Menswear brand in Thailand drives product sales on TikTok Shop with full-funnel ads campaign and creator collaboration
With the launch of GQ CoolTech Jeans, which features an innovative active cooling gel to combat Thailand’s heat and humidity, GQ Apparel made their entry into the jeans market. Partnering with marketing agency Digital Bites, GQ Apparel had plans to leverage TikTok’s unique blend of entertainment and e-commerce features as part of their online sales strategy. Despite finding success using branded hero product videos in past campaigns, they wanted to test the effectiveness of affiliate creator partnerships for this launch. In addition, they also wanted to inspire TikTok users to create videos with their jeans, generating an active flow of user-generated content (UGC) through offering cash prizes as part of a “bounty challenge”.
Digital Bites’ full-funnel campaign strategy takes on a two-pronged approach, splitting GQ Apparel’s campaigns into Non-Direct Response (NDR) and Direct Response (DR) tactics. The NDR plan focused on optimising for video views with Spark Ads, collaborating with over 150 affiliate creators to produce video content and offering special commission rates during the period of the campaign. By reaching viewers who may be new to their brand and leaving an impression through the creator-led videos, they hoped to pique their curiosity to try their products in-store, driving footfall to almost 200 retail locations across Thailand.
On the other hand, Digital Bites’ DR plan for GQ Apparel aims to convert viewers into product purchasers on their TikTok Shop. Through launching a series of Video Shopping Ads (VSA), Product Shopping Ads (PSA) and LIVE Shopping Ads (LSA), they engaged viewers in different ways while leveraging the seamless in-app shopping experience from discovery to purchase. Upon viewing their ads, users are able to directly click-through to the Product Detail Page (PDP) of respective products, learn more information and read reviews before adding the product to their TikTok Shop cart and completing the purchase. By leveraging a combination of broad audience targeting and interest targeting, they would be able to reach a wide user base who are more likely to consider purchasing their products. As the campaign progresses and sufficient audience insights are gathered, they also created a Lookalike Audience group and added retargeting campaigns to refine their campaign targeting further.
The campaign delivered exceptional results, surpassing expectations across all key metrics. Apart from recording 65 million video views across their campaigns, their VSA, PSA and LSA campaigns drove an average of 5.6x return on ad spend (ROAS). Overall, the campaigns recorded a 30% lower Cost per Action (CPA) than initial targets, cementing the campaign's success in driving both reach and cost efficiency. Within the first month of the campaign, GQ Apparel sold 5,000 pairs of jeans and decided to extend their affiliate commission scheme to sustain the momentum through the end of the year.
As a marketing partner of GQ Apparel for over five years, Digital Bites has supported GQ Apparel from strategy to execution and customer acquisition. Through mapping out their customer journey, Digital Bites was able to tailor their key-opinion leader (KOL) recommendations across the marketing funnel and optimise their campaigns to maximise results. In terms of creative strategy, they now incorporate affiliate content & UGC as part of their always-on advertising campaigns on TikTok, utilising authorised videos from keen creators in Spark Ads.
What I love most about TikTok is how it blends entertainment with community-driven content. TikTok allows our clients to connect with audiences through real, relatable creator content, driving immediate engagement to support both brand awareness and sales.