Direct-to-consumer brand Buffy drives customer acquisition and business growth with sponsored ads

The company

Founded in 2017 and based in New York, Buffy is a direct-to-consumer brand that makes eco-friendly home goods. The company is known for its focus on sustainability, offering customers comforters and bedding products made from recycled plastic bottles and eucalyptus fibers. In October 2018, Buffy turned to full-service Amazon consultancy eShopportunity to help launch on Amazon.com.

The partnership

Viewing Amazon as a new and important channel to help drive continued business growth, Buffy wanted a team of specialists well versed on the latest Amazon Ads updates, best practices, and strategies to assist with the launch. eShopportunity offered not only this expertise but also the necessary experience, having helped similar emerging direct-to-consumer start-ups launch on Amazon and scale with Amazon Ads. While the Buffy team focused their efforts on supporting the Amazon sales channel, they let eShopportunity fully manage and report on its Amazon Ads efforts.

quoteUpHaving eShopportunity manage our advertising has allowed us to have more strategic focus on our business. We appreciate having one central entity that is responsible for and is attuned to the various moving parts related to our offering on Amazon, including promotions and product detail page optimizations.quoteDown
– Shoaib Kabani, Buffy Co-founder

The solution

Buffy looked to eShopportunity to help it achieve two key goals: (1) scale ad spend while delivering on a benchmark ACOS (advertising cost of sales), and (2) improve visibility for Buffy’s products on core, non-branded keywords. After working with the brand to update product detail pages and set up a Store, they began deploying both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns to these goals.

quoteUpFor higher-priced items like bedding products, it’s crucial to offer customers multiple touch points to help move them through their journey. By having the opportunity to show customers a Buffy Sponsored Brands ad, we believe we are increasing visibility of their products and helping to increase the chance that they’ll then click on one of Buffy’s Sponsored Products ads in the future.quoteDown
– Fahim Naim, eShopportunity Co-founder & CEO

Next, the consultancy outlined a keyword strategy for both Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands based on its experience with Amazon Ads. eShopportunity suggested a broader keyword focus, targeting common search terms like "comforter," "down comforter," and "king comforter." But considering the higher-than-average price points of their comforters, the Buffy team initially expressed concern with this approach. They wondered whether their premium products would fit the needs of audiences searching these more general terms.

However, the eShopportunity team remained confident in a broad keyword strategy. They explained that this broad keyword approach, coupled with the updated product detail pages and new Store and multiple advertising touchpoints, would help showcase Buffy’s product differentiators to a wider audience, ultimately contributing to increased product sales and expanded brand awareness.

Lastly, in an effort to gather results quickly, eShopportunity began every Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns with a medium-to-high keyword bid. With quick access to these performance-based learnings, the team could identify which keywords warranted further investment and optimize accordingly.

The results

As of October 2019, a little over a year after launching with eShopportunity, Buffy has generated over 30MM impressions through its use of Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns alongside the Buffy Store. This impression volume is a significant step towards generating awareness of the Buffy brand, as evident by the fact that 90% of sales attributed to advertising during this time period came from new-to-brand customers. In terms of Buffy’s goal to scale spend efficiently, eShopportunity’s Amazon Ads strategy has helped achieve an ACOS of 25% for Sponsored Brands and 22% for Sponsored Products. As the value of Buffy’s advertising investment continues to trend upward, Amazon Ads will remain a key element in the continued growth of the Buffy brand.

quoteUpFor products like ours, there is no shortage of options for customers to choose from on Amazon. Leveraging [Amazon Ads] allows us to get our brand in front of millions of shoppers on a daily basis. Even if Amazon is not your primary sales channel, I would advocate that Amazon Ads can have a positive impact on your non-Amazon business by helping you introduce your brand to customers that may not have looked for you otherwise.quoteDown
– Shoaib Kabani, Buffy Co-founder