Services Provided
- Marketing Strategy
- Paid Ads
- CRO
Plink! : Unlocking DTC For This Emerging Hydration Brand
Ok, let’s get something straight from the beginning. We’re biased. We’ve been watching the plucky founders of Plink! hydration for a while. We were there when they won the grand prize for LaunchVT’s 2023 Demo Night. We were so pleased when Max and Luke approached us to help them unlock their direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel.
Plink! is a new type of product. They’re a consumer packaged goods (CPG) startup focusing on joyful hydration. The cofounders are a couple of dads who noticed how much better their families felt when they hit their daily hydration goals. It impacted their energy levels, their moods, their ability to focus, sleep and more.
Max and Luke couldn’t find a product they enjoyed drinking. The two wanted an alternative to sugary sports drinks in plastic bottles, or super salty electrolyte powders. So they created Plink! to have a healthy, delicious, FIZZY source of daily electrolytes.
They also have a Gen Z approach towards sustainability. Why ship heavy cans or bottles of water halfway around the world?
What if they created a product where they bring the flavor, and you bring the water?
Enter Plink! tablets: simple, portable, sustainable. AND Fizzy, fruity and fun!
Our marketing thesis: Plink had all the raw materials for an emerging DTC brand but needed some help with Paid Ads, in particular, Paid Social.
Increasing Customer Acquisition With Meta Ads Manager
For some context, Plink has a strong brand with plenty of brand assets:
- A Shopify website
- A bunch of Influencers posting
- An active social media presence that is funny, quirky and joyful
- Klaviyo for their email marketing
In short, they already have many marketing building blocks in place. What is needed? New customer acquisition. Our goal is to use their strong brand assets to acquire new customers with a low CPA / CAC and a high AOV / LTV.
Sound like jargon-filled agency speak?
Read on to learn what we did….
Curious about how Paid Ads could transform your business? Ask us.
Amplify Founder-Led Content with Paid Social
In the world of founder-led content and entrepreneurs dreaming of that next viral video, there’s a bit of history worth sharing. A guy named Michael Rubin and his high school buddies from Haverford School launched their business in 2012. Mike, Mark and Alec were the three friends who founded Dollar Shave Club. They created a product launch video with no professional talent which you might have seen: “Our Blades Are F*ing Great”**
This video had humor, real people not actors, and a clear, relatable pain point. The offer was unmistakable: good razors, cheap, delivered. And each funny point was differentiated from the competition.
So now, the Plink guys have done something similar with their own video.
And, we were off to the races!
Meta Ads Manager
We created several test campaigns in Meta Ads Manager. We wanted to understand if the Meta Ads algorithm (with broad targeting and no exclusions) would work to find the best new customers. Or, should we use all the tools in the Ads Manager toolbelt such as: Interested-based, Demographic-based, Audience-Based targeting to find our ideal customers for Plink!
Long story short, we observed that the creative (aka the video ad which was produced by the founders) was the real workhorse in the campaign. Targeting was not the variable. The creative was the difference ((I can hear many of you and creators whispering under your breath: ”duh”)).
Here’s what we were able to achieve for the Plink business:
- Reduced CAC by 37% while increasing LTV by 17%
- Increased AOV on their DrinkPlink website to a historical high $ amount
- Grew Q1 DTC Revenue by 137%
- Grew Quarter-over-quarter Company growth by 124%
The end result:
- Unlocked this critical DTC channel for a startup that continues to grow
Want to scale and optimize your DTC customers? Just ask us.
