Goals
If you’re looking for comfort, you probably own one of these shoes. Known for their breathable fabric, open lace design, and fun colors, these shoes have grown in popularity over the past few years.
But in the crowded footwear industry, customer acquisition is expensive, and many brands struggle to drive high-intent purchases efficiently. Though the company has an active social media presence and frequently partners with influencers, it was looking for another unique channel for targeting younger Millennials and Gen Z — who often switch brands because they found a great deal.
So the company decided to partner with Kard and give rewards-based marketing a try. Their main goals were to:
- Get in front of a highly valuable, younger audience that may not know of the brand yet.
- Take some market share away from competitors by giving this new audience a reason to purchase (a cash back offer).
- Drive purchases without going over their marketing budget — Kard has a pay-for-performance structure.
- Start building brand affinity and loyalty with their newfound fans.
Solution
The brand started with two trial campaigns. They wanted a slower rollout to gradually build awareness and ensure the company stayed within the bounds of their marketing budget.
So the Kard team got to work, putting together offers that
- Gave customers a 5% cash back reward per purchase.
- Displayed in banking apps whose primary users are Gen Zers and Millennials:
- Let redeemers know they’d earned a reward immediately after swiping their card, associating the brand with the discount they’d just received.
Results
In just a few months, the brand saw a major shift in market share.
Three months prior, they were sitting at 12.2% market share. By the end of the Kard campaigns, their market share had gone up to 47.7% — a 35%+ increase.
At the same time, the brand’s average order value (AOV) saw a near 17% increase. Most of the brand's shoes are priced around the $65 mark. Throughout Kard’s campaigns, though, AOV hovered around $77 on average, with consistent values between $73 - $79, demonstrating that cashback offers drove repeat, high-value transactions — not just one-time sales spikes.
And it all came at a reasonable price. With Kard’s campaigns, the brand saw a $10:1 average topline return on ad spend, spending just $7 per redemption on the Kard network.
Next steps
The brand’s Kard campaigns proved that rewards-based marketing can:
- Reach high-intent, digitally-savvy shoppers where they’re already engaged (in their banking app).
- Capture new market share while keeping acquisition costs low.
- Drive repeat purchases.
With these proof points, the brand is now expanding its rewards strategy across Kard’s entire network. And Kard’s experienced account management team will be there to offer guidance, share best practices, and introduce new features, like tiered incentives, click-to-boost offers, and location-based rewards to maximize the brand’s revenue.
