At Amazon Accelerate 2024, Quartile’s CMO and Co-Founder Sylvio Lindenberg sat down with Shekar Reddy, Head of Global Strategic Technology Partnerships at Amazon Ads and Deepak Mehrotra, CEO of California Design Den to discuss how advanced advertising tools like Quartile help brands scale reach and improve ad sales. You can watch a replay of the session here.
No time to watch the full session? Here’s what you need to know as you prepare for Q4 and beyond:
Manual Campaign Management Wasn't Working
Almost two decades ago, California Design Den started out as a humble, family-owned private label bed linen manufacturer, supplying retailers with quality products.
In 2017, they launched their own direct-to-consumer brand on Amazon, producing high-quality, natural, and sustainable bedding. At that time, they were selling a single bed sheet set parent.
Thanks to positive customer feedback, they expanded their product catalog in the following years, offering a broader range of price points, colors, and options — all while staying true to their commitment to natural and sustainable bedding. They've since expanded to Canada, the UK, Germany, and Japan.
But in 2022, California Design Den started experiencing stagnant ad performance and slight market share loss despite their high-quality products and excellent feedback.
They faced several key challenges: balancing ad spend across a vast catalog of products, managing keywords for their diverse range, and tracking performance amid insight overload without proper analytic tools – all leading to missed opportunities.
Then, California Design Den met Quartile at a previous Amazon Accelerate and partnered with them in 2023.
“Initially, I’ll be honest, we were skeptical—our needs seemed too complex for a tool-based solution. But after meeting their team, we saw the potential.” - Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, California Design Den
The Start of Ad Spend Success
“By March [2024], we officially partnered with Quartile, and since then, they've been instrumental in optimizing our sales strategies and addressing our key challenges.” - Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, California Design Den
California Design Den was facing difficulties in optimizing their extensive catalog of over 1,600 child ASINs, struggling to balancing ad spend effectively while manually managing campaigns.
After partnering with California Design Den, Quartile implemented a comprehensive strategy designed to address the brand’s specific challenges with precision and scalability.
How Quartile Optimized Campaigns in Near-Real Time
First, Quartile reorganized California Design Den’s 1,000+ active campaigns, which had previously been well-structured but lacked the necessary level of ongoing optimization and granularity required for ongoing success.
One key tactic was tailoring campaigns based on the unique performance goals of specific product lines. For example, a best-selling product like the 400 Thread Count Bed Set required a different approach from higher-end items like the 800 Thread Count or Duvet lines.
Quartile’s team of experts set up product-specific campaigns, each with custom objectives and performance thresholds, allowing them to bid aggressively where needed and conserve budget where opportunities were less favorable.
Using the near-real time customer data available through Amazon Marketing Stream, Quartile then used their AI-powered platform to automate those real-time adjustments to bids and placements.
“[Amazon Marketing] Stream was a key component that gave us near real-time data, allowing us to incorporate additional signals into our algorithms for greater efficiency. We could track each keyword’s performance by ASIN, campaign, hour, day, and country, adjusting bids automatically to capitalize on peak conversion times and reduce them during low periods.” - Sylvio Lindenberg, CMO and Co-Founder, Quartile
Quartile used these insights to adjust bids based on time-of-day performance, which can fluctuate by up to 23% in a single day. This level of granular bid optimization ensured that ads were shown when customers were most likely to convert, resulting in maximum efficiency.
This allowed them to react to customer behavior and sales patterns almost instantaneously, addressing inefficiencies caused by the previous manual weekly updates to bids and ensured that every dollar of ad spend was optimized to reach peak efficiency.
How Quartile Built Better Audiences
To further enhance California Design Den’s growth, Quartile integrated Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) into their strategy. This allowed them to gain deeper insights into customer behaviors and sales trends.
By analyzing data from AMC, Quartile’s experts segmented audiences more effectively than previously possible – targeting customers based on intent, interest, and more – going beyond traditional demographic audiences.
Quartile implemented this advanced audience targeting through Amazon DSP, expanding California Design Den’s reach beyond traditional sponsored ads.
By leveraging DSP’s programmatic advertising capabilities, they were able to target these new audiences, such as customers new to the brand or those browsing during key life moments like moving or wedding planning.
In addition, they used remarketing strategies to reach customers who had abandoned their carts, driving them back to complete their purchases.
“Previously, we viewed ad spending as a necessary expense, rather than a true growth strategy for creating awareness and driving purchase intent for shoppers. We were using sponsored ads and Amazon DSP but in silos. Without access to deep insights to optimize our campaigns, we weren't in a position to invest meaningfully in what really mattered.” - Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, California Design Den
The Results: California Design Den Doubled Sales YoY
This holistic, data-driven approach led to exceptional results for California Design Den:
- By April 2024: 232% YoY ad sales increase.
- By May 2024: 80% YoY increase in ad sales.
- By July 2024: 92% YoY increase in ad sales, along with higher return on ad spend (ROAS).
Thanks to Quartile’s comprehensive strategies and AI-powered platform, California Design Den not only doubled its ad performance YoY but also saw a higher return on ad spend, further solidifying its market position in the competitive bedding industry.
Recently, Quartile also introduced the "Buy with Prime" integration, which enabled California Design Den to leverage Amazon’s customer base and provide seamless checkout experiences.
This integration helped reduce friction during the purchasing process, leading to continuously higher conversion rates.
“My team is confident that with Quartile’s support, we’ll continue to push the boundaries, explore new opportunities, and achieve even greater results.” - Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, California Design Den
The Importance of Experimentation for Continued Growth
The session finished with discussion of what’s next for California Design Den. Both Lindenberg and Mehrotra highlighted the importance of experimenting to find new opportunities.
“At Quartile, we advise our clients to allocate a portion of their budget specifically for 'Advertising R&D'—typically between 2% to 10%. This approach ensures that while your core strategy remains robust, you're continuously exploring new avenues without jeopardizing your overall results.” - Sylvio Lindenberg, CMO and Co-Founder, Quartile
With the insights and data available through AMC, for example, there are continuous new avenues to explore around audiences on other media channels due to the level of granularity uncovered.
“If your aim is to grow your business, then treat advertising as a growth lever, not an expense. It can't just be about chasing the low-hanging fruit - it's about strategically leveraging those ad levers to fuel sustainable, profitable growth.” - Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, California Design Den
Are you struggling with similar problems in your retail media strategy? Reach out to our team of experts to learn more about what’s possible when AI and expertise combine.
