Case Study
For a small business like Loftie, Amazon Ads helps their customers sleep easy at night
Goals
- Reach more customers
- Build awareness of their brand’s mission to help customers sleep better
- Educate customers on the value of their premium product
Approach
- Implemented a cross-product strategy using Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display to connect with a robust audience
- Used Sponsored Brands video to highlight the product’s key benefits and increase consideration
- Launched the campaign near the holidays to capitalize on the peak shopping period
Results
- Return on ad spend (ROAS) of $5.66
- Advertising cost of sale (ACOS) of 17.68%
- Click-through rate of 1.06%, which put them in the 75th percentile for their category
Matt Hassett, the founder of Loftie, launched the brand to help his customers disconnect from their phones and get a better sleep.
In 2017, Matt Hassett was an entrepreneur in residence at the design firm IDEO in New York City when he noticed that his friends and colleagues were having trouble unplugging from their technology. “So many people were struggling to figure out how to balance their online life with the rest of their life,” he remembers. “I was having a hard time managing how much I was on my phone, too. This was before tech firms started to release products even to track how much we’re on our devices.”
So Hassett set out to develop a new approach to help himself and those around him find more harmony with their gadgets. After experimenting with a few ideas, including an app, Hassett created Loftie, a brand that helps customers disconnect from their phones and get better sleep with products that artfully employ environmental and behavioral design to shift habits, beginning with the brand’s signature smart alarm clock.
“Many people keep their phones in the bedroom as their alarm clock. It’s an easy justification for why you need to bring it into bed. But if you leave it in another room, you can create boundaries and separation from your phone, which is key to getting good sleep,” Hassett says. “That resonated with people, and it’s the core of our messaging.”
Throughout 2018 and 2019, Hassett worked to design a smart alarm clock that could help users disconnect from their phones at night. After months of research and surveys and diving deep into customer pain points, he shipped the first Loftie alarm clocks in 2020. At first, Loftie had a lot of success, thanks to press coverage and buzz from word of mouth and social media.
But Hassett also knew that Amazon was an important place to start growing his small business. In 2021, Loftie started selling in Amazon’s store and began using Amazon Ads to help reach more customers. “You just have to be there—especially for a small, direct-to-consumer brand early on,” Hassett says. “You’re using the ads to get you into position and then relying on the organic nature of shopping on Amazon to take you even further. You’re trying to jump into a current and stay in it.”
By 2022, Loftie was ready to continue growing on Amazon, and launched a robust Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display campaign to connect with a bigger audience.
The Loftie smart alarm clock, which helps users disconnect from their phones at night, first shipped in 2020.
After early growth with the help of Amazon Ads, Loftie has launched new products, including a lamp designed for sleep.
In 2022 Loftie continued to grow on Amazon with a campaign to connect with a bigger audience.
Informing more customers about a better night’s sleep
After the early growth from press, word of mouth, and Amazon Ads, Loftie had launched more products—including a lamp designed for sleep—and was in a position to compete with bigger brands, Hassett says. In 2022, Loftie set out to build awareness of their mission and products to help customers sleep better with an improved tech/life balance. To achieve these goals, Loftie launched a campaign that included Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and more Sponsored Display ads—especially near the holidays.
“We’re a small business and have a small fraction of the funding of some of these other brands, and our thinking was, How can we compete? What can we do to present ourselves as a better choice for shoppers?” Hassett says.
Loftie also focused on Sponsored Brands video, which they used to highlight the key benefits of their products for customers. With video ads, Loftie was able to communicate with customers how their alarm clock stands out from others, which helped increase consideration and allowed them to better stand out in their category.
“The challenge for our brand is that we’re a premium product, and we have to make sure we’re being really clear about what you’re getting—it’s not just an alarm clock; you’re getting a white-noise machine, a Bluetooth speaker, and lifetime free access to content that updates and changes over time,” Hassett says. “Our focus is much more on sharing that value proposition.”
In 2021, Loftie started selling in Amazon’s store and began using Amazon Ads to help reach more customers. “You just have to be there—especially for a small, direct-to-consumer brand early on,” Hassett says.
Benefiting a small business with a sound Amazon Ads strategy
In 2022, Loftie’s Sponsored Products campaigns saw an average return on ad spend (ROAS) of $5.66 and an advertising cost of sale (ACOS) of 17.68%. Meanwhile the brand’s Sponsored Brands campaigns had a click-through rate of 1.06%, which put them in the 75th percentile for their category.
“We definitely saw this as a success,” Hassett says. “We want to use Amazon Ads to position ourselves to be a premium product for sleep. The ads help you get into that position to reach customers browsing on Amazon. Then it’s up to you to make the case on your product page and ship a product customers love.”
For small businesses, Hassett says, Amazon Ads can be an important place to grow a brand and reach audiences.
“You’ve got to be selling on Amazon. And you need to start by using Amazon Ads to help get you out of the wilderness. You can use the ads to help build yourself in your product category,” Hassett says. “If you’re just starting out, you invest in the ads, then you prove yourself with a really good product that customers are going to be happy with.”
In 2023, Hassett says his focus is on increasing Loftie’s conversion rate on Amazon and the brand’s sales over time. This will include more investments into Sponsored Display and a full-funnel strategy to help grow the brand.
1-2 Source: Agency povided data, United States, 2023.