Friday, November 11, 2022
B2B SaaS, ClickUp, time management tools… This one hits close to home. 👆
We’re back in action with our OluKai brand breakdown! The topic this week? Google Suite. Keep reading for tips and tricks you can steal for your brand and what OluKai does to win shoppers. 🏆
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
📦 OluKai’s Google Suite featuring localization and social proof.
📦 Using unique machine-learning models that use your first-party data to predict the likelihood of your site traffic converting.
📦 Customizing Google URLs with the ad interface.
📦 Performance insoles, premium skincare, and super snacks.
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
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👀 Here, there, everywhere!
✂️ Snippets
🧠 The deets
It’s heavily localized, folks! OluKai is crushing their branded presence up in Canada, despite not having nearly as much organic traffic as their United States domain. 🍁
Seriously, check out how much presence they have in the Great White North! Their product reviews (aka social proof) are sky-high and all parts of every ad clearly states you’re shopping in their Canadian domain.
Here’s what we noticed:
It’s also worth mentioning that OluKai’s Canadian shoppers aren’t getting the short end of the stick in terms of extensions! In both Canada and the US, we’re stoked to see that OluKai is going all out for sitelink extensions.
They’ve got a bit more competition down south where competitors are bidding on their terms. But to no surprise, OluKai is still coming out on top:
We’d suggest OluKai add image extensions to their ads. Image extensions give browsers a fantastic idea of the overall look and feel of your products even before clicking. Not to mention, they generally also have a positive boost on your clickthrough rate. A win-win situation, if you ask us. 🤝
🧑🌾 Free range, grain-fed, organic keywords
✂️ Snippets
🧠 The deets
Now, let’s dive into organic keywords. OluKai’s highest-volume top 10 organic keyword is “slippers for men” (they rank 10th in a search on this). This alone has, on average, 18K searches every year. But, since OluKai is ranked 10th… Their site does not appear on the first page of organic search results.
But it seems like they’re aware of this and are working to combat it. How, you ask? By absolutely crushing their paid ads presence to hit a high-volume keyword where OluKai knows their products fit the search term to a T. Check that out. 👇
As a bonus, their product has the most reviews by far out of all others. Despite the higher price point, a 5-star rating out of nearly 900 reviews is absolutely going to boost their CTR! ⭐️
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🧑🌾 Free range, grain-fed, organic keywords – Part 2
✂️ Snippets
🧠 The deets
Ready for another? OluKai ranks 8th for “men’s flip flops”, high enough to put them on the first page of organic search results… But, still far enough down the page that there are plenty of other tempting results to click first.
However, OluKai is bidding on this keyword, and while we didn’t get their product in the first few Shopping ads (likely due to a much higher price point than other options), they are ranking high in Search ads:
It’s great that their Search ad ranks high in the results (second on the page), but what can we learn from the other high-ranking ones? We’re spotting a custom URL field one ad down from theirs, which lets the shopper know this link will indeed take them to the page for flip flops. The best part? This is an easy customizer you can add to your final URL within the Ads interface. ✅
OluKai’s ad copy is also slightly shorter than the other ads on the page. Ensure that each headline and description you use is close to reaching the maximum character count allowed by Google so your ads are making the most of the allotted screen real estate.
It’s also worth noting that OluKai’s ad is the only one that actually uses the term “Flip Flops” in the headline, which will help boost their CTR.
🚨 Not as free as can be
✂️ Snippets
🧠 The deets
By now, we know that OluKai is simply crushing Shopping on the paid end. But there are some things we’re a bit surprised about… 🤔
OluKai doesn’t seem to appear at all on free listings on the Shopping network in the United States, despite consistently topping all paid branded listings! Now up in Canada, we’re seeing them on free listings just fine. So, we’re understandably a bit surprised that they’ve chosen not to display their own products on free listings in the US.
One thing of note here is that OluKai consistently appears below other retailers of their own products within free listings (in Canada).
This could be related to the “Trusted Store” badge that’s awarded to stores that Google determines to give a consistently high quality customer experience. When a store has this badge, their listings are prioritized over competitors without the badge!
Whatever their reason is for not using free listings in the US, we’d be interested to know.
✨ Conclusion
In short, OluKai knows their audience. A localized experience reduces the barriers to conversion and ensures that customers feel supported throughout their purchase. With some small tweaks to improve their organic search result standing and by taking full advantage of the free listing option, we can see OluKai becoming an even bigger presence in their market.
Shoutout to the Pilothouse Google team for the stellar insights! Catch ya next week! 👋
Brands
👟 Esker: Check out these beautiful wool performance insoles! Esker invests in plastic-free construction to provide the highest level of comfort at the most sustainable levels.
🌅 Basic Maintenance: These premium skincare products strip the extras and the dirt! Basic Maintenance provides exactly what your skin needs in single formulas to simplify your skincare routine.
💪 biglittlebar: Get all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to support your “brain, heart, and beauty” in one powerful bar. biglittlebar packs 100% of your A–K vitamins in one tasty, bite-sized snack!
🪄 MagicLinks, Aleks Chojnacka: Influencer Marketing State of the Union (Plus the future of Live Shopping)
👻 Every Man Jack, Troy Petrunoff - Spooky Retention, Segmenting Gift Buyers, and BOOGO Gamified Sales.
📈 Scaling SPF and Finding Your Most Affluent Customers Ahead of the Recession with Supergoop and Lexer.
🏆 VKTRY Gear, Drew Arciuolo: How to Achieve Saturation with Your Target Market.
💧 Bryan Alston, Greater Than - How Greater Than Became Inc’s #198th Fastest Growing Company In the US.
💡 Listen to the Biggest Marketing News Stories Today.
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DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Michael Venditti. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.
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