Codastar Increases Client’s Christmas Sales by 18%

Case Study: Facebook Promotion and Social Media Marketing

The Brief

The Brief

Online retailer 1948 Original Equipment specialize in outdoor activity gear and clothing. They called on Codastar to find new ways of selling their products and to provide new streams of income for the business. The firm were not present on any social media platforms, and had not thought that they could sell their products on social media. Codastar were pretty sure we could get them doing just that.

The Solution

The Solution

Focusing on Facebook, we developed bespoke apps and e-commerce applications for the firm. Alongside these we set up targeted advertising campaigns, aiming to increase traffic to 1948 OE’s Page and boost their number of ‘likes.’ From extensive audience research we identified specific groups that would make the most likely potential clients and targeted the campaigns at them. The big drive was to get Facebook users to make purchases with 1948 OE.

The firm’s owner Andrew McRobb explains

We are an online business which sells equipment and clothing for outdoor expeditions. For Christmas, we used Facebook to attract new customers to our site to buy snow shovels and winter-related equipment. Codastar took a two-pronged approach:

  1. A special offers page with necessary calls-to-action and information.
  2. Placing adverts to various groups who were identified as having a potential interest in the product or promotion.

This approach worked amazingly well to increase our “likes” fourfold, and increased sales for this period by 18%.

How we did it

How We Did It

The promoted items were especially well chosen. That winter saw heavy snowfall, and the snow shovel in the offer quickly became very popular. We selected a range of products that would make ideal Christmas gifts, identifying which would be likely female-to-male presents and vice versa.

For certain items we would, say, target female users looking for Christmas presents for their partners, but not men – reflecting the present-buying trend at the store. At the same time we could target men looking to buy themselves presents!

We selected a range of products that would make ideal Christmas gifts

1948 Original Equipment Facebook Timeline

We then designed apps where the items would be displayed with Christmas messages relevant to the group being targeted. It was important to give the adverts a destination that could convert traffic into business, with clear calls to action, so we developed specific landing pages (special offers tabs in this case) for everything. The tabs maximised conversion by taking users to the goods they had seen advertised – without them people would have simply given up and left 1948 OE with a costly, ineffective campaign.

1948 Original Equipment Facebook Timeline

While promoting products on Google is all about keywords, the advantage of Facebook is that campaigns can be targeted using the information users give about themselves (age, gender, location, interests, what they’ve ‘Liked’, people browsing from a certain device, who make charitable donations, who have particular shopping habits…) – maximising the effectiveness of promotions.

The advantage of Facebook is that campaigns can be
targeted using the information users give about themselves

With 1948 Original Equipment we made a comprehensive study of Facebook users, identifying several demographics who would potentially be interested in the products available (we came up with things like people interested in camping, people interested in bushcraft and survival, and people with similar interests looking for Christmas presents…).

We then divided each interest group even further so that we could create very specific adverts to target them (things like: female 18-26, female 27 – 36, male 18-26…).

Data Analysis

Data analysis, review and improvement

With everything set up and running it was easy to track and compare what worked and what didn’t. We could easily see the most receptive gender and age groups.

We’d also created several competitive variants of all the adverts, so we could test the most effective wording and imagery. What didn’t work would be turned off, and what did work got the extra advertising cash spent on it.

We continued to use the results to tweak all of the adverts and improve their performance. The result was to have everything running at its most efficient – with a healthy return on the money spent on advertising. We could work out who was actually buying, and target them.

The entire time we were running all of these campaigns we were gathering data about 1948 Original Equipment’s audience and client base. We have developed a comprehensive picture of people’s preferences and shopping habits. All of this data can be re-used for other campaigns. In fact we are doing this now for 1948 OE’s range of Frost River goods.

Data Analysis Data Analysis

The Results

The Results

The whole process supplied not only an incredible boost to 1948 Original Equipment’s Facebook presence (with a 400% increase in likes for the firm on Facebook), but also saw increased traffic to the 1948 OE site. Most importantly, in monetary terms the Facebook campaigns provided an 18% rise in sales over the firm’s key Christmas period.

400%
increase in likes

INcreased traffic to website

18%
rise in sales over
Christmas period