Key Metrics
63%
Revenue Increase YoY
97%
Impression Increase YoY
32%
Increase in Clicks YoY
Selling novelty gifts online can be an effective way to scale a business, but it presents unique challenges compared to traditional retail. Missing out on impulse buyers at the point of sale who were previously unfamiliar with your brand and products would top that list; however, establishing trust and validating rapport can be an uphill battle online as well. Here’s how Logical Position (LP) built a reliable direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce strategy for Bunnies by the Bay (BBTB) to introduce their brand of products to buyers most likely to convert.
About Bunnies by the Bay
Bunnies by the Bay, based in Anacortes, WA, was established in 1986 by sisters Suzanne Knutson and Krystal Kirkpatrick. BBTB began as a creative outlet for the sisters’ toy-making hobby and has since grown into a recognizable brand of plush toys and more. When it comes to gifts for baby showers, first birthdays, and holidays, BBTB captivates buyers with whimsical childhood keepsakes.
Hopping On New Opportunities
Facing a significant decline in performance with their previous agency, Bunnies by the Bay needed a fresh perspective to integrate their strategy and revitalize their e-commerce channel. With aspirations to transition their online acquisition strategies to an exclusive agency partner, BBTB was eager to implement a full-funnel omnichannel approach that took into account their organic and paid media efforts to sustain and eventually scale their digital advertising returns. Our team burrowed down and got to work.
Goals
Increase organic rankings for targeted collections.
Reduce inefficient ad spend with a dynamic cross-channel strategy.
Leverage new opportunities on social media to drive brand awareness.
Establish a full-funnel strategy to align with ROAS targets.
Business Impact
By taking a holistic full-funnel approach, our team was able to increase branded search volume for BBTB and elevate cross-channel visibility, ensuring they capture all available market share for target search terms and keywords. These tactics drove new users back to their website and pushed BBTB higher up the SERP (search engine results page), which has resulted in broader visibility and additional revenue for the business.
Google Summit
February 2024, Google’s Portland office and LP co-hosted the BBTB team at a Google Summit in Q1 to analyze account performance in advance of the 2024 Easter shopping season. These intimate learning sessions offer a unique opportunity to workshop new tactics directly with leadership at Google, alongside account teams from Logical Position. Based on these meetings, we devised a plan of attack to win for the client.
The LP Analysis
- We saw movement in Easter products starting the first week of March, and they trailed off about a week before the holiday
- Advertisers start sales earlier, in which case we recommend beginning to push for Easter after Valentine’s Day.
- Focus on top Easter performers from last season.
Account Recommendations
- Pushing PMax has been most effective for account scaling.
- Re-segment top Easter products into their own PMax campaign to break out these items.
- Set up a manual Easter-focused shopping campaign to serve as an Easter catch-all.
- Allocate up to $20.8K/month.
Account Trend
How We Made It Happen
Our strategy leveraged SEO to sustain the business long-term and relied on paid social campaigns to introduce the brand to new buyers. Meanwhile, PPC ensured brand capture and search visibility across e-commerce shopping to occupy as much digital shelf space as possible.
Paid Search
Based on insights from our onboarding account audit, we established new KPIs and rebuilt the search campaigns accordingly. We segmented PMax campaigns by product type to scale efficiencies and align budget with their seasonal promotions for stuffed animals, books, dolls, and baby gifts. To further enhance performance, our team deployed Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to fill in any keyword gaps with content built from their website relevant to a user’s search query. The remaining products maintained a manual build to garner more control over ad spend. Further, we differentiated our branded search terms between general and high volume to ensure our team had visibility into potential market opportunities out of the original scope.
Cross Channel Impact:
- Our display and demand generation remarketing campaigns aided our brand awareness objectives on paid social by keeping the brand top of mind with consumers.
- DSA campaigns leveraged SEO content to provide shoppers with ads relevant to their queries.
- Holiday-specific social media campaigns drove higher funnel traffic, which made our nonTM search campaigns more effective.
Merchandising the Data Feed
Paid Social
We tested a variety of creatives to refine our prospecting campaigns on social media to introduce the brand to new buyers. We targeted audiences based on historical pixel data combined with general-interest audiences to serve high-performing ad deliverables. Finding the sweet spot, we were able to provide a lift to our overall account ROAS with a 1x return from our prospecting campaigns, which typically acts as a top-of-funnel loss leader. To further drive social commerce, our mid-funnel campaigns targeted site visitors and ad engagers with dynamic product ads (DPA) relevant to a user’s browsing history, previous interactions, or items left in their shopping carts, which resulted in 65% of purchases campaign-wide alone.
Cross Channel Impact:
- We targeted a 1% lookalike audience generated from paid search to identify prospective clientele on social media.
- Site visitors from SEO efforts were funneled back into our remarketing campaigns.
Organic Rankings
The SEO objective for Bunnies by the Bay was to enhance their overall keywords with an emphasis on first-page ranking. After conducting an on-site analysis to optimize product pages with keyword targets, our team focused on rankings for search terms centered around their most popular collections to make an immediate impact. Building from a solid foundation, our content strategy produced consistent blogs to signal search engines about their most recent product offerings and recurring themes.
Cross Channel Impact:
- SEO served as the backbone of DSAs providing users with content-based ads specific to their searches.
- SEO pioneered seasonal promotions with information relevant to upcoming shoppers, such as holiday sales and seasonal promotions.
- Paid social brand awareness drove TM search terms that were captured by SEO rankings and search ads.
Impact
By taking a holistic marketing approach, we significantly enhanced BBTB’s online visibility and brand engagement, bringing in higher returns and more revenue for the business. Using our SEO content as the backbone of our messaging, our team built long-term equity in various product lines for BBTB that could be capitalized through search ads and social media. Ultimately, we’ve surpassed all key performance metrics, which has increased organic rankings, revenue, and overall brand impact for the client.
Tips For Achieving Similar Results
Fine-tune your website content and blog strategy to assist dynamic cross-channel automations to deliver the most relevant ads possible.
Segment automated campaigns by product category to provide greater control over ad spend and rely on manual builds to isolate low-volume items, while still giving them visibility.
Identify interest-based audiences relevant to your industry and test new ad creatives with them to find what resonates.
Double down on your website UX to ease point-of-sale conversions and enable opportunities for product bundles with ancillary items.
Always focus on low-funnel acquisitions before moving up the sales funnel. While doing so, determine separate KPIs for prospecting and brand awareness campaigns.
Is your business ready to hop at new opportunities? If so, reach out today to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation account audit and campaign review to make sure your digital strategy is a “hare” ahead of the competition.
