Results at a Glance
The Brand
Back Down South Clothing Co is a duck hunting and southern lifestyle apparel brand built from the ground up by a founder who once delivered packages as a UPS driver. Through sheer hustle, he built an incredible brand identity and a standout retail store, one of the coolest brands in the outdoor lifestyle space. But as a one-man operator, he was stretched across everything at once: running Meta ads, sending emails, managing the website, and designing new products, all while trying to keep the business growing.
The Challenges
Before partnering with Conversion Engine, Back Down South Clothing Co. handled all of its marketing in-house. The two biggest challenges holding the brand back were:
- Inconsistent email marketing revenue, with no repeatable system for campaigns or automated flows.
- Inability to scale paid ad campaigns profitably while also running every other part of the business.
Strategy & Solutions
We started with a deep dive into the brand, its products, and the competitive landscape to understand its target audience and market position. From there, we built a Marketing & Paid Ads Strategy designed to grow sales immediately, then took over Email + SMS Marketing to compound that growth. Our approach included:
Growth Strategy: developed a growth plan grounded in break-even analysis and ROAS target setting, so we knew exactly when there was room to scale profitably.
Meta Ads Management: built a full ad management strategy covering audience testing, creative A/B testing, ad copywriting, and creative direction.
Email Marketing: created a retention marketing strategy to send more consistent campaigns while building out highly profitable automated flows.
SMS Marketing: launched an SMS program from scratch and grew it into a six-figure marketing channel for the brand.
Inventory & Demand Planning: supported inventory and demand planning to create the operational room needed to keep scaling sales.
The Process
Timeline: gained early traction with paid ads in the first 90 days, then spent the next 12 months profitably scaling ad spend while sending 8x more retention campaigns per month.
Tools & Technology: Shopify, Meta Ads, Klaviyo, and Postscript
The Team: a dedicated Growth Strategist, Paid Ads Team, and Retention Marketing Team.
Results & Impact
Within the first 30 days of taking over Meta Ads, we boosted ROAS by 34% and lowered CAC by 23%, giving the founder his time back to focus on the brand and product instead of ad management. That early success led him to bring Conversion Engine on to run Google Ads, Email, and SMS as well.
By building out core automated flows, boosting subscription rate to grow the list faster, and planning a consistent campaign calendar, we grew Retention Marketing from just 8% of revenue to 24% of revenue. Over the course of the partnership, Back Down South Clothing Co. achieved:
- 68% year-over-year revenue growth
- Paid ad spend scaled 3.5x, profitably
- Retention marketing grown from 8% to 24% of total revenue
- SMS marketing built into a six-figure channel from zero
