Case study: How AKDM is helping the world’s best brands grow through data

Most marketers would agree that data is a powerful force to drive effective marketing strategies forward. 

In a perfect world, we would all be using reliable data and analytics to inform our marketing decisions. In reality though, accomplishing that isn’t always easy 🤷  

It’s one thing to have the data, and it’s another to make strategic decisions with it. 

A marketing survey by Adverity found that “63% of CMOs say they make decisions based on data, but more than half of those also say they lack data-driven insights to drive marketing strategy — and 49% lack data-driven recommendations to improve marketing performance.” 

To address this disconnect, marketers need a strong data strategy coupled with the right analytics tools and partners. Digital strategy agency, AKDM, is an example of a business that provides both. 

AKDM is based in New York City and crafts digital strategies that fuel client growth. With an impressive list of clients — including Supergoop!, Giphy, and Gatorade — AKDM knows what it takes for brands to thrive in today’s highly competitive landscape. 

“We use a data-driven approach and business intelligence to create bespoke, agile strategies for each of our customers, acknowledging that every business is unique in its makeup of target audience, brand identity, and unit economics,” AKDM General Manager Ben Beyda says. 

“Our philosophy uses each of these unique data points to develop a custom strategy that helps clients accelerate their business growth.”

A holistic approach to data 📈

AKDM uses a variety of data sources and business intelligence tools to measure marketing performance and drive growth for its clients. 

One of those tools is Tracksuit, which according to Ben, allows AKDM to get granular insights into the long-term impact of its marketing efforts.

“A challenge that comes up in our business is understanding the long-term impact or results of awareness marketing, and overall market penetration for a brand,” Ben says. “Tracksuit fills that gap in creating a mechanism to augment what we can accomplish with traditional brand lift studies, brand search interest, and new customer acquisition.”

AKDM sees a ton of value in Tracksuit’s ability to provide brand insights that transcend a specific platform (such as social media). According to Ben, this allows AKDM to gain holistic insights into the brand performance of its clients. 

“One of the limitations of platform-conducted brand lift studies is that they often measure a single moment in time and only for audiences that engage with that particular platform,” Ben says. 

“Social listening tools can only see or understand the sentiment around users having active conversations about a brand. We are excited to see a tool like Tracksuit start to augment these resources by showing longitudinal data about brand efforts.”

He adds, “In some early use, we’ve seen the longevity of a lift in brand awareness from a single campaign. Tracksuit also lets us measure this holistically across platforms. 

“Similarly, segmenting the data by demographic and location provides more insight into how effective brand marketing is at reaching broad audience segments. Our clients have started to value this bird’s eye view that the data presents and provides the clarity they need to press on with the right marketing efforts.”

Case study: Supergoop!

AKDM uses Tracksuit to conduct always-on market research, which allows the team to consistently track brand metrics, monitor competitor performance, and see which parts of the marketing funnel are impacted by their efforts. 

In doing so, AKDM can continue to refine its strategies and ensure its marketing activities are aligned with each client’s goals.

Case in point: Supergoop!, the innovative beauty brand that focuses on SPF products. When Supergoop! became an AKDM client, the agency designed a growth and branding strategy to future-proof the company’s business model.

AKDM tapped into Supergoop!’s first-party data to gain a deep understanding of the brand’s key segments and target markets. All that information allowed AKDM to craft an effective marketing strategy that helped Supergoop! deepen its penetration within its target audience (millennials) while simultaneously expanding to other markets (men and parents).

This strategy worked wonders and within a month, AKDM achieved its growth targets and soon doubled its original projections. With AKDM's help, Supergoop! achieved 96% YoY ecommerce growth and saw a 149% YoY increase in customer acquisition in 2020.

AKDM is now using Tracksuit to measure the performance of Supergoop!’s marketing activity. 

According to Tracksuit’s Imagery data, the top associations for the Supergoop! brand are its products being of a high quality and effective in providing sun protection. 

Why brands love working with AKDM 🫶

Aside from its data-centric strategy, AKDM stands out by having a unique business structure that gives clients access to the agency's leadership. This allows AKDM to forge a stronger connection with the brands they work with. 

As Ben puts it: “In a space that has become commoditized and at times reliant on plug-and-play solutions to drive performance, it is one of the key ways that we allow clients and AKDM to stay connected with a human touch and knowledge that comes from years of hands-on experience.”

This is one of the reasons AKDM has attracted leading brands in various industries, including retail, ecommerce, fintech, and entertainment.

“Across these sectors we’ve partnered with breakout DTC brands that have gained momentum and become omni-channel sales giants, we’ve also worked with some of the biggest brands in their sectors — from global financial institutions to legacy food and beverage companies looking to build new ways to connect and engage consumers,” Ben says.

“The partners we work with best collaborate with us to determine goals for the business growth.”

AKDM’s tips for brand building in 2024 💪

As for what businesses can do to improve their marketing strategy in 2024, the team at AKDM emphasizes the importance of building a strong brand and investing in top-of-funnel initiatives like awareness and consideration.  

“As we wrap up 2023, we are continuing to remind clients that in moments of economic headwinds, it’s tempting to reign in media spending and focus only on conversion-driving tactics, but we believe the brands that will succeed will be optimistic to continue investing in more mid and upper funnel strategies,” Beyda says.

“It’s important to look down the line far enough and acknowledge the difficulty in refueling a conversion funnel with new customers after you pump the brakes on those efforts.

“Business growth becomes increasingly reliant on existing customers and sales to drive revenue. The brands that will nail their strategies over the next year will take stock of understanding their audience and how the brand experience aligns with their needs, and expectations.”

Thank you, Ben, for sharing your smarts with us 🙌 Check out more of AKDM's work on their website