Wuffes grows from category newcomer to top 10 with full-funnel Amazon DSP

Challenge

Wuffes entered Amazon's pet supplement category in 2023 with no existing customer base and a steep hill to climb. Established brands owned the search terms. Top-performing keywords ran above $10 CPC. And AMC data revealed something that made a pure conversion-focused strategy even more costly: shoppers were taking an average of 20 days from first exposure to first purchase.

Prior tactics leaned too heavily on lower-funnel spend, burning through budget at the most expensive point without building the awareness needed to close. Three things had to happen at once:

• Reach care-driven pet owners who had never heard of Wuffes
• Earn consideration against entrenched competitors
• Convert new buyers into loyal, repeat subscribers

Solution

Xnurta built a four-stage full-funnel strategy powered by Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud. AMC served as the connective tissue throughout, informing audience builds, pacing, creative sequencing, and budget allocation at every stage.

Awareness

Reached dog owners showing relevant pet care signals before they'd ever encountered Wuffes using Streaming TV and Online Video.

• Xnurta's AMC Audience Builder created lookalike audiences from first-party signal data, activating previously unexposed shoppers and maximizing incremental reach
• Audience exclusions ensured past viewers weren't retargeted, keeping frequency waste low and new reach high

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Consideration

Inserted Wuffes into active research phases by targeting shoppers already in the market.

• Xnurta's AMC Audience Builder built custom keyword audiences targeting shoppers researching dog vitamins, hip and joint supplements, and competitor products
• AMC custom segment retargeting re-engaged cart abandoners and product page viewers with stronger calls to action
• Lookalike audiences modeled from loyal multi-buyers extended reach to net-new shoppers with similar behavior patterns

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Conversion

Used AMC's Time to Conversion data to concentrate spend in the 20-day purchase window, not before, not after.

• Xnurta's 5 DSP AI actions optimized across bids, budgets, targeting, target settings, and creative weights daily, going beyond what Performance+ optimizes alone to keep every lever continuously tuned within the guardrails set by the team
• Performance+ handled urgency-driven creative delivery toward the most likely converters in real time, with Xnurta's AI managing the broader campaign environment around it
• AMC segment-based retargeting excluded shoppers outside the purchase window, eliminating wasted impressions

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Loyalty

Turned first-time buyers into subscribers and repeat purchasers using post-purchase intelligence.

• Xnurta's AMC Hub Cross-Product Association model mapped SKU pairings and powered cross-sell campaigns that drove multi-product adoption
• Subscribe & Save messaging threaded throughout converted one-time buyers into recurring revenue
• Lapsed buyer re-engagement flows brought back shoppers who hadn't returned after their first purchase

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Results

Wuffes entered the year ranked #23 in their category. By the end of the campaign they had climbed to #10, driven by 164% YoY GMS growth.

The upper-funnel investment paid off in new customer acquisition. 63% of NTB sales came from audiences who had never previously been exposed to a Wuffes ad, validating the decision to invest in awareness before going after conversion. Branded search volume lifted following campaign launch, a sign that DSP was building real brand equity, not just buying clicks.

DSP proved indispensable at every stage of the funnel. 70% of all conversions had a DSP touchpoint, making it the single most important channel in the path to purchase. And by routing spend through AMC-built audiences rather than expensive branded keywords, Wuffes brought their CPC down to $0.27 against a category average above $10.

The loyalty numbers are where the strategy really compounds. Subscribe & Save enrollments rose 25% and customer lifetime value grew 8.6% year over year. Nearly every customer who bought once enrolled for recurring delivery, turning a new-to-brand acquisition play into a retention engine.

"Our ad partner's technology and insight-led approach completely shifted how we think about Amazon DSP. They didn't just run ads, they helped us build a connected, always-optimizing system powered by AI that seamlessly guided customers from discovery to loyalty, with every tactic working in harmony."
- Alexander Lans, SVP Marketplaces, Wuffes