We also added UTMs to the links so that we could track the results on Google Analytics. We also ran surveys to get to know our backers better. Surveys are a great way to understand why people are backing this dog campaign, what they like the most about a product, and, more importantly, hear it in their own words.

After analyzing the results of these surveys, we found the common reasons people gave for backing Bristly and used them to target similar audiences. We included problem/solution texts that addressed their specific concerns, wrote them in their own voices, and built stories that related the product to their interests.

Indiegogo

Unlike Kickstarter, Indiegogo gives you the opportunity to embed your Facebook Pixel ID.

With this, we began tracking conversions directly from Facebook. We could analyze the Facebook ads and banners to see which ones were converting better. We would try different ad copy with different visuals to discover the best-performing ones and try those on new audiences.

During the Indiegogo stage, we also benefited from Facebook’s retargeting options. By creating lookalikes and retargeting people who had visited the page but hadn’t converted, we essentially had a never-ending stream of traffic. And with the lessons learned through Facebook’s Analytics, with each passing day we got better at converting them.

Special perks and their appropriate design are another great opportunity on Indiegogo.

We designed a series of banners for different occasions — Black Friday, Christmas, and New Year’s — and ran limited flash sales with extra discounts on those days. This increased the urgency in backers’ minds, leading to spikes in conversions.

The same is true of secret perks. Not usually visible on the landing page, these can only be accessed by special links. During our dog campaign, this allowed us to offer extra discounts to people who were on the fence, giving us more leeway in personalized ad offers.

As is always the case with special offers, we took care to exclude previous backers from these Facebook ads so that they wouldn’t get upset that they had backed at an earlier price.

Lookalikes

Lookalike audiences are one of the best sources to drive great traffic to your campaign. These are audiences that are of a similar demographic, live in the same areas, or have similar interests to your current backers. Facebook’s algorithms search their billions of users to give you audiences who are more likely to convert based on your current data — easy!

Once we had around 500 backers, we sent out a survey using Kickstarter’s dashboard.

There’s a small, often-missed button to send out a message:

And in this message, we linked to a survey we created using Paperform. The innocent-looking survey — which also gave us a ton of useful insights that we used to create new ads — also had a Facebook Pixel embedded within it.

This allowed us to capture our existing backers’ Facebook ad profiles.

Then, all we had to do was create lookalike audiences based on them, subtract them from these new ad campaigns — so that current backers weren’t bombarded with repeat ads — and turn them on.

Where did all this get us?

As you can see, Bristly was a fully tailored dog campaign that we pushed forward on all fronts. Every department raised the bar in creativity and effort and played an important role in the ultimate result of its success.

We hit the funding goal in under 24 hours and raised $1,000,739 on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. And with 22,150 backers, this became the most-backed pet crowdfunding campaign ever! This was even recognized by Indiegogo — who named Bristly the 2nd best crowdfunding campaign of 2018 — and their partner Ingram Micro who awarded our dog campaign extra Flash Funding.

Our PR and Influencer Marketing got Bristly coverage in over 1,000 leading publications and top social media pages. Which had a multiplier effect that made Bristly one of the strongest and most well-known brands in the dog industry. Throughout the campaign, more than 400 distributors reached out to us inquiring how they could sell our product.

All of this led to an increase in Bristly’s valuation by around 10, turning them into an established driving force in the pet community.