Building materials is one of retail’s least digitally mature sectors. Montér, Norway’s largest building materials retailer, with 18 billion NOK in annual revenue, set out to change that. They brought in s360 as their AI & marketing partner: running strategy, creative production, and media buying across every channel. Today, Montér is a digital benchmark.
In eighteen months, Montér went from manual processes to full AI-powered automation. Something few in the sector have matched.
Digital revenue grew 138% year on year, and physical store visits rose 25.7%, showing the work moved the whole business, not just one channel.
Brand searches rose 15.3%, reflecting a stronger market position built one channel at a time.
Montér had built a strong market position, but the marketing infrastructure behind it had not kept pace. Data was fragmented across disconnected systems, most processes were handled manually, and digital and physical were measured in isolation with no clear line between ad spend and real business impact. This was no different than most retailers in the building materials sector, yet Montér was ready to change that.
Before anything else could scale, the foundations had to be right. Think of it like a renovation: before you can build something new, you need to know the walls are solid, the wiring works, and everything connects. That is what this phase was about.
We brought all media buying under one roof, using Search Ads 360 and DV360. For the first time, every channel was visible and manageable in one place, and budgets allocated where they worked best.
We built proper tracking with Floodlight, so Montér could follow the journey from ad to actual business outcome. Not just clicks, but the moments that matter: purchases, sign-ups, and store visits. The results that move the business.
Then we made the invisible visible. We could now capture the full journey from when a customer sees a Montér ad on their phone on Monday to when they walk into a store by Thursday. We activated Store Visits across all 140+ locations and built that value directly into our bidding. The result is a true Omni-ROAS: measuring online and in-store return together, rather than treating them as two separate businesses.
We found that Montér’s thousands of products were underperforming in search because listings lacked the data attributes that search engines reward. That meant products weren’t appearing, and potential sales went to competitors. The challenge was that Montér’s internal systems were built to stay stable, not to be optimised at speed. We set up the product feed in Google Merchant Center and brought in s360 Quantum to solve the speed problem.
We deployed s360 Quantum, our AI-driven feed tool, which sits between the marketing team and the master data, so they can enrich and test product listings in real-time without touching the underlying systems.
Jacob Johansen, Managing Director, s360 Norway
With the foundation in place, Montér could finally measure the right things, optimise toward the full business, and prepare to scale.
Quantum is our proprietary feed enhancement tool that leverages AI to analyse, enrich, test and scale feed attributes across text, images and video.
In a sector where most brands play it safe with generic product shots and standard offers, Montér had everything it needed to stand out.
s360 Studio took on the full creative remit. Not just producing campaigns, but rethinking Montér’s visual presence entirely. We developed new seasonal concepts that gave the brand a consistent look and feel across every channel. Whether someone encountered Montér on Meta, YouTube, or a programmatic ad, it felt like the same brand.
The building materials sector is driven by specific buying moments, meaning customers search with intent, triggered by a project, a season, or a deal. To capture those moments, a brand needs to show up at the right time with the right message. s360 Studio produced over 500 individual ads across more than 10 campaign periods, e.g. Tools-days, a Jordan collaboration, kitchen/bathroom, a Weber grilling concept, outdoor season launches, and more. Each had its own look and feel but instantly reflected the Montér brand.
But producing 500 ads is only half the challenge. Keeping them relevant and delivering them to the right person at the right moment is the other half. We built a Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) framework that works like an automated ad engine. If you browsed flooring on the Montér website, you will see flooring ads the next time you are online. Look at power tools, and the tools follow you.
For production and distribution at scale, we connected everything through Smartly. Templates are built once and automatically adapted, versioned and pushed across Meta and programmatic. So what used to take days now takes hours.
Montér went from static, outdated creative to a brand that produces, personalises, and distributes advertising at a pace the building sector had never seen before.
Smartly is a leading marketing platform for launching campaigns faster across channels, localising at scale, and continuously optimising using real-time data.
With the digital foundation built and the brand transformed, one piece remained: ensuring Montér reached the right people, in the right place.
We deployed Montér’s full product catalogue as a live feed, meaning thousands of products could be distributed and enriched automatically across channels. Also, we secured premium ad placements with Norway’s leading publishers, including Schibsted, Amedia and Polaris.
The numbers show the impact:
But the numbers only tell part of it. The bigger shift is in how Montér now operates: data-driven, fast to test, and built to move when the market moves. In under two years, Montér moved from the industry status quo to one of the most digitally advanced operations in Norwegian retail. In a sector where most brands are still figuring out the basics. That is rare, and that is impressive.
The transformation is well underway, but the ambition does not stop here. The next step is full feed-based, always-on advertising in Smartly: every Montér product always live, updated and optimised without anyone having to manage it manually. And a CRM OMNI integration that, for the first time, connects Montér’s customer data across digital and physical, so a customer who bought paint in-store last month can be reached with the right product online next week.
From fragmented to the frontier – that is the Montér story, and we are building it together.
Montér is Norway’s largest building materials chain, with more than 140 stores nationwide. Part of the Optimera group and owned by Saint-Gobain, Montér serves both B2B and B2C across a broad range of building and renovation products. With a strong physical store network complemented by e-commerce, Montér operates as a true omnichannel retailer in a category defined by high-intent, need-driven demand.
May-Nina Alstad
Marketing Director, Optimera AS
“s360 combines strategic insight with strong execution. Together, we've built a data-driven marketing setup that connects online and offline performance, helping us make smarter decisions, move faster and drive measurable business growth.”
“s360 has become a true extension of our marketing team. Their ability to align strategy, media, technology, and creative execution has given us greater agility and significantly strengthened our commercial impact.”
“Our partnership with s360 has helped accelerate our digital transformation. By improving how we use data, automation and customer insights, we've created a more relevant customer experience and a stronger competitive position in the market.”
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