Case Study
Under Armour: 2.4x new customers at 31 percent lower acquisition cost, profitability up 30 percent
Mohamed Gamal, Gambra's founder, was Director of Growth Marketing at the group that runs Under Armour in the Gulf, accountable for about USD 60M of online revenue a year across nine stores, with a 14-person team and a global agency reporting to him. Under Armour's online store was doing about USD 15M a year, revenue growing and margin shrinking. He changed the number the account was run on: 2.4x new customers, 31 percent lower acquisition cost, profitability up 30 percent.
new customers, at 31 percent lower acquisition cost
Under Armour online revenue a year, the store this ran on
The brief
Under Armour's official online stores for the UAE and Saudi Arabia launched in 2021, in English and Arabic, beside more than 30 stores in the region. By the time Gamal ran growth for the brand, the online store was doing about USD 15M a year, revenue rising and margin falling with it: the store was buying growth with the wrong products. The group needed paid media restructured in the UAE and new-customer acquisition opened up in Saudi Arabia, without the margin going with it.
The constraint
The account was run on ROAS, and ROAS cannot see margin. Catalogue campaigns pushed the products that sold most, not the products that made money, and the sales data sat in the group's systems, far from the ad platforms, so a profitable order and a loss-making one looked identical until the month closed. Scaling into Saudi Arabia on that footing would have scaled the loss.
The approach
Four decisions. One: profit on ad spend replaced ROAS as the primary metric for every campaign, so the account was optimised on what the business kept, not on what it billed. Two: the group's sales data was connected to BigQuery at SKU level, so profit per product was visible daily and inside the campaign decisions, not in a month-end report. Three: catalogue campaigns were rebuilt around the products that earned margin, with the volume sellers that lost money taken out of the bidding. Four: the UAE account was restructured on that footing first, and only then was new-customer acquisition scaled into Saudi Arabia on the same measurement.
The result
New customers grew 2.4x at 31 percent lower acquisition cost, and profitability improved 30 percent, on an online store doing about USD 15M a year, during Gamal's tenure. The account was finally run on the number the business cared about, and the growth stopped costing margin.
Why it matters
Most e-commerce accounts in the region are still run on ROAS, and ROAS rewards the products that are easiest to sell, not the ones that keep the business alive. This is the first two systems Gambra installs on every account: measurement that sees profit per SKU, then unit economics that decide what you are allowed to advertise.
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Frequently asked questions
Who is Under Armour in this case?
Under Armour is the American sportswear brand. Its Gulf stores and official online stores for the UAE and Saudi Arabia are run by a regional retail group, where Mohamed Gamal, Gambra's founder, was Director of Growth Marketing.
What did Gamal own?
Gamal held P&L responsibility for about USD 60M of online revenue a year across the group's nine stores, with a 14-person in-house team and a global agency reporting to him. On Under Armour he owned the switch from ROAS to profit on ad spend, the SKU-level profit measurement in BigQuery, the catalogue campaign rebuild, the UAE restructure and the scale into Saudi Arabia.
What were the results?
On an online store doing about USD 15M a year, new customers grew 2.4x at 31 percent lower acquisition cost and profitability improved 30 percent, on a catalogue rebuilt around the products that earned margin.
How can I check this?
Gamal's role at the group is on his LinkedIn profile, and the USD 60M group figure and the USD 15M Under Armour figure are the online revenues he was accountable for, stated by him. Under Armour's Middle East online stores launched in 2021 in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as reported by the trade press. The figures are the group's and are stated here as Gamal reported them.
