+230%
Revenue
12
Months
+72%
Transactions
DATE:
November 22, 2023
MARTECH IN ACTION:
ActiveCampaign, Hotjar, Google Analytics, BuzzSumo, Facebook Ads, Fanpage Karma
IN A NUTSHELL:
A video ad on Facebook incurs higher initial costs, which are justified in scenarios involving substantial advertising budgets or in advanced, competitive markets. While the click-through rate isnât significantly higher compared to image ads, the Cost Per Click (CPC) for Facebook video ads can be as low as half of that for static image or carousel advertisements.
A surprising finding is that the higher engagement rate of Facebook video ads persists even on the landing page, leading to a notably higher quantity of leads, even in B2B contexts.
01. About the client
VasbĂștor is a dynamically growing webshop, offering furniture and home accessories to its customers on the Hungarian market and all the neighboring countries.
The Shopify Plus-powered online store stands out from the crowd thanks to its exceptional quality for the price, outstanding visual material and an ever-evolving, uncompromised technology stack.Â
Even in the world of premium agencies, collaborations like the one between VasbĂștor and 7digits rarely produce growth this extraordinary. More than the specific miracles and spells used for ads or even UI, this webshop case study focuses on the workflow practices that helped to achive these results.
An extraordinary gift
Rarely does a potential client come to 7digits with an advanced marketing technology stack. In contrary, tipically itâs the duty of 7digits to establish the necessary tech environment before any marketing-related activity could be started.
This is why we had a soft spot for Vasbutor from the very beginning: we could initiate our marketing efforts from the heart of all the action.
We began working with Vasbutor at the end of July 2022. In alignment with the agreed-upon schedule, our first task was to optimize their email marketing automation. This priority was due to the low return-to-customer rate of just 1.7% â a figure that was significantly below par. In situations like these, automation has proven to be one of the most effective solution.
After refining the setup to perfection, we embarked on a series of steps to optimize our approach. We first cleaned up an imported contact list of 40,000 individuals in the existing Klaviyo account. We performed data enrichment, implemented technical automation, and modified all the sign-up forms site-wide.
To ensure optimal results, we ran a series of A/B tests, fully leveraging the high volume of traffic. The results were remarkable. Instead of the benchmark 1% sign-up rate, we achieved a rate more than five times higher, surpassing 5% on average.
During the initial six weeks, the majority of our revenue came from email campaigns, while our three e-commerce automations gradually began to yield results. However, by the end of the year, these automations had dramatically picked up the pace, generating twice the revenue of all the campaigns combined.
02. The Crash
The thrill of a pre-planned crash
Metrics fine-tuning was taking place in parallel with email marketing, we knew that Googleâs smart shopping campaigns were set to transition to the then-new Performance Max ad type, which would temporarily flush the previously about 5% return on investment down the toilet.
But we took a deep breath and still made the change, because we wanted to have the more efficient PMax ads up and running in time for the holiday season. And even though we knew what would happen, it would still be an understatement to say that nothing could have mentally prepared us for the immediate consequences⊠đ
As a result of the PMax upgrade, the ROAS (Return on Ad Spending) has basically dropped from an A+ to a D-, turning the entire advertising operation into a loss, despite the monthly spending of millions. PMax was a brand new format at the time and we didnât even know the high-end Performance Max campaign tricks ourselves. Twice a day we were going through the same thing with the performance marketing department: should we take action or wait?
In the end, we always decided to wait â and our patience was rewardedâŠ
Relief and fine-tuning
Fortunately, the extra revenue from email automation almost completely made up for the missing advertising return, while the PMax return started to slowly close the gap. Soon the campaignsâ return was 6.5 ROASâat which point we started to cautiously increase the budget, but only by 10-15%, to avoid the campaign going back into a learning phase.
We began the month of November with a goal of HUF 100 million in monthly revenue; however, we had run out of our actual trump cards and instead had to rely on meticulous optimization.
With some fine-tuning of our emails, we were able to triple the percentage of repeat customers (for whom the CAC is zero) which, by the way, is already above 17% by March 2023 compared to the initial 1.4%. We also continued to increase the Google budget carefully and suggested a few optimization tricks on the site itself.
Also to improve email performance, we started to monitor campaigns with a tool called Litmus, and although the last few days were very intense, we managed to hit our November revenue goal of over HUF 100 million, saving this webshop case study from cancellation.
03. The Recipe
A 300% increase in an already high-traffic webshop in a single quarter is not an everyday achievement, even for 7digits clients. We did a lot of in-house analysis on the circumstances that made this possible and identified a combination of 4 critical factors:
- An uncompromising MarTech stackâthe combination of Shopify Plus and Klaviyo.
- Forced-flow paid trafficâboth in terms of spending and optimization.
- Near 24/7, immediate, high level and ongoing management support, collaboration and delegation.
- Wise patienceâwhen it was needed.
It is worth reflecting on the above, because these factors are indeed rarely present at the same time. If youâre curious to know how we moved on from here and what technologies we used to continue building VasbĂștor, contact us or the management of VasbĂștor and weâll be happy to tell you about it; or read the case study of the Convoy webshop, which âonlyâ pushed sales up to half a billion, but was an equally exciting challenge.
