Putting global retail media into overdrive with AI

The challenge

As a category pioneer in digital security, McAfee brought strong brand equity to Amazon, but reputation alone wasn't enough to win in a rapidly evolving, high-stakes environment. With antivirus competition intensifying across dozens of global Amazon marketplaces, McAfee needed to transform its media strategy from static to scalable - fast. "Stackline has been an excellent partner: their software allows us to visualize our position in the marketplace, and their services team acts decisively to maintain it," said John Millis, Global Sales Director, Retail Ecommerce.

Traditional campaign structures couldn't keep pace with the complexity of international performance marketing. McAfee lacked real-time visibility into country-specific shopper behavior, limiting its ability to tailor strategies to regional subscription preferences - whether monthly, annual, or multi-year plans. Budgets were over-indexed on branded terms, driving inefficient spend on already-converted customers, while opportunity-rich non-brand segments remained underfunded. Manual planning across geographies made it difficult to move with agility, and the team faced delays in responding to fast-moving shifts in consumer behavior. To reclaim its top position in global Amazon antivirus sales, McAfee needed a unified platform that could localize, automate, and optimize at scale - delivering granular intelligence and precision execution across every market it served.

The solution

To scale its retail media strategy across Amazon's global storefronts, McAfee partnered with Stackline to unify operations under a single, intelligence-driven system. The goal: to localize campaigns with precision, drive efficiency at scale, and regain leadership in a competitive digital security category.

Using Stackline Atlas, McAfee mapped the antivirus software market by region and subscription type, surfacing critical insights - such as which countries favored 1-year, 2-year, or monthly licenses. These granular signals shaped tailored ad strategies for each market, aligning offers with shopper preferences in real time. Stackline's Professional Services team reengineered campaign structure to prioritize incremental growth - eliminating overspend on branded terms and shifting investment toward high-value, non-brand keywords with strong new-to-brand potential.

The result was an intentional strategy that expanded McAfee's reach without sacrificing efficiency. To execute at scale, McAfee activated Stackline's AI-powered ad engine that made over 2 million autonomous bid optimizations across SKUs, subscription types, and geographies. This automation unlocked a 23% increase in paid traffic, eliminated $200,000 in wasted bids, and rapidly accelerated performance across global storefronts.

Throughout the campaign, Stackline Beacon delivered real-time visibility into ad performance and strategic levers across regions. With advanced alerting, performance diagnostics, and trend forecasting, McAfee's team could monitor campaign health and make informed adjustments on the fly - ensuring no momentum was lost across any market.

The outcome was industry-defining:

• +93% increase in incremental ad sales
• +49% lift in iROAS
• +378 basis point gain in market share
• Return to #1 in global antivirus software sales on Amazon

This case proved the compounding value of integrated technology, machine intelligence, and strategic partnership - delivering global performance with surgical precision.