How Crocs drove a 147% increase in branded search with Perpetua on the Amazon DSP

Crocs, the shoe giant known for their rubber clogs, and partnerships with the likes of Diplo, Justin Bieber, Balenciaga and more, are on a mission to make the world a happier place, one comfortable shoe at a time. To do this, the Crocs team was looking to attract new audiences, driving awareness and new to brand customers within the European market.

Previously focused on bottom funnel activities, Crocs EU acknowledged the need to switch to a full funnel strategy on the Amazon DSP with a broad range of targeting tactics. This included both always-on brand-building, and key moment sales maximization across five key moments of the year - Mother’s Day, Prime Day, CrocDay, Black Friday Cyber Monday, and Christmas Holiday shopping.

Since launching on the Amazon DSP with Perpetua, Crocs has seen:

• A 147% increase in branded searches post Prime Day

• 6x increase in new-to-brand sales from their 3P inventory exchange

• Impressions increase 73% month-over-month

• An increase of 81% in ROAS from on-Amazon placements and 51% from off-Amazon with Responsive eCommerce creative formats

The Challenge

Crocs needed to identify full funnel opportunities within 5 key markets across Europe, honing in on competitor targeting and cross selling. While existing efforts focused on specific activations like category and branded searches, Crocs knew that utilizing the Amazon DSP to drive new-to-brand customers would be crucial to their strategy.

“The Amazon DSP used to just be an additional piece of a larger, more purchase-focused strategy,” says Davide Spinelli, eTail Marketing Manager, EMEA, at Crocs. “But we knew that in order to attract new audiences to the Crocs brand within Europe, we needed to do more than focus on lower funnel strategies via Sponsored Ads, and the Amazon DSP was our answer.”

Solution

To drive new-to-brand customers, Crocs worked with Perpetua to launch a new full funnel Amazon DSP strategy with a strong focus on upper funnel tactics. This included using Amazon’s Overlap Audience tool to optimize towards specific categories and key moment audiences, as well as leverage the Amazon DSP’s custom creatives on and off-Amazon testing out gender-based creative for their always-on campaigns.

“Leveraging the Amazon DSP with Perpetua we were able to reach new customers and win key placements with little competition, helping us maximize our spend across the platform. And knowing that generating new-to-brand customers comes with a higher cost-per-acquistion, Perpetua helped ensure that we allocated our budget properly across our activations, helping drive incremental value for us as a brand.” - Davide Spinelli

Results

Since launching on the Amazon DSP with Perpetua, Crocs increased branded searches 43% in the first month, and drove 147% increase in branded searches from off-Amazon placements in the month after Prime Day.

With the intention of capturing awareness and attention from those who have never purchased Crocs previously, Perpetua helped shift spend to InMarket and Lifestyle audiences growing new-to-brand customers by 74% over Prime Day, 46% over Black Friday Cyber Monday, and 27% over the Holidays. Outside of key moments, as a part of their Always-On campaign, Crocs saw a 41% drop in Cost-Per-Detailed-Page-View (CPDPV), and a 14% increase in Average Order Value.

Additionally, Crocs saw an increase of 6x in new-to-brand sales from their 3P inventory exchange, drove a 73% increase in impressions month-over-month, and saw ROAS increase 81% from on-Amazon placements and 51% from off-Amazon with Responsive eCommerce creative formats.

“What I love about working with Perpetua is that they always keep us up-to-date on performance and opportunities to hone in on our strategies. They take the time to build a relationship with us rooted in trust, and I have confidence that they always have our best interests in mind, ensuring that we achieve maximum success.” - Davide Spinelli