Since 1999, Ultra Ankle™ has made and sold premium ankle braces. Their products help thousands of people perform their best—whether that’s a walk down the street or a big game against a rival.
As a small but mighty company of four, the team at Ultra Ankle handled selling their product catalog on Amazon—but they didn’t have the time or expertise of Amazon Advertising to optimize their brand presence and grow their sales.
Sales on the marketplace were enough to make Amazon their largest distribution channel, but the Ultra Ankle team wanted to dive deeper into their advertising dollars and make the most out of their ad budget. And with Amazon’s ever-changing updates and new features, it was difficult for Ultra Ankle to keep up.
“As a small team, we only have so many hours in the day to focus on priorities. Amazon is a beast, and it’s changing all the time,” says Kristi Thacker, Sr. Marketing Coordinator at Ultra Ankle. “We needed someone to monitor day-to-day changes, make sure our limited budget wasn’t going to waste, and go beyond surface level advertising.”
In 2018, Ultra Ankle started searching for a team of Amazon experts. They wanted to work with a company they could trust to recommend improvements to their advertising campaigns and act as an extension of their team. Through their research they found SupplyKick and formed an Amazon Agency partnership. This partnership allows Ultra Ankle to maintain complete ownership of their product while fully handing off the management of Amazon Advertising.
At the start of the partnership, SupplyKick dove into Ultra Ankle’s existing campaigns and found ways to optimize their ad dollars. They set up Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ads, which allowed Ultra Ankle to target brand name keywords (such as “Ultra Ankle”), non brand keywords (like “ankle brace”), and competitive terms and products (names of competitors or specific ASINs). Doing this led to over 80% growth in sales year over year.
Through their continued tracking and testing, SupplyKick also found that Ultra Ankle’s ads performed well when using Amazon’s product targeting feature. This feature allows Ultra Ankle to advertise their higher-end products on other products in their catalog. For example, if a college athlete was browsing the lowest-priced Ultra Ankle brace, they may get an ad showcasing the mid-tier brace which is more expensive.
With advertising handed off, Ultra Ankle continues to work on optimizing their brand presence on Amazon. They have developed A+ Content for their products, updated their photography, and built a Storefront. Because of their Agency partnership with SupplyKick, Ultra Ankle’s team focuses on the more creative aspects of Amazon, as well as future opportunities for the business.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ultra Ankle faced a difficult season. Their busiest time of year, Back to School, was halted and so were competitive team sports. “Covid affected our business in a big way—tournaments, school sports, and ankle procedures were canceled,” Thacker says. “There was an increase in outdoor and recreational sports to socialize and get outside, so we saw some movement there. But we had to pause many of the strategies and campaigns we were running.”
Now Ultra Ankle is focused on getting back to their pre-Covid numbers, and to increase sales 50% YoY. Ultra Ankle plans to grow their product assortment and implement new marketing and advertising campaigns that continue to make their store stand out on the marketplace—with the help of SupplyKick, of course. “I consider SupplyKick to be our fifth person on the Ultra Ankle team,” adds Thacker.
Looking for more information on an Amazon Agency partnership with SupplyKick? Explore our services and offerings and reach out to our team.