Hard Core, a premium waterfowl hunting brand, partnered with SCUBE to strengthen ecommerce performance during Cyber Week following the launch of a new Shopify Plus site. The period presented a narrow window for impact, with competition across paid channels intensifying sharply especially Black Friday ads and Cyber Monday ads.
The objective was straightforward but demanding: convert heightened seasonal demand into meaningful sales and customer acquisition without relying on broad discounts or generic holiday execution.
SCUBE managed paid acquisition across Google and Facebook during the eight-day Cyber Week window. Compared to an average month, sales increased by 466%, and more than 2,200 new customers were acquired across platforms. The results played a central role in validating and accelerating the brand’s direct-to-consumer initiative.
Cyber Week compresses risk.
Auction pressure increases, messaging noise rises, and weak structure is exposed quickly. For a brand early in its direct-to-consumer effort, there was little margin for missteps. Spend needed to work immediately, and execution had to hold through sustained volatility across channels.
Generic holiday tactics would not be sufficient. The account required precision in messaging, segmentation, and pacing to remain competitive throughout the sale period.
SCUBE treated Cyber Week as a controlled execution problem rather than a volume push. The focus was on relevance, responsiveness, and disciplined monitoring across a short, high-pressure window.
Campaigns were deeply segmented to maintain alignment between intent, offer, and creative. Eight distinct ad angles were developed, each supported by three to five creatives, allowing messaging to rotate without diluting relevance.
Search, Shopping, dynamic remarketing, and paid social were structured to serve distinct roles rather than overlap, reducing internal competition during peak auctions.
Execution intensity increased during the Cyber Week window. The account was actively monitored and adjusted throughout the period, including during the holiday itself, to respond to performance shifts and auction dynamics as they emerged.
This approach prioritized control and responsiveness over automation alone.
Over an eight-day Cyber Week period:
Beyond immediate performance, the outcome supported the broader launch of the company’s direct-to-consumer channel, demonstrating that paid acquisition could operate effectively during the most competitive period of the year.
“The team at SCUBE Marketing was great to work with from the start of our partnership.
Tom and his entire team quickly got up to speed on our business and drove incredible results in a very short period of time.”
Brian Regan
Owner, Hard Core Waterfowl
The result was not just a strong Cyber Week. It was proof that the paid acquisition system could perform under maximum strain.
The SCUBE Game Plan is a focused review of how complex, spec-driven catalogs behave inside paid channels. It’s designed to surface what’s contributing to performance, what’s masking underlying issues, and where structure is quietly working against you. If there’s a fit, we walk through the findings in a ~60 minute conversation, looking at:
The goal is a clearer picture of how the system is behaving, so decisions stop relying on averages or assumptions.
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