Case study: CLIQ Chair
30% profit increase despite smaller ad budget
Efficient growth
Increase profit on tighter ad spend
CLIQ invented the ‘water bottle-sized chair,’ blending portability, comfort, and easy setup. CLIQ had already achieved strong growth via a paid social and paid shopping strategy. Our task was to continue this trajectory by opening up new channels and audiences, in the wake of iOS 14 and collapse of 3rd-party tracking cookies.
Scope & Goals
Our work with CLIQ uncovered deep insights into how the Facebook/Instagram algorithms optimize ads and build audiences. Extensive content and targeting tests provided feedback on which types of content and messaging drive growth at every stage of the funnel.
Paid social content testing / Remarketing uplift test / Non-brand shopping hack
Paid social content testing
With Facebook losing accurate revenue attribution, CLIQ’s ad strategy had deteriorated into bottom-of-funnel campaigns featuring product photos with discount offers. At the same time, cost-per-impressions were hitting record highs. This combination left CLIQ’s growth trajectory looking a lot less stable.
Our Solution
Quiet Owl helped CLIQ refocus on a full-funnel strategy. Through creative testing, broader targeting, and user-generated content, we helped lower costs, broaden reach, and improve ROI. A key learning: content variety was crucial to reducing CPCs and impression costs during peak season.
Key Benefits
- Lower CPMs
- Broader reach
- Higher CTR
- Stronger ROAS
Remarketing uplift test
CLIQ previously invested heavily in retargeting. ROAS looked strong in platform, but very weak in Google Analytics. Our strategy was to allocate a larger portion of the budget to prospecting. However, CLIQ was concerned that reducing remarketing would weaken overall performance.
Our Solution
Quiet Owl designed and executed a remarketing uplift test. Using a random traffic split, half of website users were tagged for ‘re-marketing audience A’ and the other half for ‘remarketing audience B.’ Audience A then received 3 times the remarketing ad budget of audience B. By tracking total revenue for each audience – regardless of their interaction with ads or attributed revenue – the results confirmed with a high degree of certainty that bloated remarketing budgets oversaturated prospects and had a negative overall effect on marketing efficiency.
Key Benefits
- Less dependency on re-marketing
- Improved overall efficiency
- More accurate performance data
Creative hack for non-brand shopping campaign
CLIQ spent aggressively on paid social to build awareness. However, we examined Google Shopping campaigns and found CLIQ was paying a hefty premium to capture their own brand traffic (i.e. ensure prospects would purchase at cliq.com and not Amazon or a competitor). The result: a large portion of the Google budget was spent on brand marketing rather than actual prospecting.
Our Solution
CLIQ wanted to know how much was actually spent on prospecting and how performance compared to brand marketing. However, with shopping ads you can’t specify which keywords products will show up for, which makes distinguishing brand from prospecting very challenging. Yet Quiet Owl devised a strategy using negative keyword lists, allowing CLIQ to separate brand and non-brand spend on Google Shopping – something previously thought to be impossible.
Key Benefits
- Prioritize prospecting new customers
- Clarity on shopping prospecting vs brand performance
- Flexibility to shift budget between brand & prospecting
Results: less spend, better ROAS, greater profit
Despite a tougher economy and rising ad costs, a more efficient ad strategy increased CLIQ’s revenue and profitability
-21%
Less ad spend (non-Amazon)
18%
ROAS improvement (non-Amazon)
7%
Total revenue increase
30%
Total profit growth
CLIENT APPROVED
“Coming from Sonos where digital transformation and multi-touch customer journey’s were forefront, I had high standards for what I was looking for in a performance marketing agency. Quiet Owl applies their ‘listen-first’ approach to crafting a full-funnel strategy that delivers on our aligned objectives. They are candid with their advice, open to constructive criticism, and they often over deliver on expectations. 100% recommended.”
Mike Zapata | CEO
