case study

A Breath of Fresh Air: Colorfil’s Air-Tight Amazon Strategy

Industry
Home
Improvement
Company size
10+ 
Location
Illinois
(Home base)
Year founded
2017
Services
Amazon

Introduction

Imagine breathing easier and enjoying a home that always smells fresh—Colorfil air filters make this a reality. Every breath you take in your home becomes a breeze with Colorfil. Colorfil ventured into the home improvement industry with a mission to revolutionize air quality. However, like many businesses, they faced the challenge of growing revenue and attracting the right audience to their products while maintaining efficiency and minimizing unnecessary spending.

This case study is a testament to Colorfil's journey and the remarkable partnership with Pilothouse. Together, we tackled these challenges head-on, paving the way for exceptional growth and success.

All Killer, No Filler

Jamie Bond (Cofounder at RUX) joined Eric Dyck on the DTC Podcast to recap their experience in prepping, testing offers and creative, building a community of creators, and ultimately scaling their business during the frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2022.

Check out DTC’s podcast with the RUX and Pilothouse team providing insights and strategies on how we increased YoY revenue and ROAS during Q4. The podcast covers topics such as pilot testing to uncover new audiences, offer testing for optimal performance, lead generation for sales optimization, and turning customers and creators into brand storytellers.

Summary of Results

3.79x
Monthly top-line revenue YoY
(April 2023 vs April 2022)
23%
Improved monthly TACOS (total advertising cost of sale) YoY
200%
Increased monthly detail
page views
260%
Increased shipped subscribe and save revenue
340%
Increased subscriber count

The Kickoff

The Kickoff

Our strategy began with thorough keyword research, listing imagery revamping, and SEO enhancements. We made full use of PPC advertising, focusing primarily on exact and phrase match types. We built over 1,100 PPC campaigns, targeting 1,900 unique keywords and competitor targets. This granularity allowed for informed adjustments, scaling up strong performers and reining in poor ones.

The Strategy

Focusing on the middle and bottom of their funnel. We extensively utilized sponsored product ads to reach customers, and segmented their product line to target different groups of new and returning customers. Our team meticulously optimized bids daily to capitalize on high-performing segments, managing over 870 unique campaigns targeting different keywords.


We executed our CRO and SEO strategy to revamp product photos, descriptions, and A+ content, working with our in-house creative team to develop high-performing, visually appealing assets. Our creative and media teams shared insights to develop a successful, data-backed creative strategy that worked in tandem with our media efforts.

1

Restructuring the ad account

When we first started working with LLUME, we noticed that their account frequency was higher than we’d usually like to see, which can lead to burnout from the audience’s perspective. As a segue into other changes, such as the audience matrix, we adjusted this and then tackled their segmentation and campaigns. 

In order to effectively restructure an ad account, there’s a few key campaigns that Pilothouse utilizes to see where improvements can be made. For LLUME, we decided that an audience matrix, a campaign that we run to test various audiences amongst ad sets with our winning creative formats, would be the best bet to hone in on. One particular winner in our lookalike audience testing was taken off of our client’s giveaway email list alongside success in interest stackers, mainly targeted towards other brands that our ideal consumer would be attracted to.

Optimizing our strategy at the top of the funnel to acquire high-quality leads is a heavy focus that we provide for our clients. The Pilothouse team constantly cycles through different ideas on our client’s audience matrices. For LLUME, our team went as far as testing vacation interest, clothing brand interest, and even finding a winner in makeup brands. Along with other various tests, our focus was to discover new outlets of segmentation that LLUME’s ideal consumer would engage with.

Another issue that Pilothouse’s team assessed was that LLUME’s tracking pixel was over-firing and leading to inaccurate data reporting. We brought in our funnel technicians to identify where the issue was occurring and promptly fixed it. These solutions led to increased accuracy in reporting metrics and ultimately helped the overall ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

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2

How we did it

Since the nature of LLUME’s products is accessible to most jewelry fanatics, we saw numerous outlets in which they could succeed on the creative front of Pilothouse’s work with them.

To isolate our creative tests and figure out what may work for our client, we decided to start with Pilothouse’s tried-and-tested winning creative formats of green screen video explainers, being that it’s friendly to consumers because it shows vulnerability in the presentation of a product on a more engaging and friendly level, alongside variations of previous top performers. We eventually used the momentum of promotional events, such as LLUME’s Valentine’s Day Sale, to apply those principles to the other product sets that showed promise.

Our creative direction didn’t stop there, as we offered guidance in their promotional efforts, and decided to create dedicated campaigns for each high-performing product in order to scale out winning product creatives into their own campaigns. This tactic is another golden test that Pilothouse offers to their clients as it usually yields positive results. Although this may seem self-explanatory, these efforts allowed LLUME to allocate their resources more effectively, and ultimately result in a higher number of overall sales.

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The Strategy

1

Data-Driven Campaigns

When managing an existing PPC account, we maintain a strategic continuity. We preserve historical campaign data, refine the existing structure, and use this knowledge to inform our tailored, data-driven campaign strategy

2

Research and SEO Enhancement

In-depth research was conducted for each size-specific air filter, incorporating all relevant keywords with a minimum of 100 monthly searches. This resulted in a massive 1,917 unique keyword/competitor targets. A thorough review of listing SEO was done based on keyword research insights to enhance ad relevance and keyword rankings.

3

Imagery Improvements

There is nothing more important to improving performance than boosting up conversion rate. We created completely new 3D renders for the hero images to better show the size, main selling points, and the vibrant pink colour. We followed those heroes with well-branded infographics to educate the customer through our listing images and premium A+ content.

Optimizing Campaign Management

1

Detailed Campaign Naming

To address the challenge of managing a substantial number of campaigns, we introduced a comprehensive campaign naming system. Our keyword research and data collection revealed the need for an extensive campaign suite to enable precise performance segmentation. As a result, we not only implemented a detailed campaign naming scheme but also strategically organized portfolios to effectively oversee this substantial project.

2

Keyword Targeting

Shifted from a broader-targeting approach to precise keyword targeting using exact and phrase match types. This approach led to over 1,100 campaigns built in just three months, a significant factor in our success.

Leveraged all campaign types to maximize ad placement opportunities and drive traffic to revamped store pages. Sponsored Product ads targeting specific keywords were complemented with a wealth of Sponsored Brand to store product collection, video, and Sponsored Display campaigns. 

The Outcome

Our approach not only met but exceeded our client’s revenue scale goals while simultaneously improving cost efficiency. This remarkable success was driven by a surge in detail page views, enhanced conversion rates, and substantial growth in Subscribe and Save subscriptions, generating recurring revenue. To achieve this, we took a very aggressive approach to Colorfil's growth. This massive number of campaigns and increase in traffic would typically lead to a significant drop in efficiency. However, our efforts in enhancing listing images, SEO, A+ content, and the storefront allowed us to capture a significantly larger share of traffic. This strategic approach led to a substantial revenue increase, all the while improving efficiency.

Key Metrics

3.79x
Impressive Revenue
Growth
increase in monthly revenue YoY
(April 2023 vs April 2022).
23%
Cost Efficiency
Improved the Total Advertising
Cost of Sale (TACOS) reducing
it from 47% to 36% YoY.
260%
Increased shipped
subscribe and save revenue
and increased subscriber count
over 340%

“Colorfil came to us looking for significant growth. We not only substantially exceeded their goals for scale, but we also improved efficiency (two metrics that are usually at odds). This tremendous success came from our complete revamp of their listings, our extremely granular approach to campaign strategy, and a laser-focus on growing their subscribe and save customer base.”

Clifford, Lead Amazon Media Buyer
Pilothouse