Hourly Bidder

Helping E-Commerce Brands Dominate Peak Sales

Managing 100+ products with $2M+ Ad budgets during peak sales, brand managers faced manual workflows, delayed insights, and costly errors. I redesigned Hourly Bidder, introducing automation and real-time optimization.

Reduced manual workflows by 70%, and boosted e-commerce performance with a 53% ROAS increase and 21% sales growth.

USER-CENTERED DESIGN

REAL-TIME OPTIMIZATION

DESIGN LEADERSHIP

REVENUE GROWTH

Winning the Shelf Space of the Digital Aisle

Imagine searching for a product on Amazon—dozens of results populate the page, but only the top few catch your eye.


For Nestlé or Kellogg's brand managers, ensuring their products appear every hour in those prime spots is critical to driving sales.


This is where hourly bidding becomes essential.

The image illustrates the competitive landscape brand managers face, where visibility is a constant battle, and winning requires precision and speed.

The Hidden Cost of Manual Hourly Bidding

Managing hundreds of products on platforms like Amazon, brand managers faced the overwhelming task of making 84,000 decisions each week, leaving them frustrated and stretched thin.

Why Bigger Ad Budgets Still Lead to Missed Opportunities

Brand managers were expected to optimize ad budgets strategically, ensuring that every dollar worked to increase visibility and drive sales.


The $2M ad budget wasn’t the problem—it was how it was being spent.

COSTLY ERRORS

20% budget wasted

Budget allocation wasted millions on underperforming campaigns

MANUAL WORKFLOW

25 hours per week

Analyzing data and adjusting bids for hundreds of products

PRODUCT VISIBILITY

35% decrease

Missing key adjustments cost campaigns visibility and revenue

COLLABORATION BOTTLENECK

15 hours per week

Constant meetings delayed critical decisions

TEDIOUS WORKFLOWS

10 hours per week

Manual bid adjustments were as cumbersome as spreadsheets

LACK OF REAL-TIME INSIGHTS

15% daily revenue loss

Static data delayed reactions

to sales trends, costing

millions

When I joined, I was immediately struck by the weight of the challenges brand managers were facing.

When I joined, I was immediately struck by the weight of the challenges brand managers were facing.

Opportunities were lost, not because of a lack of budget but because of inefficient tools that failed to support decision-making when it mattered most.


My goal wasn’t just to fix workflows but also to reimagine the foundation of how brand managers approach ad strategies and empower them to make high-impact decisions effortlessly.

Opportunities were lost, not because of a lack of budget but because of inefficient tools that failed to support decision-making when it mattered most.


My goal wasn’t just to fix workflows but also to reimagine the foundation of how brand managers approach ad strategies and empower them to make high-impact decisions effortlessly.

Elevating Research to Strategic Insights

To understand the true scope of the problem, I led a comprehensive discovery phase that went beyond surface-level issues. I focused on uncovering systemic inefficiencies, cross-functional misalignments, and unmet user needs.

Stakeholder Interviews

Spoke with brand managers and PMs to understand pain points, including dependency on hourly downloads and fragmented workflows.

Ranking in the top 3 search results is critical, but our current process makes it impossible to keep up.

Brandon Titmus

CommerceIQ

We fell behind on market trends while crunching numbers.

Brittany Levine

Hint

We felt like we were running in circles, reacting too late to capture peak sales opportunities.

Lars Lee

Sam's Club

Existing Solution Audit

Conducted a heuristic evaluation of the existing tool, identifying gaps in automation and usability.

Competitor Analysis

Reviewed tools like Google Ads and Facebook dayparting to benchmark functionality.

Google Ads

Facebook Ads

Quartile

Insights That Drive Impact

Analyzed support tickets, onboarding materials, and session recordings to uncover user pain points.

Leveraged Google Analytics and FullStory to identify behavior patterns and prioritize high-impact improvements.

Identifying the Core Problems

After synthesizing insights, I defined 4 core problems that became the foundation for strategic decision-making.

Request Sales Data every hour

Brand managers spent hours weekly extracting data, analyzing metrics, and adjusting budgets, only to face inefficiencies and frequent errors.

Inefficient Budget Utilization

Budgets often went unspent or overspent during peak hours, leading to missed sales opportunities or wasted spend.

Frustration and Loss

Managing numerous products led to lost sales and wasted time, highlighting the need for a smarter competitive solution.

Left in the Dark

Lacking clear insights, managers were left guessing what worked, struggling to make informed improvements.

From 20% to 99%:The Cost of Poor Budget Optimization

Leading with Research to Drive Meaningful Change

Research revealed that data alone wasn’t enough—brand managers needed automation and prioritized recommendations to act with confidence. I refocused the redesign to transform complex data into AI-driven insights and guided actions, enabling faster, smarter bidding decisions when it mattered most.

During ideation, I reimagined Excel-based workflows, prototyping tabular and calendar layouts with integrated sales metrics.

I collaborated with PMs, Sales Teams, and Customer Success Teams to understand how they communicated with conglomerate brands.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Worked closely with PMs to redefine the Product Requirements Document (PRD), ensuring it aligned with strategic goals and user needs.

Partnered with teams to ensure every stakeholder’s voice was incorporated into the design roadmap.

This was the turning point. The need wasn’t just for a better interface—it was for a fundamental shift in how brand managers worked. The solution had to:

Automate repetitive decisions

so that managers could focus on strategy

Optimize bids dynamically

instead of forcing manual adjustments

Provide real-time visibility

into what was working, eliminating guesswork

With this vision in mind, I set out to redesign Hourly Bidder, ensuring that it didn’t just simplify workflows but empowered users to make high-impact decisions effortlessly.

AI-Powered Bidding for Smarter, Faster Decisions

The redesigned Hourly Bidder leverages AI-driven automation, real-time budget optimization, and predictive insights, and ensuring products stay visible when it matters most.

Transforming Retail Ad Strategy with Automation and Insight

Brand managers faced a relentless challenge—managing thousands of ad budget adjustments, keeping products visible, and ensuring every marketing dollar was well spent. Manual workflows slowed them down, decisions were reactive, and opportunities were slipping away.


Hourly Bidder’s redesign changed that. But the impact isn’t just measured in numbers. Industry leaders recognized the transformation.

Rizwan Akbar

Head of E-Commerce, Pilgrim's

21%

Sales

19%

Market Share

53%

ROAS

CommerceIQ’s e-commerce management platform provides substantial benefits, giving us the ability to understand performance across granular targets, including branded, generic and competitive keywords and apply bulk automations to optimize our campaigns in line with our business objectives.

Working with Instacart Ads: Pilgrim’s Pride + CommerceIQ Success Story

Fortune 500 Food brand with over $10 Billion in annual revenue

12%

Reduction in CPC

7%

Increase in clicks

34%

Growth

The brand had previously adopted a retail media software platform from a competing provider. Brand reduced wasteful spending by matching budgets with shoppers.

However, after 1 month of using Hourly Bidder…

Top Food Brand drives ad efficiency at Amazon, Walmart