Howler Brothers is more than an apparel brand – it’s a call to adventure. Born in Austin, Texas, and built around passions like surfing, fly fishing, and music, the brand celebrates individuality and exploration through timeless gear designed to help you and your friends heed the call.
The challenge: Proving upper-funnel impact
As a mid-sized business, Howler Brothers knew the importance of diversifying their media mix. However, making the case for upper-funnel spend was difficult without directly connecting those efforts to bottom-line results. They needed proof that brand awareness efforts could translate into real business outcomes.
That’s where Booyah came in.
The strategy: Fill the funnel, fuel the future
We believed that with the right mix of awareness media – Meta, YouTube, CTV, and Audio – we could attract net-new users, expand their remarketing pools, and drive long-term growth. But for a short-term win, we needed to show measurable brand lift right away, along with signs of consideration and conversion gains downstream.
The approach: Lean, focused, and insight-driven
Over a two-month period, we launched awareness campaigns across multiple channels with precision:
- Meta awareness went live pre–Black Friday to build remarketing audiences before peak shopping.
- CTV and Audio were geo-targeted to concentrate frequency within high-performing regions.
- March Madness inventory gave CTV an extra edge, capitalizing on the brand’s audience overlap with college sports fans.
- UGC-driven creative helped boost authenticity and performance on Meta and YouTube.
The results: Upper funnel wins, lower funnel gains
We delivered across the board:
Meta:
- +6% Brand Awareness Lift
- +185% Lift in Facebook Site Traffic
YouTube:
- +14.9% Relative Awareness Lift
- +32.1% Relative Ad Recall Lift
- +6.6% Relative Consideration Lift
Cross-Channel Insights:
- +3% Conversion Lift after programmatic + Facebook exposure
- +14% Conversion Lift after programmatic + Instagram exposure
- +185% Site Traffic Lift after programmatic + Meta exposure
Downstream DR Impact:
- +52% YoY ROAS improvement
- +31% YoY CPA improvement
- +34% YoY MER improvement
Key takeaways: Upper funnel is the growth engine
The test proved that even modest upper-funnel investments can deliver serious results across the entire funnel. With only two months of testing, the case was clear: upper-funnel support is no longer optional. It’s a must for sustainable growth.
Thoughts From the Client
“Our brand champions folks who pursue their passions, or as we like to say around here, “Heed the Call.” We believe in creating content that shows this ethos in action, so we placed “Heed the Call” videos in the upper marketing funnel. Through multiple Brand Lift studies, we learned without question that these upper-funnel placements gave us a lift in conversions from new customers—more efficiently than when we weren’t running them. We’ve been stoked by the test plans and results facilitated by Booyah.”
— Gabe Hernandez, Director of Performance Marketing at Howler Brothers
