How X-Doria Achieves Omnichannel Success In Competitive Smartphone Tech Market
Ever since Apple kicked off the smartphone revolution back in 2007, demand for accessories to protect, enhance, and stylize our seemingly inseparable devices has developed into an industry that today is worth $68.4 billion.
At the leading edge of that market is X-Doria — a brand that continues to push the limits (and expectations) of what smartphone & wearable accessories could and should be.
Here’s how tech accessories brand X-Doria leverages major retailers, digital advertising, and Amazon campaign automation technology to succeed in one of today’s most competitive verticals.
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A couple of Apple accessories 👫
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Since its founding in 2012, X-Doria has earned a stellar reputation for its Defense Lux and Defense Shield line of smartphone cases — and a seemingly unending supply of five-star reviews on tech blogs, Amazon, and YouTube.
The brand has been enormously successful at consistently improving their designs with each major smartphone release.
“X-Doria began in the US in the summer of 2012. Led by industry experts, we started with a broad assortment of designs, protection, and materials,” says Hannah Grun, Ecommerce Specialist at X-Doria.
“Since then, we’ve leveraged our research and data to hone in on what resonated with customers and have continually optimized our designs.”
Stellar Case Designs That Outshine The Competition
It’s no secret that smartphone accessories are sold en masse nearly everywhere.
In a market over-saturated with cheap smartphone cases, X-Doria’s stand out for their quality and signature style: “drop-tested” protection, lifetime warranty guarantees, and beautiful ergonomic designs.
“Our products are unique in that they deliver protection of your device while remaining thin and stylish. Additionally, our hero products – Defense Shield & Defense Lux, contain materials not commonly used – specifically anodized aluminum.”
-Hannah Grun, Ecommerce Specialist at X-Doria
X-Doria’s commitment to both utility and style has garnered the brand rave reviews online — including YouTube’s smartphone case review community.
An Omnichannel Presence That Reaches Customers In-store and Online
One big advantage that X-Doria holds over much of the competition is an extensive omnichannel model that can reach customers both in-store and online.
Retail relationships with BestBuy, Walmart, and Target have enabled the brand to establish a solid presence with customers that frequent the nation’s largest retailers.
“Our core products are distributed both in retail and online successfully through tight distribution and control,” says Grun.
Not only does X-Doria reach customers by showcasing their beautiful products on the shelves of today’s largest tech retailers, but they also leverage an expanding digital presence on today’s largest online advertising platforms: Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
Whether a customer begins their journey for a new smartphone case online or off — they’re more than likely to recognize an trust X-Doria because it’s a brand they’ve seen before.
Paid Digital Advertising on Amazon, Google, and Facebook
In a market as competitive as smartphone cases, a paid digital strategy that spans multiple channels is key for gaining visibility and getting a message directly to a customer.
“All of these channels help us communicate our message to the consumers directly,” says Grun.
“If a brand can’t speak to a customer both online and off, the message risks getting lost.”
This is why controlling the customer experience on each platform is powerful — it allows the brand to build a cohesive customer journey in today’s digitally fragmented landscape.
A customer might encounter X-Doria through a Facebook ad for the first time, research the brand later on Google, before finally purchasing one of their cases on Amazon.
Facebook Advertising
For driving discovery and branding, X-Doria has built a sizable Facebook presence that enables the brand to drive discovery, prospect for new audiences, and send high-quality traffic to their website and Amazon Store.
From their ads to their Facebook page; everything consists of high-quality video and lifestyle imagery that spotlights the functionality and design of their premium phone cases.
With a following of over 25,000, X-Doria’s Facebook has become a powerful channel for building visibility and sending traffic down the funnel.
“Our growing social media presence has helped to drive traffic, build awareness, and improve ranking,” says Grun.
“This helps us create more than just bullet points on a web page, but a lifestyle and attitude that our brand delivers.”
Google Search & Shopping Advertising
Because multiple major retailers carry their products, X-Doria easily covers the Google SERP for many unbranded (and of course, branded) keywords.
Google Shopping displays results for multiple retailers, meaning that X-Doria’s cases will show multiple times for the same keyword — enabling them to cover more of the results page than their single-channel competitors.
Managing the success of SEM campaigns is no easy task, explains Grun.
“Our category is very competitive. You need to have an intimate understanding of keywords and campaign structure to succeed.”
“You can have iPhone 8 or iPhone X keywords in your automatic campaigns, and if that gets dragged over and no one sees that, it’s going to cause a horrible ACoS.”
“No one who’s searching for an iPhone X case is going to buy an iPhone 8 case.”
Amazon Advertising
Smartphone accessories is an enormous category on Amazon with a seemingly unending supply of competitors.
However, X-Doria can place their very best products in front of customers because they leverage Amazon AMS to field Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads for important search terms.
Many of their products also rank high organically, meaning they’ve mastered many of the best practices for Amazon’s A9 Ranking Algorithm.
It’s also worth mentioning that they’ve built a beautiful Amazon Store, complete with high-quality video to create an immersive in-store feel that shows the products in action.
“Videos on Amazon are recent upgrades. We have used videos in the past for outbound marketing in email and social media with very positive results.”
Being present throughout the customer journey both in-store and online means that X-Doria can continue to engage customers at almost any touch point to drive them closer to purchase.
These online platforms, including their website, allows X-Doria to also better control their message to the customer.
“We believe strongly that no one channel on its own is the answer to success, but utilizing them together drives the best results.”
Powerful Bid Automation and Data Reporting With The CAPx Amazon Tool
As competition on Amazon’s Marketplace increases and catalogs expand, manually managing advertising on Amazon AMS can become incredibly difficult.
It’s why brands are increasingly looking to automation tools to help scale campaign management and optimize their bidding strategies on Amazon.
In fact, “two-thirds of Amazon advertisers use or plan to use Amazon advertising automation tools within the next 12 months,” according to a study published by Third Door Media.
“Initially, we were managing our AMS campaigns manually,” explains Grun.
“Going in and managing bids left and right — it was chaos. It was high spend, high volume — unprofitable and unsustainable.”
While CPC Strategy leverages CAPx for all of its clients, it also offers to license the technology to brands that wish to run their advertising campaigns in-house.
“I started the tutorial July of last year. It was pretty self-explanatory and easy-to-use,” says Grun.
“We wanted to manage our campaigns in-house but knew we needed a tool that could help with bidding automation and campaign management to improve efficiency and performance. Which is why we came to CPC Strategy to get access to CAPx.”
The closer attention to detail afforded by CAPx’s data contributed to a complete ACoS turnaround on Amazon.
“Almost immediately, we saw our profit margins increase. By the end of the year we had significantly improved our ACoS, managed our ad spend, as well as increased our profits. Now we’re running at a level beyond our ACoS targets, which was something unthinkable when we began using CAPx over a year ago.”
“We simply wouldn’t be at our current profit level or able to meet our ACoS targets if it was one person running these campaigns manually.”
“With Amazon CAPx, I’m able to have precision in my numbers and my promoting. I pull all of my data from the platform — it’s a solid source of data for my weekly reports,” explains Grun.
“Being able to pull all of your data, including search term reports, is super helpful. Weekly reporting, ACoS, total profits — on a SKU level — CAPx is capable of all of it.”
“CAPx has enabled me to focus on other things; product setup, working with design for A+ and Storefront content, promotions, weekly reporting, etc. It’s an incredible time-saver.”
Advice For Aspiring Brands
For brands looking to find success in today’s competitive market, Grun advises to concentrate and not become overwhelmed with everything at once.
“You need to stay focused,” says Grun.
“You can’t be everything to everyone. Know your audience and address them directly.”
What To Expect From X-Doria In The Future
“We are looking to continue growing and expanding our product offering in adjacent categories,” says Grun.
“The new iPhones have been a stellar launch for us. There is definite excitement for the iPhone X and related models.”
To learn more about X-Doria, check out their website here.
Want to learn more?
CAPx AMS for Amazon Quickstart Guide
Q4 Amazon Ad Strategy: AdDiego Panel Experts Share Best Practices
Q4 Facebook Advertising Best Practices & Advanced Strategies
Q4 Google Shopping Best Practices and Advanced Strategies
Amazon Brand Stores | A Complete Guide (2018)
Why Paid Branded Search Matters (Or How To Lose $40k in Two Weeks)
The Ultimate Guide to Amazon SEO & Cracking the A9 Algorithm
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