Upp.ai wins Performance Marketing World’s AI Innovation Award with B&Q
We’re excited to share that Upp.ai has been named the winner of Performance Marketing World’s first-ever AI Innovation Award, recognising our partnership with B&Q, the UK’s leading home improvement and garden living retailer.
This category celebrates tools and platforms that don’t just experiment with AI, but use it to truly advance performance marketing. Our winning entry, “Breaking the Pattern: How B&Q Revitalised Growth with Adaptive AI,” tells the story of how B&Q transformed its paid media strategy by moving 100% of its shopping spend to Google Performance Max (PMax). With over 300 stores, a robust digital presence and an inventory growing from 250,000 to over one million SKUs, B&Q needed to maintain visibility and control during the transition, ensure new product ranges got fair exposure, and scale vendor-funded campaigns effectively.
The judges noted that the campaign “demonstrated a strong, structured case with clear challenges, execution and outcomes.” It was praised for “restoring meaningful control and insight within PMax and improving performance while easing operational burdens,” and described as “an interesting and timely application of AI to maximise brand spend and accelerate success for new ranges.”
“This looks like a great way of taking back some of this control and additional insights in a way that actually helps the bottom line.”
- PMW Award Judge
By layering Upp.ai’s AI-powered technology on top of PMax, the B&Q team were able to analyse performance and market data in real time, surface high-potential SKUs (including new ranges that previously struggled to gain traction), and unlock deeper marketplace and pricing insights. This led to:
- 40% increase in Marketplace product visibility
- 16% improvement in Marketplace ROAS
- Significant growth in vendor-funded marketing budgets.
"An increasing issue with the emergence and growth of PMax has been the loss of control and insights into paid search activity and exactly how Google is delivering the performance that PMax campaigns are suggesting."
- PMW Award Judge
This AI Innovation Award is a shared achievement for Upp.ai and the B&Q team, and a powerful validation of what’s possible when retailers combine bold strategic decisions with adaptive AI.
Read the full B&Q customer story to explore the journey in more detail.
