Optimizing Early Bird & Holiday Sales
How One Brand Turned to Paid Media for Maximum Growth During the Most Competitive Time of Year
Situation.
Marie Veronique was entering a growth stage in which the brand set out to increase its total eCommerce sales by 20% YoY by attracting new customers to its science-backed and clean skincare collection. Marie Veronique is widely considered one of the leading brands in the trending “nontoxic” and “microbiome-friendly” industry, and we wanted to take advantage of their growing brand recognition. With the holidays quickly approaching, our client wanted to increase website traffic and offer a “friends and family” deal before the most competitive time of year.
Our client had a general idea of who their target market was; one of our goals was to define their audience segments in order to market to this group during the busy holiday season.
Having never worked with a paid media agency before, the brand was unsure of how quickly we could achieve results. We had a strong sense of urgency to perform well given the client’s goals, the growing industry trends, and the time of year.
Objectives.
Achieve a blended 3X ROAS from paid media campaigns
Identify detailed audience segments based on paid media performance data
Grow website traffic by 50% YoY
Produce a 20% increase in eCommerce revenue YoY
Our Approach.
We outlined a strategic media plan that included full-funnel strategies on Google Ads and Meta. We defined audience segments by focusing on complementary interests and behaviors. We were most focused on attracting new audiences, as opposed to targeting current and returning customers.
We segmented our media plan between early bird offers and Black Friday Cyber Monday promotions. We intentionally allocated more budget to the early bird time period, with the intention of growing brand awareness during a less competitive time.
On Google, we launched Branded Search, Non-Branded Search, Dynamic Search Ads, and Performance Max campaigns. On Meta, we targeted new audiences with complementary interests, users who engaged in their social media, and website visitors in separate campaigns.
Having the goal of increasing revenue, we first focused on increasing conversion volume by placing our ads in front of new and likely purchasers.
A second strategy to increase revenue was to increase the average order value by working with our client on product bundles.
Services Provided.
Campaign planning
Media management
In-flight optimizations
Analysis and insights
Key Results.
672% ROAS
Achieved a blended ROAS of 672% within the first two weeks of paid media campaigns
+43%
Assisted with a 43% increase in total eCommerce Year over Year
🡱10% of traffic
Traffic from paid media drove 10% of all website traffic within the first two weeks
Result & Positive Impact
Within our first two weeks of running paid media campaigns, we achieved a 53% lift in website traffic year over year. Traffic from paid media campaigns accounted for 10% of total website traffic during that time. Additionally, we achieved a 43% lift in revenue YoY while hitting a ROAS of 6.0x.
Since we grew website traffic in our early bird campaigns, we were able to later retarget this warm audience during the holiday season. This audience produced a 15.6x ROAS during Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.
Our strategy on ads placement and audience targeting proved to be successful: we achieved a blended ROAS of 6.72x within our first two weeks. While only 7% of the revenue at that time was attributed to new customers, these results helped us identify which complementary interests and behaviors defined our target market. Based on this data, we adapted our strategy on how to target new customers during the busiest time of year.
Our goal to meet a 20% increase in eCommerce sales YoY didn’t stop with retargeting website visitors and defining new audience segments to increase conversion volume. We also wanted to focus on increasing the average order value (AOV), specifically with existing customers. As such, the brand offered a bundle deal to existing customers during an “early bird” sale that we promoted on Meta. These audiences produced a 16% lift in average order value–the highest in the brand’s history–much thanks to the higher price point for the bundles.
All in all, our paid media efforts resulted in a 35% increase in total eCommernce revenue YoY within the first two months of running paid search and social ads.
Having a strategic media plan and staying nimble on adapting our strategy helped us produce successful results. Of course, it also helped us gain out client’s trust and showed them firsthand the power of social media.
