How Digital Marketing Optimization Helped Growth
Sock Fancy launched from the home of Stefan Lewinger, which he shared with his roommate and business partner, Futhum Tewolde, in 2013 as a simple solution to a growing frustration. Finding the perfect pair of comfortable, durable, and awesomely-designed socks was often too difficult, too expensive, and too inconvenient.
Stefan and Futhum met when they were seven and are lifelong friends. The two became roommates when they both wound up in Atlanta around 2011. Futhum always showed off his socks around the house, but lamented the fact that he often had to settle for poorly made socks from big box stores or pay an arm and a leg for a decent pair from the small selections at specialty shops (if you could find one). With Stefan’s background in ecommerce and digital marketing they saw a big opportunity to team up and create something really exciting — and Sock Fancy was born.
Please Give Us Back Our Ping Pong Table!
The pair started shipping socks off of the Ping Pong table in the living room of their house in Atlanta’s Virginia Highlands. They did that for as long as they could, but when it became impossible to eat dinner or hang out with friends and family in the living room, they finally decided to move. Space restrictions were primarily the result of inventory and printers, so they chose to enlist a third party 3PL to help with Sock Fancy’s shipping and fulfillment needs.
Their first real office move came in the summer of 2014 when they won a grant from the City of Atlanta to open a pop-up shop along the route of the Atlanta Streetcar launch. Things really started to pick up from there and they outgrew the spot within months. Stefan and Futhum moved to another location before bringing all fulfillments in-house and settling on their newest location; a 3,000 sq ft office and warehouse space in Cabbagetown, Atlanta. This space houses their business and 10+ loyal employees that are helping Sock Fancy reach their goals.
Solving The Digital Marketing Optimization Challenge
Early on, they were never short of ideas for content or places to spend money on advertising online. Both recognized the importance of dedicating time and resources to channels like AdWords, but struggled to truly optimize their campaigns and budget. It felt like solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded that costs money every time someone guess wrong.
This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has tried to use Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. Each platform comes with its own complicated set of rules and dashboards that require a PhD to understand properly. Their team spent hours learning the nuances of each, but it still wasn’t enough and they realized that they were leaving conversions on the table and wasting money.
After agreeing they needed something to help really harness the mountains of valuable data sitting in Sock Fancy’s accounts, Stefan and Futhum began the search for a tool that would help solve the digital advertising puzzle. In an exhaustive search they were led to AdHawk.
As an executive with a lot on his plate, Stefan was concerned that the integration with their legacy systems and processes would take a lot of time. Based on his experience with past advertising companies, the onboarding process is never fun and certainly not easy. Stefan was preparing himself for another cumbersome process.
AdHawk’s aggregate API made the integration seamless and after just a few minutes, Sock Fancy was on the AdHawk platform and ready to tackle the challenges they were facing with their digital advertising campaigns. Stefan admits he has probably spent more time deciding which pair of socks to wear in the morning and that’s saying a great deal since he has plenty to choose from.
AdHawk quickly began analyzing Sock Fancy’s historical performance data, and uncovered trends that were positively and negatively impacting performance. Each time a trend was uncovered, AdHawk sent them an actionable tip to optimize their campaigns. When Stefan accepted an optimization tip, AdHawk programmatically made the corresponding changes inside the Sock Fancy AdWords account.
Campaign advice included everything from bid adjustments and budget allocations, to keyword optimization. Within days Sock Fancy started seeing their ad CPA’s trending down and conversions trending up.
Prior to implementing AdHawk, Sock Fancy was battling low conversion rates and high customer acquisition costs. After AdHawk was implemented, their monthly conversions increased by 6x and cost per acquisition was driven down by 27%.
The work that took hours out of Stefan’s day is now done effortlessly and in just a couple of seconds. His new morning routine consists of coffee, checking the news, and approving new AdHawk recommendations. That time savings matter a great deal to Stefan and his team, because it allows them to think more strategically about how to grow the business and less about the tactical requirements that take up so much time in the digital advertising world.
Making the move from the ping pong table to a large warehouse and office space was an instrumental and important change for Sock Fancy. Simplifying the optimization of their digital marketing campaigns has been a game changer as they continue to grow their business in new and exciting directions.
Today, Sock Fancy has a revenue of more than $3.5MM, shipped over 300,000 pairs of socks and supplied 100+ unique designs to stylish folks in more than 80+ countries.
