Represent, a premium British streetwear brand, used Lunio to protect ad spend efficiency during its most competitive periods of the year. By maintaining traffic quality as budgets scaled sharply across sale events, Represent kept invalid traffic low when it mattered most, and saw conversion rates improve by 12.86% and CPAs fall by 9.43% as a result.

Key stats

• 38% reduction in IVT during key sales periods
• 12.86% increase in conversion rate (protected vs unprotected, Sept-Nov 2025)
• 9.43% reduction in CPA (protected vs unprotected, Sept-Nov 2025)
• 10.7x ROI on Lunio cost of subscription (throughout Sept - Nov 2025)
  
  

Represent is a premium British streetwear brand that has grown significantly over the past decade, competing in an increasingly contested market against well-funded rivals.

Paid media sits at the core of their acquisition strategy, spanning Performance Max, Shopping, Meta, and TikTok. Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager at Represent, joined the business in mid-2025 with a clear mandate. Competition was intensifying, and the focus had shifted firmly towards efficiency.

"We're hyper-focused on maximizing profitability. And it’s my job to ensure we’re getting a solid return across all of our core channels and campaign types. The overarching goal for us this year is being as efficient as possible whilst hitting growth targets."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

The problem

Represent's sale periods are short and high-stakes. Daily ad budgets often triple overnight, meaning these windows are where performance matters most.

The problem is that scaling spend quickly also increases exposure to invalid traffic. Automated campaign types like Performance Max offer less visibility into where spend goes, and IVT tends to spike during high-traffic retail periods when advertisers are most active.

In Represent's account, a single PMax campaign was found to carry a 23.73% IVT rate during the September-November period, accounting for nearly £29k in estimated wasted spend across just three months.

For a brand so laser-focused on efficiency, the math made the situation clear:

"If we're spending millions a year and 10% is invalid, that's hundreds of thousands gone"

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

Why Represent chose Lunio

Lunio was already in place at Represent before Joe joined. His predecessor had identified the IVT problem as the brand scaled its digital activity, and selected Lunio as the solution.

When Joe took over and was reviewing the tech stack, the question became straightforward: does Lunio's protection outweigh its cost?

After running the numbers, the answer was clear - particularly in sale periods, where the savings Lunio delivered far exceeded the platform fee:

“When we go into markdown - our key sales events in January, July, and November - the amount of money we save is enormous."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

The feature that gave Joe full confidence to justify the renewal internally was Lunio's control and treatment test - a methodology that splits traffic into a protected group and an unprotected group, then compares performance between them. For Joe, it solved a presentation problem as much as a marketing one:

"A lot of our senior leadership team are visual learners. The control and treatment feature just spelled it out - this is what it looks like without Lunio protection, this is what it looks like with it. It made the business case in seconds."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

Getting started with Lunio

Represent was fully set up ahead of the 2024 sale calendar, with Lunio protecting campaigns across Google, Meta, and TikTok. Day-to-day, the platform runs in the background. Joe carries out periodic maintenance (such as refreshing PMax placement exclusion lists monthly), but the protection itself requires minimal input.

Lunio’s customer success team are always on-hand, and their support made the renewal process straightforward:

"Erica talked through everything really clearly on our calls. When it came to renewal, I didn't need a convoluted 24-slide deck. I just needed one slide showing what Lunio saved us and what it cost, and that's what she gave me."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

How Lunio drives growth during key sales periods

Lunio's protection performs best when it matters most. In November 2025 (covering Black Friday and the lead-up to Christmas), Represent's daily budgets surged. Despite the sharp increase in spend, IVT remained tightly controlled.

The data sampling test run across Sept-Nov 2025 showed the unprotected group with average IVT rate of 13.94% over the period. Meanwhile, the protected group held at 4.99% - a 64.19% difference.

And as traffic volumes scaled in November, that gap widened. While bot activity reliably increases during peak retail periods, Represent's Lunio-protected campaigns consistently stayed well below unprotected benchmarks.

Conversion rates followed the same pattern. Protected traffic converted at 3.67% versus 3.25% for unprotected traffic - a 12.86% improvement. CPAs also fell with an average 9.43% reduction across protected traffic.

"Our IVT rate in December was sitting at 3-4%, even when spend had more than doubled overnight. After one day of adjustment, it was straight back to normal. That consistency is what matters."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

The five campaigns that saw the highest IVT concentration - all from Google, all automated or upper-funnel formats - accounted for nearly £70k of estimated wasted spend across the period.

During the September-November period, Represent's top-performing Performance Max campaign carried a 23.73% IVT rate, accounting for an estimated £28,826 in wasted spend. Across all campaigns, the unprotected group averaged 13.94% IVT over the same period. Lunio's protection kept the protected group to 4.99% - a 64.19% difference that widened further as spend scaled through Black Friday.

As Represent continues to shift more budget away from standard search and into PMax (where advertiser control is more limited), protection becomes more important, not less.

"As the marketing sector continues to evolve, more spend is inevitably going to automated campaign types like Performance Max. With less control over where budget actually gets spent, Lunio acts as a guardrail, ensuring we’re feeding higher quality traffic into our campaigns to optimize against higher-intent visitors."

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent

The results

Based on data sampling across Sept-Nov 2025, comparing Lunio-protected traffic against an unprotected control group:

• 12.86% improvement in conversion rate for protected traffic
• 9.43% reduction in CPA for protected traffic
  
• 25x ROI on Lunio subscription cost in November 2025 alone
• 10.7x ROI on Lunio subscription cost across Sept - Nov 2025
• 38% reduction in IVT during key Black Friday sales period (Oct-Nov 2025)
• 64.19% difference in IVT rate between protected and unprotected groups (Sept-Nov 2025)

The strongest returns came in the Black Friday Sale in November, when spend increased sharply. Lunio's cost for the month was a fraction of the spend reallocated, resulting in an impressive 25x return.

Delivering traffic quality insurance

Represent are exceeding their growth targets in a market that’s getting significantly more competitive YoY. In that environment, protecting traffic quality during peak spend periods is vital.

When Joe joined and reviewed the entire tech stack, Lunio was the one tool that never came into question:

"When I joined Represent, I had to make a decision on a number of platforms and weigh up whether they were providing the company with a meaningful ROI on the subscription cost. Lunio definitely was. And it now makes up a core part of our marketing tech stack.”

— Joe Seabridge, Paid Media Manager, Represent