About Licorice.com and Pretzels.com
Online-based Licorice.com and Pretzels.com are sister companies that centralize sales of artisanal food for gourmet licorice and pretzel flavors.
Client Location
Delray Beach, Florida, USA
Campaign platform
Campaign snapshot
MoM Decrease in CAC
Content Pieces (licorice.com)
Content Pieces (pretzels.com)
Conversions MoM (licorice.com)
Conversions MoM (pretzels.com)
The big question
How can AI-Driven Influencer Marketing Help a Boutique Online Snack Brand Stand Out?
The background
Do One Thing Really Well
People have strong opinions about licorice. The founders of Licorice.com are a self-proclaimed “Licorice-obsessed family,” and the brand was born out of their desire to elevate it to the artisanal, gourmet treat it deserves to be.
As Licorice.com found a loyal customer base, the family behind it all—Adam, Jonathan, and Sarah—saw an opportunity to tap into an additional market. Soon, Pretzels.com, was born, “reinventing the snack, untying the knot and thrilling the palate.”
Today, the snack market is a competitive space. For the two brands, standing apart meant positioning their tasty products as high-quality, gift-worthy items. With a huge opportunity looming with the holiday gift-giving season, the brands had a limited window to make a big impact.
The AI
Tasty AI Insights
With BENlabs AI predicting and de-risking creator-based marketing, the brands jumped in with both feet in this crucial period and achieved the kind of results that CPG brands — and brand really — can otherwise only dream of.
Smart Creator Matching
BENlabs AI mines a proprietary and ever-growing database of more than 15 million qualified, verified content creator influencers from micro to mega. By modelling creators based on learnings early in the campaign, BENlabs AI found look-alike creators, enabling the campaign to scale fast, creating 70 pieces of content across both brands.
Smart Targeting
There isn’t a licorice and/or pretzel content niche; BENlabs AI needed to find audiences that would be receptive to Licorice.com and Pretzel.com messages. Using Smart Targeting, BENlabs AI went beyond demographics and psychographics to reveal true online behavior and aligned interests, opening paths to intelligently scale the campaign, meeting audiences with the right message in the right place at the right time.
Predictive Analytics
With deep learning systems refined on thousands of successful campaigns and with Licorice.com and Pretzels.com data, BENlabs AI predictive insights were able to predict outcomes with a given content creator influencer, a given message, and/or a given audience. This predictive accuracy, not available anywhere else, gave the brands the data they needed to scale quickly and successfully in the crucial holiday shopping window.
Smart A/B
With BENlabs, influence campaigns continuously optimize themselves. Presenting practically unlimited variations of content, copy, and CTA to smart audience segments, BENlabs deep learning AI quickly hones in on what works. Campaigns accelerate to top speed quickly.
For Licorice.com and Pretzels.com, the most successful organic content became the creative for a powerful paid media support with Smart A/B rapid testing the combinations of headline, description, creative, and CTA to quickly find and scale winning ads.
The Creative
Looks Great, Tastes Even Better
BENlabs AI accurately predicted that female creators, including moms and influencers focused on interior design, would be the most successful brand ambassadors for the Licorice.com and Pretzels.com campaigns.
These creators could do the best job of showcasing the products’ aesthetic and great taste. In addition to the vibrant colors of the treats, the product boxes and packaging are elegantly designed, highlighting the gourmet aspect of the treats themselves.
Unboxing videos featured colorful licorice and pretzels spilling out of impressive packaging in already-festive environments. Creators loved talking about the flavor possibilities of the pretzels — from Bacon Bourbon Jam to Strawberry Margarita — and emphasized that there was “nothing like it in stores,” which was effective in driving engagement.
With the holiday season around the corner, many creators shared who they were planning on gifting their licorice and pretzels to, including teachers, family and friends, and even mail carriers as a thank you for their hard work.
Top performers emerged across both campaigns with home and recipe blogger Ashlee Keene, @thesassybarn, producing some of the most effective content for both brands.
The Results
Sorry, We’re Sold Out!
The campaigns were such a success that the sites temporarily sold out of products featured in the creator campaign. A problem, sure… but a solvable one and a good problem to have for a growth-obsessed business.
While the first four weeks were massively successful, the Licorice.com and Pretzels.com campaigns saw even more success from month one into month two. Confined by the holiday shopping window, the campaign had a hard stop after six weeks and while its potential was far from exhausted, the holiday shopping window was closing so the campaigns went out on a high note.
After seeing success with moms and interior designer creators in November, BENlabs AI adviced doubling down on similar creators in December, driving higher results. Month over month, customer acquisition cost decreased by 15% for both brands, while conversions increased by 206.6% for Pretzels.com and 192% for Licorice.com. Both brands also saw a healthy 3.5% click through rate, with Pretzels showing a strong 2% conversion rate.
In total, creators delivered 37 pieces of content for Licorice.com and 33 for Pretzels.com and drove over 940,000 views in the period.
In addition to fresh, organic content, the BEN team used paid media to target specific audiences, mostly women 25-35, with messaging pertaining to gifting and being a great family treat.
