Stackline helps Seresto grow brand awareness by 10 points with a full-funnel strategy

Goals

Elanco Animal Health’s Seresto flea and tick collar had built strong brand recognition over years of category leadership, with search volume growing year-over-year. Yet, awareness was not translating into sales. The flea and tick category had expanded to 437 active brands, and shoppers were increasingly disengaging during purchase evaluation – creating a gap between search growth and conversion.

The challenge was not awareness itself, but what happened after it. With hundreds of brands in the category, even shoppers who searched for Seresto were exploring alternatives before purchasing. Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) analysis confirmed the pattern: customers needed multiple touchpoints across different formats to move from recognition to purchase decision.

Seresto partnered with Stackline, an Amazon Ads advanced partner that helps brands build full-funnel strategies, to build an integrated full-funnel experience. They needed to reinforce Seresto’s eight-month protection value proposition at every stage, guide shoppers fluidly from discovery through evaluation to purchase, and prove that upper-funnel investment directly influenced downstream conversion. The campaign needed to reach new pet owners at scale while re-engaging existing audiences who had stalled in the consideration phase.

Approach

Stackline designed the full-funnel media strategy and orchestrated execution across Amazon Ads products, partnering with Amazon’s Brand Innovation Lab to launch the “Runway” creative campaign. The creative emphasized Seresto’s core differentiator – eight months of continuous protection – and was adapted for each format while maintaining narrative consistency. Stackline developed a coordinated cross-format activation strategy that sequenced streaming TV, online video, Amazon DSP, Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products based on observed customer behaviour.

To build awareness at scale, streaming TV ads via Prime Video and Fire TV, along with online video across Amazon Publisher Direct and third-party exchanges, reached pet owners in lean-back viewing environments. The diversified supply strategy maximized unique audience exposure, ultimately reaching 16.8 million unique users.

To deepen consideration, Amazon DSP display ads and Sponsored Brands video reinforced product benefits and moved shoppers into active evaluation. Creative messaging shifted from emotional storytelling to rational value comparison, helping pet owners understand why Seresto’s long-lasting protection offers more value than monthly alternatives.

To capture purchase intent, Sponsored Products and display ads engaged high-intent shoppers at the point of decision.

AMC connected the entire journey. Stackline leveraged AMC to map customer paths, identify the highest-converting exposure sequence and continuously optimize investment across the funnel. These insights informed budget allocation, creative sequencing and custom audience building. Performance+ AI then automated optimization across all tactics, continuously refining delivery to maximize efficiency throughout the journey.

Results

The “Runway” campaign delivered measurable impact across every funnel stage. At the awareness level, brand awareness increased 10 points among ad-exposed audiences, measured via Amazon Brand Lift.¹ Streaming TV reached 16.8 million unique users, while Prime Video alone reached 11.5 million unique users and generated over 6,700 branded searches on Amazon.²

Consideration metrics demonstrated strong mid-funnel progression: 61% of customers acquired through display tactics were new-to-brand, proving the campaign successfully reached shoppers beyond Seresto’s existing audience.³ Brand Store traffic surged 660% on launch day versus the prior 58-day average and remained elevated, demonstrating sustained engagement with the brand experience.⁴

At conversion, AMC revealed the full story. The optimal customer journey – video to display ads to sponsored ads – achieved a purchase rate 3–5X higher than those exposed to a single touchpoint, validating the integrated approach.⁵ Critically, 90% of Seresto’s ad-attributed sales came from paths that began with video or display campaigns, proving that upper-funnel investment directly influenced downstream purchase behaviour.⁶

Beyond immediate conversion, the campaign strengthened long-term brand engagement. Brand Store traffic remained elevated well beyond launch day, and the surge in visitors created a sustained audience of pet owners who continued to explore Seresto’s product range – building the foundation for repeat consideration during future flea and tick seasons.

The campaign also drove operational efficiency: video spend decreased 16% while impressions grew 34%, detail page view rate improved 14%, and click-through rates grew 532% – demonstrating that the “Runway” creative resonated strongly across formats.⁷

This success demonstrates what becomes possible when a brand connects every stage of the customer journey into a single, cohesive experience. By combining advanced measurement, audience intelligence, creative sequencing, and AI-powered optimization, Stackline helped Seresto convert broad awareness into measurable business outcomes while establishing a repeatable framework for future seasonal campaigns. Seresto didn’t just grow awareness; they built a system for turning new pet owners into loyal customers.

Sources

^1–7 Stackline, U.S., 2025