A cohesive approach to retail and media drove sustainable growth for a supplements brand

The challenge: Sales trending down YoY for a supplements brand with a fragmented approach to retail and media

A prominent supplements brand was lured away from Flywheel’s combined retail and media services in favor of “quick wins” promised by another agency. The brand was satisfied with Flywheel’s retail management but chose to see what the other agency could offer on the media side. The result of this fragmented approach was diminishing returns – with YoY sales growth slowing from 110% to 10%. To win in commerce, retail and media teams need to be in constant collaboration to achieve the “Flywheel Effect.”

The brand then decided to hand retail management over to the other agency as well, further looking for quick solves for sales growth declining with this fragmented approach. Throughout this time, YoY sales growth turned to sales decline (sales down YoY from 10-15% over this period). Realizing the long-term value of Flywheel’s approach vs. the “quick wins” approach of the competitive agency, the brand decided to return to Flywheel’s combined retail and media services to get the business back on track.

The solution: Flywheel revamps media strategy and overhauls retail approach

Before we dig into the results – it's important to highlight why a unified strategy across retail and media matters. It might seem like no big deal to work on media and retail in silos. But the truth is, a successful Flywheel requires retail and media teams to work together as one area informs the other.

For example; Launching hundreds of new campaigns would be ineffective if items don’t have conversion-driving content. If subscribe and save offers are suppressed, a critical piece of building a brand’s long-term value is missing. If research isn’t conducted to determine what copy and content makes sense for a new product launch, a media campaign is unlikely to resolve any underlying issues. If products aren’t in stock and weeks of cover are a problem, campaign automation is going to be a struggle. And the list goes on...

When approached by this client, a few weeks were spent aligning on a new perspective and bringing this strategy to the point of execution. This involved developing a robust new media strategy and completely overhauling the brand's approach to retail.

This looked like:

A media strategy for sustainable growth

• Launching 400+ new campaigns to increase granularity, scalability, and automation
• Utilizing manual and automatic optimization and keyword harvesting to improve performance both YoY and PoP

Getting "Retail Ready"

• Building a new strategy for new product launches
• A/B testing with content, especially across main images to see what would resonate with consumers and convert
• Resolving offer suppressions for SnS items
• Updating the variation strategy
• Optimizing titles using priority keyword placements

The results: YoY sales see substantial growth

After a few months of ramp-up, the brand’s YoY sales have grown continuously, and we’ve seen sustainable growth – proving the value of a tailored strategy that combines retail and media efforts to create what we call “The Flywheel Effect”.

Interested in learning more about how Flywheel can drive growth for your business?

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