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Marathon Watch: Scaling to $814K/Month in 90 Days With Growth Shop’s Signature Engine

When 80-year-old military watchmaker Marathon needed to modernize its growth engine, Growth Shop delivered a 119% revenue increase in just 90 days. By rebuilding paid media, CRM, and tracking from the ground up, we turned broken systems into a profit-first machine—scaling spend 20x while improving ROAS and doubling contribution margin.
  • Paid Social
  • Paid Search
  • CRM
  • SEO
+119%
Revenue Growth
+103%
Growth Contribution Margin
+41%
Average Order Value

Marathon Watch

is a Canadian, family-owned manufacturer of precision timepieces, supplying military-grade watches to the U.S. and Canadian armed forces since 1939. Built to exacting Swiss standards, Marathon’s products combine durability, functionality, and heritage—serving both elite military personnel and civilian collectors worldwide.

Key Stakeholder
Martin Cohen
Vice President
Industry
Luxury Watches
Services Provided
  • Paid Social
  • Paid Search
  • CRM
  • SEO

Mission Ready: Scaling a Heritage Brand With Precision

When the official timepiece supplier to U.S. and Canadian militaries needed to rebuild trust in digital marketing, Growth Shop’s innovative approach delivered 119% revenue growth and transformed skepticism into partnership.

Marathon watch

“Growth Shop didn’t just optimize our accounts. They transformed our entire approach to digital marketing. The level of transparency and the results speak for themselves.”

Martin Cohen
Vice President at Marathon Watch

Eight Decades of Military Precision

Marathon Watch Company has crafted military-grade Swiss timepieces for over 80 years serving elite forces and watch enthusiasts worldwide. 

Despite premium positioning, revenue fluctuated without explanation. Marathon was built for precision but its marketing architecture had no such rigor.

There was no system driving growth and a heritage, luxury brand like that deserved a high-end growth system.

GS IQ Root Cause Analysis:
Structural Weakness, Not Just Channel Gaps

We deployed our proprietary tech, GS IQ to map Marathon’s full customer and revenue engine. The analysis surfaced four key growth barriers:

The issue was a systemic inefficiency across the entire growth stack.

With the Root Cause Uncovered, We Rebuilt for Growth

We rebuilt Marathon’s growth engine using Growth Shop’s three-layer operating model:
GS IQ Diagnostic → Contribution Margin Model → Multi-Channel Revenue Activation.

We began by wiping Google and Meta clean—replacing outdated, cluttered ad structures with a contribution-margin-aligned campaign architecture built for scale. Beneath the surface, key systems weren’t working: Google tracking was broken, Shopify signals weren’t syncing, and reporting lacked clarity. We rebuilt the full data pipeline and launched Pulse dashboards to surface real-time unit economics.

Meta campaigns were also burning out high-frequency audiences. We introduced suppression rules and rebuilt segmentation to restore efficiency. We launched retention-specific offers and rebuilt nurture flows based on price sensitivity and purchase behavior.

“We weren’t trying to grow Meta. We were trying to grow Marathon’s business—profitably, across every channel.”
—Logan Elliott, Account Lead, Growth Shop

Precision Scaling Through Multi-Channel Profit Alignment

With the right foundation and strategy in place, we turned our focus to scale—without sacrificing efficiency.

Meta performance scaled dramatically, with spend increasing 20x while ROAS held steady at ~1.0—proving scalable efficiency. Despite the surge in spend, CPA remained flat, driven by tighter SKU targeting and creative mapped directly to margin insights via GSIQ.

CRM became a structured revenue engine through sequenced flows and reactivation offers tied to purchase behavior. This retention layer gave Marathon consistent, incremental growth beyond paid and utilised the CRM channel when launching a Marathon x Jeep partnership! 

This wasn’t media arbitrage. It was system design. GS IQ revealed where spend was misaligned with margin and long-term value, and we reallocated every dollar toward scalable, profitable segments

How successful DTC Brands Actually Want to Work

Marathon needed more than tactical execution—they needed senior-level partnership. Growth Shop structured the engagement accordingly.

“We made sure Marty and the Marathon team had direct access to GS leadership. Rob, our COO, would take calls at 9PM on Fridays—whatever they needed,” explains Logan Elliot, Senior Account Manager.  “That availability built the foundation that now allows us to focus on growth initiatives.”

Growth Shop’s model gives Marathon access to elite operators who, beyond executing, drive measurable business outcomes with complete accountability to profit and growth. 

While Net Sales grew by 119%, Growth Contribution Margin also grew by 103%, which means Marathon wasn’t just spending more—it was keeping significantly more after costs like media, shipping, and discounts.

+118%
Revenue in 90 days
+56%
monthly units
+103%
GCM
+41%
AOV

For luxury brands that deserve the best

For CEOs seeking systematic growth without the typical agency complications, Growth Shop offers structured partnerships designed for executive-level collaboration.

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