Karhu is a sports company from Finland with a rich history. Since its founding, Karhu has made sports products ranging from skis to running shoes. The latter has always remained the main product line. Karhu now focuses on the North American and European markets, but there are also Karhu outlets in some Asian countries. Karhu currently has two product lines: Lifestyle and Running.
About Karhu
Those shopping for new sneakers often look at silhouette and colorway to pick something that looks super cool. Karhu takes a different approach for Running, choosing functionality over aesthetics. Karhu's running shoes are made to best support all different foot types and modes of cushioning. Based on that, Karhu lets you choose the perfect match without sacrificing style. Although function is the top priority, the shoes still look great.
Karhu has a distinctive strategy where retail is crucial and e-commerce is a relatively small branch. This increases the need for a strong e-commerce strategy. Karhu prefers to manage activities such as branding in-house, leaving less time and expertise available for performance marketing. Tomahawk came on Karhu's radar through word of mouth. Since Karhu works with larger online retailers, Tomahawk proved to be a good match. We had exactly the experience needed.
Task
Karhu was looking for an agency that could help them with the German market. It was therefore up to Tomahawk to handle the German-language marketing campaigns.
Action
Tomahawk is taking several steps for Karhu:
- Tomahawk created a Branded Search and a Smart Shopping campaign for Karhu. Later, Shopping transitioned into Performance Max. For Branded Search, the campaigns were split on Lifestyle and Running because there were separate goals for the product lines;
- Add data points to campaigns, such as information about the products customers have previously placed in their shopping cart;
- Improving German in ad copy;
- Implementing an effective campaign management tool, Channable, to replace a previously used, less efficient feed management tool. We are performing the migration for all eight countries where Karhu runs Google Ads campaigns: the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France, Finland, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- Tomahawk implements server-side tracking so Karhu is ready for the cookie-free future.
Result
- By 2023, we will have doubled the turnover of the German and Austrian webshop compared to 2022, with an improved ROAS.
- We achieved growth within ROAS targets. Within this profitability, we got everything out of the market.
- Following this success, Tomahawk took the initiative to manage more: we got the UK Branded Search in. Those campaigns also grew significantly. In 2023, the Lifestyle Branded Search campaign grew by about 50% in revenue compared to 2022. Running Branded Search campaign revenue grew fivefold. The entire Google Ads revenue from the Tomahawk campaigns doubled, with ROAS remaining at the same level.
Turnover per quarter for Karhu Tomahawk campaigns:
Development for all campaigns:
Customer Experience
"Tomahawk understands our company-wide strategy and knows how to translate that well into campaigns. But Tomahawk goes beyond campaign management. The most recent major project we completed with Tomahawk was the Channable integration. That meant we were working for multiple domains for multiple stores. The project took longer than planned, but there was nothing Tomahawk could do about that. I am impressed with how well Tomahawk handled this, despite the unexpected external circumstances. They continued to work meticulously in this changed timeline, Tomahawk didn't skip a step. In addition, Tomahawk does not stare blindly at an ROAS or other details. We want to grow in multiple countries at the same time. At Tomahawk, they think about the big picture and the long-term international growth of the company."
Edgar Minks, Karhu
Experience Tomahawk
"Karhu is one of our most international clients, so with our knowledge of crossborder business, Karhu and Tomahawk are a perfect match. The culture in meetings is positive and constructive. Because of this pleasant cooperation, action points are well taken up. What is very special about Karhu is their international workforce. We have quite a few contacts at Karhu and no one is from the same country. Despite this change in people, languages and cultures, communication is good. Finally, Karhu is of course a really cool brand and they sell incredibly cool shoes."
Claudio Atzeni, SEA Marketer