A 95-year-old brand owner known for sourcing and selling Shirley Temple socks and high-end hosiery wants to become the go-to source for infant sleepwear, slippers, snap booties and girls’ bras.

As Trimfit Inc. rolled out the new products over the past nine months, the company promoted them through Google, mobile apps and social networks such as Instagram, says Ryan Craver, company president and CEO. It also hired vendor HookLogic in the fall to bid for top placement of Trimfit’s ads when shoppers search for items on such major retailer websites as Macys.com, Kohls.com, Walmart.com and BestBuy.com, Craver says.

The bids range from 25 cents to $2.50 per click, depending on seasonality and the competition for the space, says Patrick Cartmel, senior vice president of client services for HookLogic.

“For every dollar we spent on ads, we made $7.50 to $14 in sales on the four retailers’ websites,” Craver says. “I made sure to look where our products naturally popped up during a search, and we are now on the first line of the first page of results.” Trimfit gained 13 million impressions on four retailers’ websites and achieved a 40% conversion rate, he says. He didn’t disclose the click-through rate on the impressions.

Trimfit selects the products it wants to promote and sets bids for each product category. The HookLogic technology then serves optimized ad placement for these products on the websites of participating retailers. If a shopper searches on Macy’s website for children’s socks, for example, Trimfit’s promotion will show up in those results if it wins the bid for that product category, but won’t show up if the shopper searches for luggage. Trimfit’s digital team required one hour of training to set up the system, which placed the retailer’s entire product catalog into the HookLogic platform, Craver says.

HookLogic charges advertising clients on a cost-per-click model, similar to Google, but it does not disclose the fee, Cartmel says. The company gives retailers displaying the ads on their websites a percentage of ad revenues, Cartmel says. HookLogic doesn’t disclose the details of the revenue-sharing model.

Craver says the payoff is twofold: Not only do Trimfit’s products gain recognition, its retail clients notice the increased purchasing and buy and feature more of Trimfit’s products. Trimfit designs its products and sources them from six factories in the United States, China and India.

 

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