Our Challenge
Scaling in an extremely competitive market
We spoke to a business in the supplements space after they advised us they weren’t happy with their current growth.
The big difference with them was they hadn’t sold many in the US before, yet Analytics and website data told them it was a good market to expand into.
Now, firstly, I wasn’t convinced their current market was working as well as it should be so the focus should be to conquer their main territory should be a focus. They reluctantly listened and our initial focus was to fine tune their current activity.
Our Strategy
Fine tune their current activity then expand into certain states into the US, rather than target the entire country. Anyone who has done international expansion before will know the best approach is a segmented one, based on your first party data.
1. Cutting Wasted Ad Spend
We began with a full account audit and found that 22% of ad spend was competitor search terms. Next, we found most of their ad copy was fatigued and limited serving due to low relevancy on their landing page. Two ads were going to old 404 pages, so that was immediately remedied.
2. Fixing Feed Issues
The recurring Google Shopping feed errors are and will always be a profit margin killer for brands. Irrelevant headlines, poor imagery, missing attributes all hinder the ability for someone to find what they’re looking for. This brand was missing short titles, had old photography and was missing weight (quite important for them).
3. Restructuring for Scale
Google Ads: We restructured their account to focus on the different types of supplements they had within their business. There was a lot of cannibalisation between different products, mainly protein powders specifically. Brand also was being pulled in through their PMax campaigns, unintentionally, so the metrics were being inflated to show a better ROAS for their campaigns.
Once we were happy with the new structure, we focused on creative testing. They wanted to move away from the super competitive “gym buffs” audience and try and get people who were into a healthy lifestyle, outdoors etc to try their products.
How? Giving new customers a heavy discount. The results for returning customers from this new set was nearly 50%, with a majority of the remaining 50% saying it was either too expensive at full price or they didn’t like the flavour.
The Results
Within a few weeks of the restructure, the impact was very clear:
- New customers up 32% in month 1
- Conversion rate went from 1.4% to 2.15%
- 26% increase in order volume
- AOV increased by 12%, purely by building website bundles
- 8% decrease in CPA within 2 months
By cutting waste and simplifying the account, we helped this brand break away from slow growth and into scaling mode. They still want to move into the US at some point, however it’s still on hold for the time being.
Conclusion
We all want our brands to expand into new markets, however it’s really important to get the basics down first. With the right account structure, strategy, and right optimisations, we managed to help this brand a lot quicker than they thought was possible. Sometimes the changes are obvious when they’re highlighted to you, sometimes we just need an extra set of eyes to take a look under the hood.