When Peter Jackson joined Musosoup, a music industry platform connecting artists with playlist curators, paid search was “totally amateurish.” The small, bootstrapped team had always managed PPC themselves or with freelancers, but they’d never invested in real expertise. “We were doing it in an ad hoc way, trying to learn from available resources. But to be frank, we didn’t really know what we were doing.”

The results showed it. They could see some returns, but they couldn’t scale. Budget was being wasted on brand bidding when they’d explicitly asked for the opposite. They were over-reliant on automated tools like Performance Max in its early days, driving return customers instead of new acquisition. Change logs revealed the truth: “not a lot was being done. We were coasting.”

But the real frustration wasn’t just poor performance—it was the inability to trust the people managing their account.
“The biggest frustration was not trusting the decisions being made around our account,” Peter explains. “We wanted to scale and invest more, but we needed someone who genuinely had our backs. Every penny counts when you’re bootstrapping, and we weren’t just looking for someone to ‘take care of this channel and hope for the best.’ We needed a partner for the next three to five years as we grew.”
Peter had seen this pattern before in his digital marketing career: agencies give you “a lot of love at the beginning,” then attention decreases once the account is secured. “You kind of feel potentially a bit neglected.” He’d also experienced the classic bait-and-switch—senior experts sell the vision, then you’re handed off to junior staff. “You think you’ve got the expertise you want, but then you’re handed off to more junior people.”

The team knew paid search was critical to their growth. They were at an inflection point in the business with revenue starting to increase. But they’d waited two years to address the problem properly.

“I wish we’d done it earlier,” Peter admits. “We wasted a lot of time and budget where things weren’t really being taken care of. Having real expertise, you realize the full potential of what the account can be.”

Musosoup chose Kwery because the approach was fundamentally different from the start. No boilerplate onboarding checklist. No over-reliance on out-of-the-box Google tools. No beautiful reports masking lack of strategic thinking.

“It wasn’t about selling their worth or selling activity,” Peter explains. “It was about giving us a clear roadmap to where we want to get to. Being honest about where we are as a business and what Kwery can achieve and cannot achieve and the work that needs to be done.”

This established the foundation of trust that was then executed through Kwery’s four-phase Synthesis Approach.

Phase 1: Insight

With no template solutions and a business model that was “quite niche and quite unusual,” Kwery invested substantial time understanding Musosoup’s complete picture. This wasn’t just about paid search—it was about their funnel stages, their competitive landscape, their broader technology ecosystem, and how paid media fit into their overall business strategy.

“They did a lot of work to understand the business we operate in,” Peter notes. “Because our funnel and our stages are quite unusual, there was a lot of upfront work—and that work is still continuing. It’s not just a checklist you’re going off. It has to be personalized around every individual business.”

This deep understanding was critical. As a bootstrapped garage startup, Musosoup hadn’t always implemented things optimally or used standard tools. “There’s been a lot of work helping us work out for the future—how do we best need to get organized? How do we best need to get implemented? And without that support, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

The insight phase also addressed Peter’s biggest concern: trust. Kwery didn’t just promise transparency—they demonstrated it immediately. “Being honest about what works and what doesn’t work. Not just relying on best practices, but being ready to experiment, ready to challenge me if I’m suggesting something that doesn’t make sense. That transparency aids the collaboration.”

Phase 2: Integration

Once strategy was validated, Kwery built the engine—but this time, built properly. The comprehensive project plan wasn’t just about restructuring campaigns; it was about integrating the right technologies and architecting a system that was “both scalable but flexible to experiment with.”

This phase represented the most daunting decision for Musosoup: scaling ad spend to three times what they’d been investing previously. “As a small business, that was the leap we were taking,” Peter recalls. “But they gave us the confidence through their approach and roadmap.”

The integration went beyond paid media platforms. Kwery looked at the broader picture: how other marketing activities impacted paid media, how to structure data tracking, how to professionalize their entire marketing operation. “It’s about understanding that we don’t operate in a vacuum. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff happening around the business.”

Phase 3: Optimization

This wasn’t a “set and forget” engagement. Weekly strategic sessions with senior practitioners—not junior account managers—turned data into action through constant experimentation and iteration.

“The weekly calls are with the people that have the domain expertise, who are directly managing the account,” Peter emphasizes. “There’s deep critical thinking about how to scale accounts and what different approaches could be. There’s analytical thinking around it. It’s not just someone who’s going to say yes and continue with best practice—they’ll challenge me.”

The optimization phase also introduced Musosoup to technologies and approaches they hadn’t considered. “We’ve expanded our thinking around how to use AI tools and other technologies that have been introduced to us by Kwery. It’s helped us think about not just marketing but business metrics across the board.”

The results spoke for themselves: “The account was optimized and changed very quickly, and we were away.”

Phase 4: Continuity

The partnership transcended a typical client-vendor relationship. Peter describes Kwery as “definitely an extension of our team”—a phrase that emerged not from marketing copy but from lived experience.

This continuity was built on radical transparency and genuine investment in Musosoup’s success. “It’s about having an ongoing honest conversation about what works and what doesn’t, and what we’re going to do next,” Peter explains. “Being able to have that with someone you’re working with is extremely valuable.”

The communication was constant but efficient. “I can Slack them all the time—probably too much. But there’s a collaborative approach where someone is invested in your business. I don’t have to be logging into the account every day. I don’t have to be paranoid about whether stuff is actually happening.”

When asked what he’d do if Kwery disappeared tomorrow and he had to choose another agency, Peter’s response was immediate: “That sends shivers up my spine. Once you’re working with someone and it’s working, you don’t even want to entertain that thought.”

The partnership delivered exactly what Peter needed: validation that professionalizing paid search was worth the investment, and proof that the right expertise could transform business outcomes.

Measurable Impact

• Doubled revenue in 12 months, with paid search being a significant driver of that growth
• Bottom line impact that gave the business stability and predictability it never had before
• Tripled initial investment in ad spend with confidence backed by performance data
• Transformed paid search from “totally amateurish” approach to “our most important marketing channel”

Business & Team Transformation

The most significant outcome wasn’t just the revenue numbers—it was the complete professionalization of Musosoup’s marketing operation.

“We approach marketing more professionally now,” Peter reflects. “It feels more grown up, more structured, more data-driven. We’re a lot more mature when it comes to data and our future plans for data. We have a lot more grasp on what we can achieve with marketing—how much we should be spending, what the future looks like, how far we can push these channels.”

The impact extended beyond paid search. Having a stable, continuously performing channel gave Musosoup confidence to expand to other channels and “build out the same mentality when it comes to other activities we’re doing. It’s helped the business professionalize itself quite a lot.”

Brand awareness grew significantly. “People are aware of our brand now, and the work we’ve been doing with Kwery has helped that a huge amount. We have a different standing in the industry we operate in.” This elevated brand presence enabled them to capitalize on media outreach, SEO, social media, and other channels that depend on brand recognition.