How Pilothouse Helped Grow Four Sigmatic to the #2 Best-Selling Ground Coffee on Amazon
Introduction
Four Sigmatic is a functional foods company that offers various mushroom coffee products, plant-based proteins, wellness supplements, beauty products, and other superfood products.
Four Sigmatic came to the Amazon Pilothouse team with one goal: Growth. They had previously seen relatively flat spend and sales from the bottom of the funnel (Sponsored Product, Sponsored Brand, and Sponsored Display) ads—and in turn, relatively flat growth in the channel, and wanted to prioritize Amazon growth. They came to us to scale their Pay Per Click (PPC) spend, and thus generate increased scale in terms of shipped revenue.
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Summary of Results
gross profit
shipped revenue
(at 7-figure/month levels)
in active subscribers
The Kickoff
Before working with Pilothouse, Four Sigmatic's PPC budget had plateaued, and the company had been having trouble meeting their ambitious growth goals consistently. Our team took a multipronged approach to their account which led to massive growth and record-breaking results. We often see brands not fully utilizing Amazon PPC's tools, despite Amazon expanding its top-of-funnel advertising options. Amazon's mid-to-bottom funnel advertising through on-site PPC is highly effective, but it requires a thorough approach.
This involves extensive keyword and competitor research to inform campaign strategy, bid adjustments, and maintaining campaigns to ensure they aren't budget-capped, which is exactly what we did for Four Sigmatic. For businesses with extensive catalogs like Four Sigmatic, managing numerous campaigns for various products is a challenge. We worked with them to tailor their approach, using creative Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Brand Video campaigns for products with broader market appeal, and maximizing impressions for niche-specific products. This variable strategy balanced growth and efficiency.
The Strategy
Focusing on the middle and bottom of their funnel. We extensively utilized sponsored product ads to reach customers, and segmented their product line to target different groups of new and returning customers. Our team meticulously optimized bids daily to capitalize on high-performing segments, managing over 870 unique campaigns targeting different keywords.
We executed our CRO and SEO strategy to revamp product photos, descriptions, and A+ content, working with our in-house creative team to develop high-performing, visually appealing assets. Our creative and media teams shared insights to develop a successful, data-backed creative strategy that worked in tandem with our media efforts.
Restructuring the ad account
When we first started working with LLUME, we noticed that their account frequency was higher than we’d usually like to see, which can lead to burnout from the audience’s perspective. As a segue into other changes, such as the audience matrix, we adjusted this and then tackled their segmentation and campaigns.
In order to effectively restructure an ad account, there’s a few key campaigns that Pilothouse utilizes to see where improvements can be made. For LLUME, we decided that an audience matrix, a campaign that we run to test various audiences amongst ad sets with our winning creative formats, would be the best bet to hone in on. One particular winner in our lookalike audience testing was taken off of our client’s giveaway email list alongside success in interest stackers, mainly targeted towards other brands that our ideal consumer would be attracted to.
Optimizing our strategy at the top of the funnel to acquire high-quality leads is a heavy focus that we provide for our clients. The Pilothouse team constantly cycles through different ideas on our client’s audience matrices. For LLUME, our team went as far as testing vacation interest, clothing brand interest, and even finding a winner in makeup brands. Along with other various tests, our focus was to discover new outlets of segmentation that LLUME’s ideal consumer would engage with.
Another issue that Pilothouse’s team assessed was that LLUME’s tracking pixel was over-firing and leading to inaccurate data reporting. We brought in our funnel technicians to identify where the issue was occurring and promptly fixed it. These solutions led to increased accuracy in reporting metrics and ultimately helped the overall ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).
How we did it
Since the nature of LLUME’s products is accessible to most jewelry fanatics, we saw numerous outlets in which they could succeed on the creative front of Pilothouse’s work with them.
To isolate our creative tests and figure out what may work for our client, we decided to start with Pilothouse’s tried-and-tested winning creative formats of green screen video explainers, being that it’s friendly to consumers because it shows vulnerability in the presentation of a product on a more engaging and friendly level, alongside variations of previous top performers. We eventually used the momentum of promotional events, such as LLUME’s Valentine’s Day Sale, to apply those principles to the other product sets that showed promise.
Our creative direction didn’t stop there, as we offered guidance in their promotional efforts, and decided to create dedicated campaigns for each high-performing product in order to scale out winning product creatives into their own campaigns. This tactic is another golden test that Pilothouse offers to their clients as it usually yields positive results. Although this may seem self-explanatory, these efforts allowed LLUME to allocate their resources more effectively, and ultimately result in a higher number of overall sales.
The Outcome
Our partnership with Four Sigmatic aimed for one goal: Growth – and the results speak for themselves. By taking a comprehensive approach to Amazon PPC, optimizing campaigns, and tailoring strategies for a diverse product catalog, we achieved outstanding outcomes. Notably, we delivered a remarkable 115% increase in monthly gross profit, an impressive 83% boost in monthly shipped revenue at seven-figure levels, and a substantial 99% year-over-year increase in active subscribers. With our strategy in place, we were able to exceed the client's ROI goal by 25% by creating over 870 individual campaigns. Our strategy not only exceeded the client's expectations but also showcased the power of leveraging Amazon's mid-to-bottom funnel advertising tools when executed with precision and creativity.
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“I usually like to rebalance agency relationships every 12–18 months. There's none of that. Two years in, and we're not looking at that at all. We definitely hired the right people.”
