PromoStick: from game to purchase

When promotions in the pet supplies category look the same, it becomes increasingly difficult to capture the audience’s attention with discounts. For E-ZOO, we sought a solution that would both differentiate the brand from its competitors and deliver measurable performance results. This led to the creation of PromoStick, a mechanism that transformed online shopping into a genuine brand experience.

Goals

The pet supplies category is one of the most competitive in e-commerce, where standard promotions and discounts quickly lose their effectiveness. The main task was to increase sales in the dog supplies category and attract new customers to E-ZOO, while strengthening the brand’s position in a saturated environment.

To do this, we set a goal to create an interactive ecosystem of online touchpoints with the brand, increase reach and awareness among pet owners, achieve at least 2,000 PromoStick activations, and ensure a direct business result — growth in sales of dog products on the E-ZOO website.

The challenge

Pets have long been more than just animals. They are full-fledged members of the family. We love them dearly, spoil them with the best food, and buy stylish leashes and soft beds. Anything to make our furry friends happy.

This has led to rapid growth in the pet products market: in 2024, the pet products market in Ukraine reached UAH 45.4 billion and is one of the largest and fastest growing. For the fourth year in a row, annual turnover growth has been 15-30% (RAU, Pet Products Market Research, 2024). But along with growth, competition is also intensifying: online, most of the market is divided between large players, which creates a significant barrier to the development of smaller brands such as E-ZOO.

Marketing in this category is mostly focused on similar promotions and discounts, which makes brands less distinct from each other and distracts the audience’s attention. In such an environment, the key challenge was not just to offer another discount, but to stand out from the endless promotional catalog, attract the attention of pet owners, and build an emotional connection with the brand — in a way that would directly impact sales.

Insight and strategy

Dogs instinctively love the game “fetch the stick” — it’s a simple gesture that brings them joy and strengthens their bond with their owner. At the same time, pet parents in the digital world behave in a similar way: they are constantly looking for the best for their pets (great deals, promo codes, promotions). We saw a parallel: searching for a stick and searching for the best offer are almost the same behavior, only in different manifestations.

Based on this insight, we built a strategy: to transfer the favorite game of “fetch” to the digital world and turn the search for discounts into an interactive experience of interacting with the brand. This is how E-ZOO’s digital PromoStick came about — an online mechanism that combined the instincts of dogs and the rationality of pet owners and gave the brand the opportunity to stand out in the category not by the size of the discount, but by the format of contact.

Execution

First, our creative team developed the concept of offline PromoSticks — they collected real sticks, put smart messages and promo codes on them, and returned them to city parks. Dogs found the sticks during walks and brought them to their owners, who discovered discounts on food, toys, and other products for their pets. The idea instantly evoked an emotional response and organically engaged the audience with the brand.

Seeing the high level of audience engagement and interest, we scaled the mechanics to digital. To do this, we optimized the UX and integrated the digital PromoStick directly into the E-ZOO website — into the landing page, catalog, product cards, advertising, etc. Users could find promos at various points along the way, receiving alternative commercial offers in the form of promo codes integrated into performance campaigns: from contextual advertising to search campaigns, social networks, and retention mechanics.

This turned shopping into a game and a quest: you go in for cat food and suddenly find a digital stick with a promo code. Unexpected, exciting, and profitable at the same time.

As a result, our PromoStick ceased to be just a promotion — we built a full-fledged ecosystem of channels around the game with sticks. Offline sticks became the entry point, organic sharing on social media and influencers increased reach, search and social media advertising drove new audiences to the site, and CRM communications maintained interest and stimulated repeat purchases.

Results

PromoStick integrated into the user journey and allowed the emotional idea to be scaled into measurable business results. The campaign accurately targeted the audience and captured the attention of more than 1.6 million pet owners. The game mechanics increased engagement — CTR rose significantly, and conversion (CR) grew substantially, especially among new customers.

• promo During the 12-day promo, we attracted 2,267 sales using PromoStick, which accounted for almost 40% of all sales in the “Dog Products” category and 26% of E-ZOO’s entire product range.
• With an increase in the advertising budget of only 13%, we managed to attract 45.8% more sales in the Dog Products category, which generated +49.6% revenue. In other words, the average user check was even higher than usual.

At the same time, our “zoo creative” helped draw the attention of new customers to E-ZOO. We attracted a larger audience new to the brand, which led to a 61.5% increase in sales to new customers. PromoStick is an example of performance marketing that makes a campaign both emotional and effective, turning the game into real business results for the brand.