Mission Outdoor
Mission Outdoor
Fractional digital marketing for an innovative, D2C ecommerce brand
Overview
Mission Outdoor is a company dedicated to revolutionizing the world of outdoor recreation equipment. Its largest child brand, MISSION Boat Gear (“MISSION”), focused on boating and lake gear and is the focus of this past experience case study.
View Live Site >An overview of my role
I have a fractional role at Mission Outdoor as their Digital Marketing Manager, which came to life after a planned hire fell through at the start of their busy season. After learning more about their digital marketing needs and goals, I quickly joined the marketing team and immediately got to work.
I’m directly responsible for managing and delivering on performance for MISSION’s paid advertising and media budget across Google Ads, Amazon Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Ads, as well as its SEO and organic performance. I also support and lead certain special projects and initiatives across the marketing department which include website strategy and user experience improvements, product and listing management in Amazon’s Seller Central, and other marketing and revenue operation automation projects.
“You’re a scholar and a saint. I’m very glad that this fell into place the way it did. Thanks for the updates and for jumping in on everything as fast as you have. I’m seeing (and feeling) the impact of you on the team.”
Duncan Salyer, Director of Marketing
The first priority
The first priority was getting their paid advertising programs up and running as the season was well underway. I took over management of their digital advertising strategy and implementation, including Google Ads, Amazon Ads and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Ads.
As MISSION entered its busy season (spring/summer), the first priority was getting their paid advertising programs up and running for the season to avoid any continued lost opportunity. I reviewed existing ad campaigns, selectively launched some of the historically higher-performing campaigns, and set up and launched several new ad campaigns with new strategies in mind.
Stretching paid media budgets further
Here are some of the notable quick wins and major strategy improvements that I made, ultimately resulting in a greater ROAS by spending the media budget more effectively:
Ended an existing brand campaign which historically accounted for the majority of its media budget within Google Ads—deemed unnecessary in this case as competitors weren’t targeting our brand and we were ranking well with product listings, organic listings and more in the SERP
Ended an existing non-brand search campaign that wasn’t delivering results—deemed ineffective with the increase in Google shopping features in the SERP and the Performance Max campaign type
Set up and customized an "All Products” Performance Max campaign in Google Ads to provide better visibility to MISSION’s entire catalog of products (and not just its core products which historically received all the spend)
Optimized a “Core Products” Performance Max campaign in Google Ads to focus media budget on acquiring new customers and to maintain better (budget) control and focus on pushing certain products
Set up manual and automated-targeted campaigns in Amazon Ads for a broader set of products that hadn’t been advertised in the past, including some competitor ASIN-targeted campaigns which were highly effective in converting sales
Honed in on successful creative (static and video) to use in Meta Ads in collaboration with an internal Multimedia Producer and Graphic Designer
Measurable ROAS and CPP results
At the highest level, when comparing KPIs in Google Ads across the entire account and all campaigns from 2022 to 2023, ROAS (return on ad spend) increased 160.5% while the CPP (cost per purchase) decreased 191.5% (nearly half the CPP).
These numbers are slightly more improved when looking at the effectiveness of Google Ads Performance Max/Shopping campaigns only; because of the shift in strategy to focus and spend on this type of campaign (and stop spending on brand and non-brand Search campaigns), we had more budget that was spent more effectively in generating direct, ecommerce sales.
These data points are harder to compare in Amazon Ads (with the lack of access to historical date, silly Amazon), though with certainty this ad channel had comparable improvements in the the same KPIs that indicate stronger performance (ROAS and CPP).
A Black Friday Cyber Monday sale exceeding expectations
The Black Friday Cyber Monday sale in 2023 was the best yet. Staying perfectly within the planned media budget across advertising channels, we were able to deliver direct (ecommerce) sales that were nearly 150% above goal, far surpassing expectations from leadership and leading to stock outs on many of the products that were intentionally ordered to support the sale period.
This performance has ultimately put MISSION into a better stock and cash position to move into planning an even more successful 2024 season.
Mind-blowing SEO performance
As the boating and lake season came to an end and fall approached, I had some breathing room with paid advertising winding down to re-focus on my SEO responsibilities and performance. After researching and making an initial target keyword list earlier in the summer, I honed in on which categories of products I’d optimize first to align with the strategic value each line has to the business.
This is by far my best case study of SEO performance for any client I’ve helped.
At the highest level, you can see the performance of this domain in traffic and ranking keywords below. Most impressive is the growth of the keywords in the Top 3 positions, growing from around 200 keywords at the end of the summer and swelling to over 650 keywords even in the dead of season (winter).
Overall Traffic and Keyword Growth Through 2023
Keyword Ranking Profile Growth Detail Comparison
Major keyword ranking wins
By focusing on specific product categories, I’ve been able to increase the organic ranking and traffic to MISSION’s website, with direct and heavy influence on the revenue generated through direct, ecommerce orders. Here are just a few of the major keyword wins achieved:
Boat Fenders and Bumpers (from positions 8-20 to 1-2): We currently rank in position 1-2 consistently with extremely high visibility across this category for many short- and long-tail keyword variations. Before my start, we ranked in the ~8-20 positions with minimal visibility for this priority area of the business.
Inflatable Docks and Swim Platforms (from no ranking position to positions 2-4): We currently rank in position 2-4 for this category, where historically we hadn’t used these keywords on our website and called this category “inflatable water mats” where we did have some organic performance. More importantly, there is over ten times the amount of search volume on average monthly for this alternate keyword group which ultimately drives users to the same products as the “inflatable water mat” keyword group—meaning we’re now in front of far more potential customers than our previous targeting.
To achieve this, we created a new collection page mirroring our existing “inflatable water mats” collection page, indexable to Google and search engines but hidden from merchant/catalog syncs with other sales channels to avoid unnecessary confusion.
Boating Accessories (from position ~20 > 2): This keyword has some of the highest search volume on average monthly of any of the keywords we’re tracking. As a boat accessory designer and innovator, MISSION had ranked ~20 for this keyword group. After optimizing the existing page targeted for this keyword, we almost immediately saw a jump into position 2 consistently across this keyword group.
As such, we’re now receiving thousands of new organic visitors to our site monthly, which is especially exciting because they’re more top-of-purchase funnel customers not seeking a specific product but looking to be inspired by our catalog of innovative products which will certainly lead to new sales.
An educational content marketing approach
Following the massive success we’ve achieved in the realm of SEO for MISSION, I’ve identified new content topics, generally more educational, that we’ve begun producing to rank for newer and longer-tail keyword variations related to the products in MISSION’s catalog.
For example, in the boat fenders bumpers category, there is a lot of search volume around “how to tie two boats together”, “how to choose the right boat fenders for my boat”, etc. These types of queries generally trigger educational articles and are often featured in rich snippets in search results for which we have innovative and amazing products that the customer will become aware of and likely purchase at some point in their buying journey.