Case Study: Twitter Ad “Test” Drives Major ROI for Wearable Tech Startup

Build. Activate. Click. Convert. Read on to find out how a quick Twitter advertising “test” drove big results (and sales!) for a wearable tech startup client:

Situation: In November 2014, a wearable tech startup introduced its first product. Prior to “opening” their online store, Geben had been helping the company use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to build a community of supporters and brand advocates. Then, as soon as the product was available for sale (and just in time for the holidays), our strategy shifted toward activating online audiences to purchase this wearable tech innovation. Part of our online strategy included advertising on Twitter. (That’s right. We’re a PR firm making advertising recommendations. While some continue to question whether paid social is a viable strategy, we prefer to skip the debate and provide valuable recommendations to our clients.)

Approach: We analyzed data from the client’s Google Analytics and found that Twitter was one of the top referral traffic sources, even though the network was smaller than some of the others we were managing. Armed with this information, we suggested allocating a small amount of dollars to test Twitter advertising in advance of Black Friday. We immediately saw an uptick in conversions, so we decided to expand the campaign through the rest of the holiday season.

Each ad was highly targeted and included a very specific call-to-action, guaranteeing the campaign would reach people likely to buy the product. Additionally, we created a few ads to leverage ESPN naming the product one of 2014’s must-have sports gifts.

Results: Minimal spending generated pretty impressive results for the two-week campaign, including a 30% click-to-conversion rate and less than $3 spent per conversion (according to the client, a much lower cost-per-conversion than their other PR/marketing efforts). And, knowing the least expensive item available for purchase in their store is $20, that means, at minimum, the campaign had a 600% return on investment.

The icing on the cake? Demonstrating to the client that social media could have a direct impact on the company’s bottom line, our Twitter ad “test” laid the foundation to incorporate more social selling initiatives in future sales campaigns – something especially important as the clients shifts its focus toward driving conversions in 2015.