PPC Commentary
Beet It Sport & Zinger · September 2026 (vs August 2026)
Managed revenue rose 20% to £134,606. Beet It Sport grew 29% and its ad ACOS fell to 10.0%. Nitrate 400 held its sales through six days with most of its advertising off.
Revenue rose 20%. Beet It Sport ad ACOS fell to 10.0%.
+20% MoM
+29% MoM
−7% MoM
BIS / Zinger
Managed revenue was £134,606 in September, up 20% on August. Beet It Sport rose 29% to £109,001 in marathon season. Zinger fell 7% to £25,605. Its hero ginger shot was out of stock for the first four days of the month, then ranked around sixteenth for its main search until Amazon cut the price on 18 September.
Ad spend was flat at £5,452 against £5,521, and ad sales rose 31% to £40,609. Beet It Sport ad ACOS fell to 10.0% from 13.9%, which is on target. Zinger fell to 33.1% from 37.9%.
Beet It Sport ran the last six days of the month with most of its advertising off, and Nitrate 400 sales, traffic and rank all held. August showed the same thing when the Buy Box was lost. Section 04 sets out what we take from it and what we are doing with the budget.
Amazon discounted both Zinger hero lines by 40% to 50% from 18 September, which changes how the Zinger ad figures should be read (sections 05 and 06).
The item for the next call is stock. Nitrate 400 ended the month with about 19 days of cover and Amazon received a third of what it ordered (section 09).
Beet It Sport revenue rose 29% to £109,001
| Total sales | August | September | MoM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beet It Sport | £84,402 | £109,001 | +29.1% |
| Zinger | £27,500 | £25,605 | −6.9% |
| Managed total | £111,902 | £134,606 | +20.3% |
Nitrate 400 did almost all of it. The hero line sold 4,223 units against 3,321 in August, a rise of 27%, and took £105,198 at Amazon's retail price. Traffic to the listing rose 18%.
Zinger's fall sits on two lines. The hero ginger shot sold 700 units against 785 and the 5 Shot pack 372 against 500. Turmeric went the other way, from 239 units to 396, on Amazon's discount.
These figures are ordered revenue from Amazon Retail Analytics and they match the monthly dashboard. Cherry Regen is reported separately this month because its portfolio is not yet in the dashboard's Beet It Sport group. It sold 149 units for £3,679, against 157 units in August.
Ad sales rose 31% on flat spend
BIS £3,476 · ZIN £1,976
+31% MoM
from 13.9%
from 37.9%
Beet It Sport
Ad ACOS was 10.0% on £3,476 spend returning £34,631 at 9.96 ROAS, with 1,343 orders against 1,011 in August. Cost per click fell to £0.98 from £1.16 and conversion rose to 38% from 32%. TACOS fell to 3.2% from 4.3%.
Some of the improvement is a recovery. August's figures carried a week in which a third-party seller held the Buy Box and Sponsored Products could not serve. September had the Buy Box all month.
Zinger
Ad ACOS was 33.1% on £1,976 spend returning £5,979 at 3.03 ROAS. Cost per click fell to £1.31 from £1.46 and conversion rose to 23% from 21%. TACOS was 7.7% against 6.9%.
Read the Zinger ACOS with care. Ad sales are reported at Amazon's retail price, and Amazon sold the two hero lines at 40% to 50% off for the last 13 days of the month. James White was paid the same £16.00 a unit throughout. Section 05 restates ad spend against that figure.
Nitrate 400 sales held for six days with most advertising off
The main Beet It Sport campaigns were off from 25 September and brand defence from 28 September. We left them off to the end of the month and measured what happened to Nitrate 400.
| Nitrate 400, six days Fri to Wed | Ad spend | Units from ads | Total units | Listing views |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 to 9 Sep | £814 | 313 | 890 | 2,313 |
| 11 to 16 Sep | £716 | 277 | 762 | 2,158 |
| 18 to 23 Sep | £865 | 350 | 795 | 2,137 |
| 25 to 30 Sep, most ads off | £136 | 81 | 911 | 2,075 |
Ad spend fell 84% and total units were the highest of the four windows. Listing views were down 3%. The listing's best seller rank went from 9 to 8. Units credited to ads fell by 269 and total units rose by 116.
Amazon adjusts daily unit figures for cancellations for some days afterwards, so the last window may move slightly. The monthly total of 4,223 units matches Amazon Retail Analytics.
This is the second month it has happened. In the last week of August a third-party seller held the Buy Box, advertising could not serve, and Beet It Sport still grew 16%.
What we take from it
In marathon season, with Nitrate 400 ranked in the top ten of its category and shoppers searching for the brand by name, it looks as though most of the sales credited to Beet It Sport ads would have happened without them. If so, part of the £3,476 a month is paying for sales the brand already owns.
Organic search position didn't move either. Nitrate 400 was first for “beetroot shots” on every day of September, including the six with the ads off, and third or fourth for “beetroot juice” throughout.
Two things are still unmeasured. Six days is too short to show what a longer gap does. And we haven't yet seen whether Beet It Sport's share of purchases on those two searches fell while the ads were off. Amazon publishes that weekly and it will be in next month's report.
What we are doing with the budget
From 5 October the largest single campaign is paused. It costs £1,180 a month and puts Nitrate 400 at the top of “beetroot juice” searches and on the Cawston Press listing. The other competitor campaigns, the video campaigns and two small keyword campaigns are paused with it. Together they are about 40% of Beet It Sport spend. Brand defence, the beetroot shots campaign and the auto campaigns stay on.
We will judge it on Nitrate 400's search position and share of purchases on “beetroot juice”, where it sits behind Cawston Press, and on total units for the month. If position or share falls, the campaign goes back on.
If they hold through October, about £1,400 a month comes off the Beet It Sport budget. Whether James White keeps it or puts some behind another line is one for the next call.
The hero ginger shot was out of stock until 4 September
Amazon ran out of stock of the hero ginger shot (B016H9SJ5K) from about 25 August to 4 September. Third-party sellers held the listing at £32 to £45 in that period. Stock returned at £22.90 on 4 September. From that day the listing dropped from fourth or fifth for “ginger shots” to around sixteenth, stayed there for two weeks and sold about 50 units a week.
From about 18 September Amazon cut its own price to £13.37, a discount of about 40% that it funded itself. Within four days the listing was first for “ginger shots”, and it stayed there to the end of the month. We raised bids on 22 September to use the lower price. Units went to 140 in the week the discount began and 353 in the week of 21 September. The price went back to £22.90 on 30 September.
| Hero ginger shot | August | September | MoM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Units ordered | 785 | 700 | −11% |
| Sales at Amazon's retail price | £11,569 | £9,073 | −22% |
| Ad spend | £1,056 | £1,040 | −2% |
Ad spend was 9.3% of James White's revenue on the line
Ad sales are reported at Amazon's retail price, which fell about 40% for 13 days. James White's price to Amazon stayed at £16.00 a unit. Ad spend on the hero line was £1,040. That is 11.5% of Amazon's retail sales and 9.3% of James White's revenue on the 695 units dispatched. We will report both from now on.
Stock is no longer the constraint it was in August. Amazon held 707 units at month end with 1,569 on open purchase orders. It received 43% of what it ordered in September.
Turmeric units rose 66% on Amazon's discount
Zinger Turmeric (B01L6OE7L6) sold 396 units against 239 in August, and sales at retail rose 41% to £5,059. Amazon cut the price from about £25 to about £12 around 18 September and held it there until the end of the month. It is now £19.36.
Traffic was heaviest at the start of the discount. The listing had 736 views in the six days from 18 September and 232 in the six days after, at the same price and with Amazon holding the Buy Box throughout. Turmeric ads were off from 25 to 27 September, which accounts for some of that.
Search position moved with the price. Turmeric ranked outside the top forty for “turmeric shots” from 4 to 17 September and first or second from 18 September. We haven't established why views fell in the second week at the same price and position. Amazon's daily unit figures for that week are still being adjusted for cancellations, so we are reporting units for the month only.
Brand defence returned £9,948 on £500
The Beet It Sport Brand Defence portfolio was set up in September from existing campaigns. It returned £9,948 of ad sales on £500 spend at 5% ACOS, against £5,764 on £411 for the same campaigns in August. The new exact-match brand campaign did £3,038 on £137. Its clicks cost £0.66, less than the £0.74 paid by the older catch-all campaign beside it, so it is not bidding up traffic we already had.
| Campaign | Spend | Ad sales | ACOS | August ACOS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BIS top of search, beetroot juice and Cawston Press | £1,180 | £6,760 | 17% | 22% |
| BIS phrase, beetroot shots | £912 | £9,700 | 9% | 12% |
| ZIN exact, ginger shots (ranking) | £630 | £1,380 | 46% | 58% |
| ZIN Sponsored Brands, ginger shots | £321 | £992 | 32% | 45% |
| ZIN Sponsored Brands, immunity shots | £265 | £1,185 | 22% | 30% |
All five improved on August. On the Zinger ranking campaign cost per click fell to £2.24 from £3.17, following August's cut to its top-of-search weighting.
Cherry Regen
Three Cherry Regen campaigns were switched back on from 22 September after seven months off. They returned £1,427 of ad sales on £128 at 9% ACOS. That overstates what Cherry earned. About half the orders came from beetroot searches, and many of those shoppers clicked the Cherry ad and bought Nitrate 400. Total Cherry units were 149 against 157 in August. Beetroot terms were removed from the Cherry campaigns on 5 October so the next month shows what Cherry earns on cherry searches.
Energy Gel
Energy Gel spend rose to £225 from £127 and ACOS to 16% from 9%. The product sold 32 units in total. It has almost no sales without an ad, and Amazon held 29 units at month end, so spend is being held where it is.
Zinger Functional: 65 clicks and 5 orders in the month
The three Zinger Functional lines took £120 of ad spend and returned £93 of sales from 5 orders. They drew 15,897 impressions and 65 clicks. Green Uplift had 22 clicks and no orders.
The diagnosis has not changed since August. The listings carry no reviews at £24 beside rated competitors, and the Vine route to first reviews is still blocked. Spend stays at a floor until reviews land. Amazon holds 49 to 57 units of each line.
Pickle It
Pickle It (B0HFWRHWR7) joined the Beet It Sport range on 20 August at £27 for 12 shots. Ten campaigns are built and paused. The listing sold 10 units in September without advertising and Amazon holds 51.
The campaigns are waiting on search indexing. When we checked on 17 September the listing was not indexed for “pickle juice” or “pickle juice for cramps”, which are the searches that carry the volume in this category. The title has since been changed to include “pickle juice”. We will recheck this week. Once the listing is indexed the campaigns go live, starting with the three that target competitor listings.
The listing has no reviews yet, so the first 90 days will run at a higher ACOS than the established lines. We will agree that level before any spend starts.
Nitrate 400 has about 19 days of cover
| At 30 September | Units on hand | Open purchase orders | Received vs ordered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nitrate 400 | 2,639 | 3,919 | 34% |
| Zinger Ginger | 707 | 1,569 | 43% |
| Zinger Turmeric | 794 | 1 | n/a |
| Energy Gel | 29 | 18 | 25% |
Nitrate 400 sold 141 units a day in September, so the stock on hand is about 19 days. Amazon is ordering but received a third of what it asked for, and 121 units ordered by customers went unfilled.
The ginger shot shows what a gap costs. Ten days without stock at the end of August were followed by about two weeks of depressed rank after it returned. Nitrate 400 is four times the size of the whole Zinger range, and October is still marathon season. Deliveries against the open orders are the priority item for the next call.