Splash Fashion
Project Overview
Splash is the largest fashion retailer in the Middle East, headquartered in Dubai and operating across the UAE, EMEA, and beyond. With a strong foundation in Smart Shopping campaigns, Splash partnered with Pixelique Digital to pioneer an early adoption of Performance Max, testing whether the channel could extend display and video coverage without compromising the ROAS performance they had already established.
The primary KPI was ROAS. The secondary goal was driving incremental sessions. The question: could Performance Max video do both?
Challenge & Context
Splash had achieved strong results with Smart Shopping but wanted to expand into display and video inventory. The core concern was clear, would Performance Max cannibilise existing ROAS, or could it add genuine incremental value? Key challenges included:
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Protecting existing ROAS performance during the transition to a new, less predictable campaign type.
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Building video creative assets that would perform across multiple formats and peak seasonal moments, Black Friday and Ramadan.
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Understanding which video narratives and creative angles would resonate most with Splash's diverse Middle East audience.
Our Approach
The strategy focused on peak period visibility and disciplined creative production. We combined conversion-focused measurement with a structured video production framework built around Google's ABCDs of retail creatives:
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Attention, Opening frames designed to hook viewers within the first two seconds, tailored for fashion retail browsing behaviour.
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Branding, Splash brand identity woven throughout each video format, not just at the end, to maximise recall even for non-completing views.
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Connection, Story-led messaging that matched the emotional context of Black Friday deal-seeking and Ramadan gifting occasions.
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Direction, Clear, action-oriented calls-to-action driving sessions directly to product pages and campaign landing experiences.
Five distinct video formats were produced and distributed across Performance Max placements, allowing the algorithm to optimise creative allocation by placement, audience, and conversion signal.
Results & Impact
The results validated the creative-first approach to Performance Max. Across all markets, interaction rate increased by 60% with no change in ROAS, demonstrating that expanded video coverage and conversion efficiency are not mutually exclusive.
Video revenue share grew from 13% to 35%, making video a primary revenue channel rather than a supplementary one. The campaign confirmed that prioritising creative quality and narrative on Performance Max drives awareness that converts, not just impressions.
Splash now has a data-backed understanding of which video narratives engage their customers across different markets, and is expanding the approach across additional campaign formats and seasonal moments.
"Performance Max was easy to scale, and we saw improvements almost immediately. With the algorithm optimising on placements, increased focus on the right creative for key campaigns bore strong results."
— Anirudh Menon, Digital Marketing Head, Splash
Frequently Asked
The key is treating video creative as a performance asset, not a brand exercise. By producing multiple formats aligned to specific audience moments and letting Performance Max's algorithm optimise placement allocation based on conversion signals, you expand reach to video inventory while the algorithm continues to prioritise spend toward the highest-converting outcomes. The Splash results, +60% interactions, zero ROAS impact, show this is achievable when creative quality is the starting point.
Google's ABCDs framework for retail video creative stands for Attention, Branding, Connection, and Direction. Attention means hooking viewers in the first two seconds. Branding means making your brand visible throughout, not just at the end. Connection means building emotional relevance to the viewer's context, a seasonal campaign, a lifestyle moment, a need. Direction means a clear call to action that drives the next step. Following this framework across five video formats gave Performance Max enough creative variety to find the right message for each placement and audience signal.
Each peak period requires its own creative logic. Black Friday is driven by urgency, deal discovery, and competitive comparison, the creative focused on value signals and speed. Ramadan is anchored in gifting, generosity, and family, the creative leaned into warmth, occasion dressing, and cultural resonance. Rather than applying one video to both, we built period-specific narratives within the same ABCDs framework, giving Performance Max the context signals it needed to match creative to intent.
Smart Shopping was limited to Shopping and Display placements with product feed-based creatives. Performance Max covers all Google inventory, Search, Shopping, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps, using a combination of product feeds, text headlines, images, and video assets. The algorithm has significantly more signals and placements to work with, which creates more opportunity for reach but also requires richer creative inputs to unlock the full potential. The shift from Smart Shopping to Performance Max is as much a creative challenge as it is a technical one.