Gym King

The objective

Unlocking the potential of TikTok features to boost conversions

Jay Parker launched Gym King in 2014 with a clear vision. Creating a multifunctional athleisure clothing brand where fashion and fitness collide. From humble beginnings, it's now a multimillion-pound lifestyle and gym wear brand serving over a million customers worldwide.

The Gym King ethos is all about self-belief. It can’t be bought, it can’t be taught, but it can inspire, and that’s exactly what Gym King strives to do. Inspire self-belief, because when people truly believe in themselves they're unstoppable. Instilling this mindset of self-belief is at the core of the Gym King brand. Like-minded customers, employees, and brand ambassadors the world over share and bring these values to life.

With an organic presence on TikTok, they’d already been using the platform to showcase their products, but they could see there was more that they could do. They were keen to explore the platform and its potential to increase their sales.

The solution

Increasing engagement with a paid media and performance strategy

In mid-2022, they brought in some outside help in the form of agency partner Journey Further. Operating worldwide, their mission is to create the performance brands of tomorrow. Gym King tasked them with managing their paid media and performance strategy.

Working with Gym King’s TikTok account manager, they collaborated and agreed on a plan. The goal was to increase the number of conversions coming from TikTok. They launched a campaign at the end of August targeting a UK-based audience aged 18 and over.

The campaign advertised summer assets before switching to autumn and winter assets covering the Black Friday sales period.

Producing creative content for the campaign in-house, the team showed off new products and ranges. To achieve the greatest amount of exposure and user engagement the campaign used In-Feed Ads and Collection Ads.

For a brand like Gym King, Collection Ads are the ideal way of showing off the brand. They direct users to an Instant Gallery Page for an immersive mobile viewing experience. From this page, users can browse, discover, and find items in a full-screen mobile experience without leaving the app. TikTok ads (full screen, vertical, and sound on) combined with a fast-loading Instant Gallery Page and product recommendation algorithm made Gym King’s content shine.

The results

Diversifying and refreshing the creative frequently boosts performance

The paid media and performance strategy put together for Gym King by Journey Further and their TikTok account manager was a stunning success.

Year on Year, from 2021 the brand saw a staggering 198% increase in the number of purchases and a 759% increase in the number of new followers. Alongside this Gym King decreased its cost per acquisition by 63%, its cost per page views by 51%, and its cost per mille by 5.21%.

TikTok ads were instrumental in helping Gym King notch up these impressive numbers.

TikTok also whitelisted Gym King for a new bid strategy using value based optimisation(VBO). This tool allows campaigns to bid especially for conversions with a higher revenue value which contributed to Journey Further and Gym King meeting their return on ad spend (ROAS) target.

Another key part of the strategy being successful was Lookalike audiences, including finding users similar to those who added items to their cart (an event in the customer journey that indicated intent but also had the highest signal density).

But it wasn’t just TikTok ads that proved instrumental. Their dedicated account manager, supported Gym King every step of the way. This started by providing them with a custom media plan and liaising with Journey Further, then as the campaign progressed they found new ways to optimise it.

Gym King’s key insight moving forward is to maintain a test-and-learn mindset. They also saw firsthand the benefit of diversifying and refreshing the creative they post more frequently to gain stronger results. Such was the campaign’s success that they’re looking to scale their investment on the platform by moving towards a more full-funnel approach.