Riding into Success: Australia's Largest Online Bicycle Retailer Conquering the US Market

Service:

Advertising

Industry:

eCommerce

Technology:

Google Ads Meta Ads Microsoft (Bing) Ads

82%

revenue growth

40X

revenue growth

Most Agencies Chase Volume. We Choose Impact

ABOUT CLIENT
AND OBJECTIVES

Establishing market presence in the US, building brand awareness, driving sales & efficiency BikesOnline USA is a California-based online specialty retailer that sells both bicycles and the accessories that accompany them. The company was launched in 2019 by Bicycles Online AU.

client Challenges

Holding a significant market share in Australia, BikesOnline was looking for new opportunities to expand overseas. Initially, the company was considering the EU market. However, after conducting thorough market research, our team of professional digital advertisers (with extensive expertise in the bike industry) recommended entering the US market instead. To successfully conquer the US market while effectively navigating industry challenges, BikesOnline once again turned to VIDEN Growth.

Stepping into a new market

Stepping into a new market was challenging for the brand as they were seeking new growth opportunities. Like any market, the US market presented its own barriers, such as dealing with high competition and navigating cultural differences. The bike niche was no an exception. The retailer needed to understand diverse consumer preferences and build awareness in a crowded business. This requires investments in advertising to introduce and establish brand identity. See more

Stock restraint issues

During the period of exceptionally high demand, US bicycle sales grew by 46% YoY, while global supply chain disruptions created severe inventory shortages. Retailers struggled to keep products in stock, making it challenging to scale paid advertising without sacrificing efficiency. To overcome these constraints, we continuously adapted our advertising strategy, optimizing budget allocation and campaign performance based on product availability and inventory levels. See more

Seasonal demand fluctuations

Historically, the industry had experienced seasonal demand fluctuations, requiring careful inventory management to prevent overstock during off-peak periods. However, the surge in demand caused by the pandemic led retailers to miscalculate future needs. See more

Decreased demand

As market demand normalized, the bicycle industry faced significant challenges, including declining consumer demand, excess inventory exceeding $765 million, and intensifying competition. Retailers had to quickly adapt their strategies to manage inventory more effectively while maintaining sales and profitability. See more

Solution

Campaign strategy:

Budget distribution across Meta Ads, Google Ads, and Microsoft (Bing) Ads
Re-balancing the media mix towards the middle and bottom of the funnel
Strategy adaptation due to lower consumer demand and higher competition
Developing a creative and data-driven approach to paid advertising

At the beginning of our partnership, the VIDEN Growth team developed a paid media strategy designed to expand the brand’s reach and maximize growth by distributing the budget across the following campaigns:

Meta Ad video campaigns to reach target audiences (interested in buying mountain, road, and gravel bikes) by highlighting each product’s unique selling propositions.
Google Ad shopping campaigns to put product ads directly in front of users who are actively searching for goods. Each one categorized by user buying intent, maximizing high-buying intent coverage to generate revenue immediately.
Microsoft (Bing) Ad shopping and search campaigns to leverage lower competition inventory and receive better return on the ad spend (ROAS) to support revenue streams.

As market conditions evolved during the pandemic, we adjusted our media mix to prioritize mid- and bottom-funnel campaigns, capitalizing on exceptionally high demand while navigating widespread inventory constraints. We also shifted more budget toward Google Shopping and Microsoft (Bing) Ads to maximize efficiency.

When the market transitioned into a period of lower consumer demand and increased competition, paid search costs rose significantly. To maintain performance and profitability, our team adapted the strategy by:

Shifting budgets to Meta Ads, where ad costs were not less affected.
Heavily focusing on creatives to stand out, address customer needs, and demonstrate the brand proposition (great value for its price, free shipping, and returns).
Implementing a dynamic bidding strategy based on stocks, margins, and competitors’ pricing to maximize the coverage of the best potential auctions.

Additionally, introducing parts and accessories (P&As) let us build another acquisition angle across Google Ads and Meta Ads, with further opportunities for customer retention and upselling.

As we continue our partnership with BikesOnline, the team is constantly leveraging the creative and data-driven approach for paid advertising.

With ever-shrinking targeting capabilities provided by ad platforms and an overall shift to broad targeting, creatives play a pivotal role in identifying the customer intent at different stages of the journey, because of this, they must:

Appeal to audiences who are unaware of bike trends across different categories.
Educate customers on how to make the right bike selection.
Communicate the best value propositions of price, delivery, and customer support when a prospective buyer is about to make a purchase.

Our team created a wealth of high-quality content, which allowed us to form a strong and meaningful connection with our audience. AI adoption in the creative process exponentially speeded up testing hypotheses, ideas, and ad angles.

Extending the data-driven approach to all aspects of digital advertising included the following:

Measuring the efficiency beyond the platform numbers, moving to incremental ROAS and profits (full-funnel marketing analytics).
Automated trends analysis (competitors, ad auctions, creative trends).

client Results

82%

avg. ann. paid ads revenue growth

40X

revenue growth

Our long-term collaboration between VIDEN Growth and BikesOnline USA has led to outstanding outcomes:

Within the first six months after the campaign launch, we achieved break-even ROAS and outperformed the business plan by 30%.

During the rapid growth phase, VIDEN Growth increased sales more than six-fold and achieved a 47% improvement in incremental ROAS.

Despite the industry experiencing softness in post-pandemic demand, we managed to maintain and increase paid ad revenue to double the pre-pandemic volumes with about 10% lower efficiency, outperforming both projected and industry-wide outcomes. Ad engagement rates (click-through rates) remained over 80% higher than the industry benchmark, showing consistent YoY improvement.

Since the beginning of our partnership, paid ad revenue has grown by an average of 82% YoY, with a 14% annual improvement in ROAS.

We eagerly embrace the challenges and opportunities as we continue our collaboration with BikesOnline.