At EmberTribe, we like to emphasize that we don’t just run paid ads, we build predictable, sustainable growth systems that allow businesses to reliably scale. A sustainable growth system means all of the parts of your marketing strategy are working smoothly and, most importantly, working together.
So while PPC agencies can drive traffic to your site, they’re not providing you with the tools you need to improve your conversion rate, pivot your messaging, and build research-driven creative that can be iterated and optimized.
That’s a lot of words, but what do they really mean in action? Let’s dive into the growth success story of eCommerce cocktail mixer company, Proof Syrup, who we’ve been partnering with for over a year.
EmberTribe creates a campaign map and launches a tailored strategy for every client. Some agencies prescribe a one-size-fits all growth strategy, but our growth specialists take the time to roll up their sleeves and build a growth strategy from the ground up.
A big part of that process revolves around building a solid foundation based on research, testing, and optimization.
We started out by doing in-depth audience research and competitive analysis. This would help us identify messaging that would resonate with potential customers and create valuable touchpoints for audiences. Without understanding your audience, your competitors, and your unique value proposition, you’re setting yourself up for a constant struggle. With these things fully hammered out, you have a solid foundation to build the rest of your campaigns on.
From this research, we moved on to audience targeting and, ultimately, a campaign map.
We engaged in rapid testing to find ads that would convert sales. Within the first three months, we were able to increase Facebook ad sales by 100%. We also utilized Google and Amazon to beef up Proof Syrup’s paid ad presence.
One notable example of rapid testing that provided huge returns came from an ad creative we ran for Top of Funnel traffic. We realized that it was hard to get volume at ToFu with at least a 2X ROAS because a lot of customers or potential customers objected to the price of the product (saying it was too expensive). A growth specialist created the ad below, which directly addressed the customer objection by pointing out that cost per cocktail compared to bar prices is actually very affordable.
This ad alone brought in 103 purchases with 2X ROAS, telling us that this message resonates with audiences and could easily be iterated and optimized for huge returns!
Between testing ad creative, keywords, audience targeting and various other experiments, we have helped Proof Syrup build a strong customer base that, in the long run, will become returning customers and brand evangelists.
As sales began to take off across paid ads, we were better able to identify funnel leaks and offer recommendations for aligning marketing efforts with advertising campaigns. For example, we noticed that a few Instagram ads had received negative comments. This is common for brands who run ads, but if comments aren’t addressed they can change a consumer’s impression of a brand they are just learning about. We also provided some guidance on responding to customer emails to help our client hone in on the customer experience side of marketing.
This is what we call a full-funnel approach to marketing, and is a critical part of building a growth system. We don’t just run paid ads, we run paid ads and engineer strong sales funnels from end-to-end that ensure predictable growth.
Some initiatives we were able to implement to engineer Proof Syrup’s growth system include:
Paid ads are a powerful tool for growing a business, but they are not the only tool. We were able to help Proof Syrup scale from scratch to a million dollar business in 8 months because this client understood that slow and steady wins the race. We built a growth system that went beyond paid traffic to bring in growth marketing strategies that allow for predictable and sustainable growth over time.
We were able to test ads to validate campaigns that achieved sales. Proof Syrup went from spending about $2500 a month for a single channel to 6 figure ad spend per month and achieving $1M in revenue.
Our team employed some strategies to increase average order value, which would help each dollar of ad spend go further. We built out email sequences to re-engage and reconvert Proof Syrup customers and created offer bundles to entice buyers to ad more product to their carts.
We utilized SEO to bring in organic traffic, beefed up an email list that gets around 20k clicks per month, an ran Snapchat ads with a 3x ROAS. Our team was able to achieve all of this because we didn't rely on Facebook as the main source of sales, but rather tested different approaches to finding converting audiences.
No hacks or “get rich quick” schemes, just good old fashioned (get it? 🥃) marketing done right.
We scaled at a constant, yet slow rate that didn't shock any campaign learnings, but let us keep gradually upping spend, which compounds on itself quickly. Proof Syrup really hit their uptick in late February 2020, and together we've reached the "never look back" phase of scaling as we continue to spend more and more each day for more and more returns.
No two growth systems will look alike, but every growth system engineer by EmberTribe is custom-built for the same reason: to help your business grow. We’re proud of our partnership with Proof Syrup and raise a glass to their continued success!
