How an Apparel Brand Regained Market Share and Grew Revenue by 134% with Smarter D2C Advertising
Business Model
Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Apparel Brand
Time Frame
January 1, 2025 – August 27, 2025
Overview
A once-dominant North American apparel brand was losing ground to resellers and emerging
competitors. Despite investing in paid advertising, results were inconsistent and confidence was
low. Their previous strategies lacked structure and focus—splitting attention between D2C and
in-store efforts with no clear path forward. That’s when they brought in DemandGen.io to
refocus, restructure, and rebuild with D2C performance as the core priority.
Challenges
Market share was slipping due to increased competition and inconsistent advertising
● Ad efforts were scattered across D2C and retail, diluting performance insights
● Reliance on outdated static keyword targeting hindered scalability and performance
● Past campaign testing lacked clarity and consistency, making it difficult to learn and
improve
● Skepticism about whether performance could be turned around in time for Q4
Solutions
The transformation began with a fundamental shift: stop splitting focus and go all-in on D2C.
From there, we:
● Abandoned static keyword targeting and adopted Google’s up-to-date audience signal
framework
● Created 6–8 strategic campaigns testing 10–15 audience signal combinations to isolate
top performers
● Ensured all early campaign tests maintained equal budgets to avoid favoritism in learning
● Migrated top-performing segments from past campaigns into the new test structure at
lower spend
● Ranked performance by audience signal during sales and non-sales periods
● Continuously refined ad copy within each campaign—removing underperformers and
doubling down on winners
● Tiered campaigns based on performance and allocated ad budgets accordingly
● Removed low-performing asset groups in Performance Max campaigns to concentrate
spend on what was working
This strategy was intentionally executed during the brand’s slow season to build a battle-tested
campaign structure ahead of their high-revenue Q4 period.
Achievements
Compared to the same period the year prior, the results were clear and impressive:
● Revenue increased by 134%
● Ad Spend rose by just 21%
● ROAS improved by 94%
● Conversion Rate rose 97%
● Cost Per Conversion dropped by 40%
● CPC rose slightly by 19%, reflecting higher-quality clicks
Why This is Important
This case study is a perfect example of what happens when focus meets strategy.
By committing fully to D2C and leveraging modern audience signals instead of legacy keyword
tactics, this client didn’t just stabilize their paid advertising—they scaled it. Testing, learning,
and restructuring based on clear data gave them an edge, and they’re now entering Q4 stronger
than ever.
If you want to improve your D2C paid advertising efforts, we’d love to help. Reach out
here to start the conversation.
Let’s make your next quarter your most profitable one yet.
