Overview
Known for its high-quality wooden products, famed German toy manufacturer HABA primarily sells toys, games, dolls, and other engaging activities for children and families. It prides itself on the sustainability of its products, as well as creating toys that are not only fun but foster children's development, too.
In October 2020, Willie Wilkov joined HABA USA, the company’s American division, as CEO and managing director for North America, with a clear goal of increasing the company's revenues by expanding its customer base. However, he quickly realized that their current Amazon marketing strategy did not align with that objective.
The Challenge: An Amazon Marketing Strategy to Expand the Customer Base
When Wilkov started at the company, HABA USA already had an Amazon advertising agency in place. The agency focused on ensuring a good return on ad spend, which they accomplished by spending HABA's ad budget exclusively on branded terms. It was a success from a strictly return on advertising spend (ROAS) perspective, but Wilkov recognized this would never grow the business.
"We're a brand that has fairly low visibility but high-quality products with very good ratings," Wilkov says. "What we needed to grow the business and gain market share was to introduce our products to more people on the Amazon platform."
The Solution: Flipping the Strategy from Branded to Non-Branded
Wilkov had heard about our platform driven by machine learning. He decided to reach out to us to develop a new strategy focused on reaching new customers. In just a few weeks, Intentwise re-engineered HABA USA's ad campaigns to focus more on non-branded terms. Our algorithms mined more keywords than HABA USA previously had, identifying which were most competitive. It also provided visibility into spending on branded versus non-branded search terms. These improvements let HABA USA make more nuanced spending decisions, expanding the toy company’s reach to acquire new customers while simultaneously achieving higher effectiveness of ad spend.
The Results: New Customers Acquired More Efficiently
Pushing ad spend into the non-branded category and competitive terms have paid off as a strategy. "It's helping us acquire new customers and gain share," Wilkov says. "The results we're getting from Intentwise represent a tremendous value. The platform is a great, cost-effective solution, enabling us to be more competitive in a marketplace that's only going to get more competitive over time."
Wilkov and his colleagues also value the savvy yet efficient approach Intentwise brings to HABA USA’s campaigns. "They understand the business and the key strategic goals, and then they operationalize them very quickly,” Wilkov says. “We get a lot from the relationship without necessarily having to invest a ton of time."
Looking forward, HABA USA's partnership with Intentwise will focus on building successful launches for new products and optimizing more specific keywords in support of continued growth. "Our meetings with [Intentwise] are probably the most productive meetings we have in our entire week,” Wilkov says. “They come prepared, they listen, and we're able to focus on the higher-level, strategic questions."
