Trellis helps Dandy Blend achieve 2x higher CTR using Amazon Ads Image Generator

Goals

In the competitive landscape of beverage alternatives, Dandy Blend emerged as a unique proposition: a caffeine-free herbal beverage that perfectly mimics coffee's taste and texture. As the bestseller in its category, the brand faced the crucial challenge of maintaining its position while seeking new avenues for growth. The campaign, which commenced in September 2024 and ran through January 2025, was born from the recognition that while their existing Sponsored Brands campaigns were performing adequately, there was untapped potential for enhancement.

The primary business challenge centered around defending their coveted top position while simultaneously discovering new opportunities for incremental sales growth. The brand's existing advertising approach, while functional, had become somewhat passive, creating an opening for strategic optimization and innovation. This scenario presented an ideal opportunity to demonstrate how small, strategic changes could yield significant business impacts.

Approach

Trellis, leveraging its position as a lead integration partner for Amazon Ads, developed an innovative strategy that would revolutionize Dandy Blend's creative approach. The core of their strategy centered on utilizing the Amazon Ads Image Generator, a powerful tool that would allow them to refresh their advertising creative while maintaining strict control over brand identity and tone.

The execution involved a methodical A/B testing approach, comparing the performance of original brand-created images against new AI-generated alternatives. Through their Amazon Ads API integration, Trellis generated over 200 images in various settings, carefully curating those that aligned with Dandy Blend's established brand aesthetic—morning scenes, cozy moments with warm beverages, and lifestyle imagery featuring their signature product.

The campaign utilized a comprehensive suite of Amazon Ads solutions, including Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and Amazon Marketing Stream for real-time insights, and Brand Stores for a cohesive brand presence. The team established a systematic review process, conducting bi-weekly check-ins to monitor campaign performance and make insights-driven adjustments.

Results

The campaign's results proved the power of innovative creative optimization. With comparable impression volumes, the AI-generated creative campaign demonstrated improvements across key performance metrics. The click-through rate nearly doubled, achieving 2,368 clicks at a 1.1% CTR compared to the original campaign's 1,292 clicks at 0.6%.¹

Perhaps most impressively, the new creative more than doubled conversions, jumping from 481 to 1,055.² This substantial improvement in engagement and conversion came with enhanced efficiency—the advertising cost of sale (ACOS) improved from 7.0% down to 6.8%, allowing for increased ad spend while maintaining profitability.³

The success of this campaign demonstrated that even well-performing advertising can be substantially improved through creative innovation. By embracing new tools and maintaining a rigorous testing approach, Dandy Blend and Trellis discovered a powerful new avenue for growth. The campaign's success has led to continued implementation of Image Generator content in Sponsored Brands campaigns, establishing a new benchmark for creative excellence in the brand's advertising strategy.

This case study exemplifies how combining innovative tools with strategic thinking can transform standard advertising practices into powerful engines of growth. The success has not only validated the effectiveness of AI-generated creative but has also established a new paradigm for how brands can approach creative optimization in their Amazon advertising efforts.

Sources

^1-3 Dandy Blend, US, 2024–2025.