A home-fragrance brand sells hotel-style room sprays and designer incense burners online. The brief was blunt: a five-times return on $1,200 in a single week, in the week before a peak gifting period.
The situation
One week, one number
The season is when households prepare their homes and buy gifts, and scent is part of both. The window was short, the budget was small, and the target was fixed.
What we did
Split by product, not pooled
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Two product lines, two budgets
Room sprays got two thirds of the budget and the incense burners one third, with identical targeting, so the products could be compared cleanly.
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Native, story-led creative
Vertical videos with hooks about scent and memory, two ads per product line.
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Read it at every level
Results were analysed by campaign, product line and ad, which is where the real story showed up.
Results
The smaller budget did half the selling
A blended campaign would have reported a 5.18 return and stopped there. Splitting the budget showed that the incense burners, with a third of the money, brought in just over half of the 45 orders at nearly twice the return of the sprays.
Sprays vs incense burners
What made the difference
Small budgets hide their best lessons when everything is pooled. Splitting by product cost nothing, hit the target, and told the brand which product to lead with next.
