Climb & Conquer are the third performance agency I have worked with since launch but the first to truly prioritise my commercial goals. Shane and the team have been excellent and I feel like there's a digital army dedicated to growing the business. In the first full month after the handover, we've achieved +24% growth v PP and +124% growth v LY.
