The Rockport Group, an American shoe manufacturer based in Newton, Massachusetts, is a leader in high-quality comfort footwear for men and women, with brands including Cobb Hill and Dunham. Despite strong brand recognition, Rockport faced a challenge in 2020: high aided awareness but low sales conversion, especially within the aspirational, younger demographic they hadn’t yet captured. Rockport turned to Carbon to bridge this gap, and we immediately set to work. Using our proprietary acquisition and growth playbook, we engineered a powerful revenue-driving system that more than doubled Rockport’s topline revenue in just three years. Carbon developed a robust, full-funnel strategy, activating channels like social, search, programmatic, and shopping to generate millions in incremental revenue.
Early on, our focus was on acquiring new customers at the lowest cost, while refining Rockport’s sales funnel to adapt to an evolving data privacy landscape. With traditional audience targeting becoming less effective, we implemented innovative solutions to maintain growth and efficiency. The onset of COVID-19 presented further challenges, severely impacting in-store sales and the wholesale side of Rockport’s business. Yet, under Carbon’s stewardship, the e-commerce division thrived, providing a lifeline during this turbulent time. When Rockport filed for bankruptcy in May 2023, its e-commerce arm remained the focal point of interest for prospective buyers. Throughout this period of uncertainty, Carbon maintained a high level of performance, focusing on sustainable growth. In September 2023, Rockport was acquired by Authentic Brands Group under Marc Fisher Footwear, and Carbon continued as Rockport’s e-commerce agency of record (AOR), driving growth under the ABG umbrella.
Approach: From 2020- 2024, Carbon worked with Rockport, Cobb Hill and Dunham to reset their approach to DTC e-commerce and audience segmentation and to establish best practices for driving revenue growth through digital media, For Rockport, Carbon follows a predictable and rigorous cycle that we feel is critical to success, growth and most importantly, partnership. By following three key process points, we can efficiently hit goals and maximize results MoM and YoY:
- Agile work-flow - be detailed, precise and have a plan… but stay nimble, and don’t be afraid to pivot
- Find the perfect balance of letting the media engine run, while fine-tuning optimizations
- Respond in real time to the needs of the budget
Results: Carbon has helped the brand grow its e-commerce business over 150% in less than three years. Channel specific highlights include:
Branded Search
- We introduced product-tailored search copy and content, particularly for Rockport-based brands, in exact and phrase match. This helped improve CTRs (+48% YoY) and ROAS (+14%).
- In Search alone, we spent less (-6% YoY) but drove a +46% increase in CTR year-on-year (we began providing promotional copy) with a +7.2% bump in attributed revenue.
Google PMax & Bing Shopping
- In PMax we tested targeted assets groups towards niche product collections. This approach helped fuel a +31% YoY increase in total conversions versus Smart Shopping.
- Bold decision to test excluding Female from Bing Shopping was a key factor in Bing performance skyrocketing in efficiency almost overnight. Now a reliable source for a 6x ROAS.
Display
- Historically, Google Display had been a catch-all campaign, meant for promotions and general retargeting, en masse. We shifted this approach to be more focused around product (i.e., remarketing to Cart Abandons for Men’s Oxfords). This has significantly improved ROAS (+42.8% YoY and conversion volume (+43.6%).
Paid Social
- Doubled revenue
- Increased ROAS 25% YoY and in 2024 driving 47% higher ROAS.
- Implemented ADV+ Shopping campaigns upon release and achieved superior performance compared to other ACQ campaigns (DABA and Creative) that ran concurrently, with ADV+ campaigns yielding a 20% higher ROAS and 12% lower CAC.
- Optimized efforts to build a highly efficient lead gen campaign for each brand by improving targeting, updating ads seasonally, and introducing DABA format ad types. These adjustments improved results significantly: spent 29% less, generated 36% more leads, decreased overall CPL by 48% and increased ROAS 108% to 57%. 300,000 high quality leads were achieved
Criteo
- Win through personalization – our dynamic product recommendations on relevant placements have allowed us to achieve, on average, a consistent 4x ROAS for Prospecting and 10x ROAS for Remarketing.