Shopify Case Study: IRIS

This is how we helped Iris Slappendel’s women-led cycling brand, I Ride In Style, grow their D2C website sales with digital advertising

Following a professional road cycling career that spanned almost a decade and included major wins at the Open de Suède Vårgårda (2012) and the National Road Race Championships (2014), Iris Slappendel wasn’t through with challenges. As well as starting the pro cyclist union Cyclists’ Alliance and joining Eurosport as a commentator, she set out to start a women’s cyclewear brand, IRIS.

For her new brand, Iris sought to create the kind of high-quality cycling products she’d always wanted to wear while out on her bike. Many cycling brands are designed by men for men, with women’s lines simply adapted versions of those. As a professional woman cyclist, she has experienced the shortcomings of this first-hand. As she put it in our interview with her, “There wasn’t really a super high product out there for women—and then design-wise there were so many limitations working with other brands. I wanted to do something in my own style, and to a really high standard.”

With IRIS, she’s been involved in the design and production from start to finish. Her products are women-centric, with all the features women cyclists have been desperate for — like the magnetic closure system on the Escape bib, which allows quick and easy roadside peeing. They have a feminine look too, featuring funky motifs and big colour combinations. 

Growing D2C Website

We’ve been working with IRIS since 2021, managing the digital ad spend, promoting collections like AW21’s Eat Your Greens collection, and consulting on some aspects of the broader digital strategy, including website management and email marketing.

After a couple of wholesale accounts had ceased trading, 2023 was shaping up to be a challenging year. The business was still new and the internal team was small – just Iris and one other team member. The average monthly ad budget did increase, but compared to a typical client, it was still limited. With a new website recently launched, our challenge was to continue growing the D2C business, maximising the efficacy of a comparatively small ad spend and a limited pool of creative assets.

Building a Robust Paid Digital Campaign

Working with IRIS, we turned what could have been weaknesses into strengths. Iris decided against the launch of new collections in 2023, instead launching new seasonal lookbooks – like SS23’s Postcards from Everywhere  and REMIX –  which featured a mix of classic and new products. Drawing on our Digital Advertising knowledge, we integrated these into an ultra-optimised Meta and Google ad account set-up, treating the assets as a new collection and building out a robust campaign that drove a powerful impression of the brand and its products to new customers and converted both new and old customers as they moved down the funnel.

Working with such a small team, we were able to work more dynamically and with more autonomy, quickly identifying areas of improvement and tweaking the strategy quickly to ensure budget we spent budget as efficiently as possible.

Sizeable Website Revenue Uptick and a Significant ROAS Increase

Our streamlined strategy was a success! The ads worked harder and delivered more customers to the website, helping to plug the gap left by the wholesale accounts.

With an average monthly budget increase of 45% in 2023, we took the ROAS from 3.54 in 2022 to 6.32 in 2023. This contributed to an overall lift in website-generated revenue — in 2023, total website sales were up by 9% compared with 2022.  While total ad impressions increased by only 27%, the ads were way more efficient, with attributed sales rising by an incredible 61% in 2023.

Looking to work with Digital Advertising experts to grow your D2C business? Get in contact and tell us a little more about you, your business, and what you want to achieve.