A Successful 7-Year Collaboration Between Australia’s Largest Online Bicycle Retailer and VIDEN

  • 60% avg. ann. paid ads revenue growth
  • 2X ROAS increase

Objectives

Growing market share (boosting sales) and outperforming competitors by improving digital advertising strategies (increasing efficiency of paid traffic)

About the Client

Based in Australia, BikesOnline is a specialty retailer of road bikes, mountain bikes, parts, accessories, and clothing. The company was founded in June 2011 with the aim to make cycling more accessible by enabling Australians to buy a great range of high quality products at affordable prices. They’ve collected various achievements along their journey towards success, including a spot on BRWs Fast Starters list, and a place as a finalist in the Telstra Australian Business Awards. BikesOnline is accessible to customers across the globe, with operations in California, the Philippines, and Singapore.

Challenges

The Australian bicycle market is highly competitive, with over 1,500 online bike shops across the country. Numerous global and regional players keep driving the prices and profit margins down. Achieving sales growth and outperforming competitors in such a niche market has been a significant challenge.

Maintaining and improving paid traffic efficiency in a thin-margins niche has also presented another substantial difficulty. High competition for keywords and ad placements drives up costs, making it harder to achieve a profitable return on ad spend (ROAS). Margin differences across various products and categories have also been contributing the challenges, requiring tailored strategies, precise budget control, and continuous optimization to ensure profitability.

The 2014/2015 financial years marked a high point with an impressive 1.4 million bikes imported. This peak was definitely a triumph for the market, but it also marked the beginning of a downward trend. Imports had been steadily decreasing, hitting a low of 1.1 million bikes by the 2019/2020 financial year. Then, the industry landscape shifted in the following year. The global pandemic spurred an unexpected surge in the market, with imports soaring to a new record of 1.7 million bicycles. As COVID-19 subsided, the bicycle boom eventually crashed. The market faced a significant overhang of bicycle stock. By 2023, the import quantities had plummeted to just 666,393 bikes, the lowest level since 1998.

Due to consumer behavior shifts, and the ever-evolving market conditions, businesses have been facing difficulties managing the balance between supply and demand for various bicycle models and accessories, leading to inventory fluctuations.

The bicycle industry has undergone remarkable transformations over the years. Businesses must continuously adapt to stay competitive and meet their goals. Recognizing the need to navigate industry challenges effectively, BikesOnline turned to VIDEN in 2018.

Solution

Campaign Strategy

  • Rebuild paid search strategy to emphasize distinct key selling points
  • Craft eye-catching creatives
  • Create and optimize the omni-channel media mix strategy
  • Utilize data-driven bidding strategies and optimization
  • Categorize and cluster products based on stock availability and margins
  • Produce an affinity analysis to cross-sell and upsell paid ad campaigns

When VIDEN started working with BikesOnline in 2015, paid advertising was rather supportive to organic acquisition and had a relatively low velocity for scale. Our team made a decision to rebuild the paid search strategy to focus on communicating the distinct key selling points that set our client’s products apart, identifying areas of high-intent decision-making, and optimizing budget allocation across different levels of the consideration funnel.

Firstly, we focused on highlighting unique selling points, enabling our clients to differentiate their brand in a crowded marketplace, simplify consumer decision-making, and enhance brand awareness and loyalty. Clear USPs resonate with the target audience and build trust by showing compelling reasons consumers choose the product or service. To succeed in emphasizing USPs, our team designed creatives that grab attention and make advertisements stand out. Effective creatives communicate a brand’s message clearly and persuasively, driving higher engagement rates that ultimately increase sales. Google research shows that 70% of the influence on purchase intent comes from the quality of the creative content. Secondly, we focused on identifying areas where high-intent decisions were occurring. Finally, our team attended to budget allocation optimization across the various stages of the consideration funnel.

Next, the team applied the media mix strategy across Google, Microsoft (Bing), and Meta ads to adjust the sales funnel. By utilizing a combination of platforms, businesses can create tailored content and experiences that guide potential customers from awareness, to consideration, to making a purchase. This strategy improves the likelihood of conversion by meeting customers where they already are inside the funnel.

Leveraging this approach enabled increased awareness by targeting a qualified audience during off-hours and maximizing sales during the summer, sales events, and other peak seasons.

VIDEN employed data-driven bidding strategies and optimization techniques to maximize the return on ad spend (ROAS) across various ad platforms and tactics.

Our team leveraged product categorization (product feeds and catalog) and clustering based on stock availability and margins, to control and maximize efficiency. We also conducted a product affinity analysis for effective audience management to run cross-sell and upsell paid ad campaigns that increased retention and customer LTV. During the pandemic, when stock was limited, we focused on in-stock products and categories to drive sales of available inventory.

As a part of the media mix strategy, our experts implemented and optimized the omni-channel media mix across different tactics based on incrementality:

  • Firstly, we used top-of-funnel (TOF) tactics to build awareness and reach: Meta Ads video ads, Google Ads PMAX (shopping, non-branded search), Video (Youtube) & demand gen campaigns.
  • Secondly, we moved to middle-of-funnel (MOV) tactics to re-engage and build consideration: Meta display and video ads; Google search ads.
  • Finally, we ended with the bottom-of-funnel (BOF) tactics to convert consideration intention to purchase: Search Ads, Pmax (Shopping, Display, Responsive, etc.), Video (Youtube).

Results

Due to long-term partnerships, businesses can achieve greater results and implement more effective strategies by leveraging consistent collaboration and accountability. Just take a look at some the impressive outcomes that were the result of the VIDEN and BikesOnline collaboration:

  • On average, paid ad revenue has grown by 60% YoY, with a consistent annual improvement in ROAS of 13% YoY.
  • When the industry fell to pre-pandemic levels as of 2024, we managed to maintain efficiency and sales volumes that were over 2x higher than before the pandemic.

As we continue working with BikesOnline in 2024, we embrace any challenges and opportunities that may come our way.

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