Brick-and-Mortar Case Study

The goal of the project was to increase revenue generated by the client's biggest yearly event: A weekend sale. This event was held across 24 brick-and-mortar locations and had become a highly anticipated sale among customers familiar with the brand.

I took on this project ahead of the 2022 event, tasked with increasing revenue without an increase in budget. The client's digital strategy in previous years had been to use Meta Ads and organic social posts to build anticipation, strictly among audiences who were familiar with the brand. Due to a heavy focus on existing clientele, revenue growth of the weekend event had stagnated in recent years.

Since this event was strictly held at physical locations, I focused the Paid Advertising strategy around driving relevant traffic to storefronts. I placed a heavier focus on new customer acquisition in order to support year-over-year revenue growth. Budget was split 50/50 between existing and new customers to facilitate this without forgoing short-term revenue.

The new customer acquisition strategy was to hone in on highly relevant audiences, and present value through messaging that fit the target market. Targeting on Meta Ads consisted of a mix between Lookalikes of brand loyalists and broad targeting, first driving awareness through a Video Views campaign. I then created custom audiences of users who engaged with the ads and pushed them towards an event signup campaign, where I could generate measurable intent to purchase.

Knowing that the target market was particularly concerned with price and quality, these were the main focuses of ad messaging. We launched 8 creative variations, each distinctly different in messaging in order to reach the market from several angles. This allowed Meta's algorithm to learn which messaging resonated best with who, driving the best results.

In 2022, I was able to deliver the the most successful weekend in company history, both in terms of total revenue and return on ad spend. I was able to increase event response volume by 172% while decreasing Cost / Response by 29%. 

In 2023, I doubled down on the same strategy, further focusing budget towards new customer acquisition. For the second straight year, I was able to deliver the most successful weekend in company history. With a 20% higher budget, I was able to increase event response volume by an additional 87% while further driving down Cost / Response by 26%. Continuous improvement in 2023 was a product of growth in the existing customer base following efforts in 2022. This allowed me to deliver a lower overall Cost / Response, as existing customers came at a much lower cost.