Performance equipment · International
Pulling a category-leading brand out of trade-show thinking
The performance equipment brand had decades of authority and a Meta funnel that read like a catalogue. We rebuilt the buying conversation around the moment that actually drives the purchase - and quadrupled qualified leads inside a quarter.
Qualified leads
4.1×
Blended ROAS
1.8× → 4.4×
Repeat-buyer rate
+38%
Creative win rate
1 in 9 → 1 in 3
01 - The situation
The performance equipment business was the reference brand in their category and had been for years. Distribution was strong. The DTC channel was treated as a digital catalogue - product shots, spec sheets, the occasional ambassador post - and was underperforming the brand's authority by a wide margin.
The team had assumed the channel had a ceiling. It did not. It had a conversation problem.
02 - What we did
We sat with the sales team for a week and listened to how athletes and coaches actually made the call. The buying decision was almost never about the product itself - it was about a specific moment in a season where the wrong gear had cost someone a match. We rebuilt the entire funnel around that moment.
- Offer architecture rebuilt around the failure moment, not the product spec.
- Modular creative system - same three hooks rotated across athletes, coaches, and parents.
- Landing experience rebuilt with coach-led proof, not influencer-led proof.
- Email sequence that walked a buyer from first match to next season - not first click to first purchase.
Authority gets attention. A specific failure moment gets the credit card.
03 - The outcome
Qualified lead volume quadrupled inside the quarter. Blended ROAS more than doubled. The repeat-buyer rate climbed 38% as the new sequence kept the relationship alive between seasons - which is where the unit economics actually live in this category.