Case study · Paid social + community

From quiet quarter to 442 leads in 90 days.

A globally distributed luxury brand needed a paid social engine that produced qualified inquiries — not vanity reach. We rebuilt the funnel, cut spend, and quadrupled conversions in a single quarter.

ClientJohn Hardy — Luxury jeweller
IndustryLuxury retail & hospitality
EngagementPaid social, search, community management
Timeline90 days · ongoing
MarketsUK · USA · Singapore · global
The headline

Doing more with measurably less.

442
Social ad conversions in 90 days
≈ 4× prior baseline
+405%
Search conversions, final month vs. quarter open
4.88%
Click-through rate by quarter close
From sub-2%
27,364
Instagram followers, +101.5% interactions
The challenge

A premium brand spending on instinct.

John Hardy's marketing was beautiful. But the spend was opaque — campaigns ran on inherited audiences, creative had been recycled for over a year, and the brand had no clean view of which dollar was producing which lead.

The masterclass and dining experiences are the highest-margin products in the portfolio. They were also under-represented in paid. Every quarter felt productive, but the actual quarterly conversion volume was barely double-digit.

Our brief was simple: treat it like a performance account, but never look like one.

The approach

Three pillars working in concert.

We don't separate paid from organic. We treat them as one ecosystem — paid earns the impression, organic earns the relationship. Both feed the same funnel.

For John Hardy, the work split naturally into three concurrent pillars: conversion growth, efficiency, and community.

01

High-intent conversion growth

We rewired the campaign architecture around lead quality, not raw reach — and the funnel responded immediately.

  • Quadrupled social leads442 social ad conversions across the quarter — nearly 4× the prior month's baseline.
  • Search recovered fast+405% search conversions in the final month vs. the quarter's open.
  • Stable returns at scale2.9× ROAS on masterclass experiences, 2.4× on dining experiences.
02

Drastic efficiency gains

More with less. Tighter creative, sharper targeting, and a relentless focus on relevance.

  • CTR climbed all quarterSub-2% at the end of last year → 4.88% by quarter close.
  • Higher impression shareWon more ad real estate quarter-over-quarter on a smaller budget.
  • Cost-effective reachAverage CPMs of $0.23–$0.50 across UK, US and Singapore.
03

Sustained community engagement

Paid acquisition fed organic; organic compounded retention. The two channels reinforced each other.

  • 27,364 Instagram followersSteady growth across the quarter, no dependence on giveaways.
  • +101.5% interactionsTotal content interactions on Instagram doubled in the back half of the quarter.
  • 46K+ link clicksFinal-month traffic alone — a +43% lift over mid-quarter.
The sequence

Four phases over 90 days.

We front-loaded the audit and pillar work so that creative and bidding could compound through the back half of the quarter. Celebrity activations layered on top once the foundation held.

PHASE 01

Account + creative audit

Pulled 18 months of paid history. Found audience overlap, fatigued creative, and weak post-click experience. Mapped a leaner stack.

Weeks 1–2
PHASE 02

Content pillar split

Codified 'The Places' (boutique + architecture) and 'The Collections' (product) as paid + organic pillars. Both crossed 200K reach on individual posts.

Weeks 2–4
PHASE 03

Funnel rebuild

Separate masterclass + dining funnels. Distinct creative, distinct landing pages, distinct conversion events. ROAS held at 2.4–2.9× through scale.

Weeks 3–8
PHASE 04

Celebrity activation

Coordinated content drops around high-profile guests including Billie Eilish + Finneas. Each placement produced measurable spikes across both paid + organic.

Weeks 6–12
The numbers

Eight metrics, one direction.

Every line moved. Every line moved together. Below is the full quarterly scorecard — efficiency at the top, scale at the bottom, with no metric traded against another.

Metric Was Now Lift
Social ad conversions 112 / mo 442 / quarter +295%
Search conversions (final mo.) Baseline Recovered +405%
Click-through rate (CTR) <2.0% 4.88% +144%
Avg. CPM (UK / US / SG) $0.23–$0.50 Floor reached
Instagram followers 27,364 Steady growth
Content interactions Baseline +101.5% Doubled
Link clicks (final mo.) 46,000+ +43% MoM
Top post unique reach Mixed 200,000+ Pillar wins
Content strategy

Pillars that did the heavy lifting.

The single biggest discovery: two content pillars consistently produced the highest reach and the highest conversion. Once we knew which pillars to feed, the budget allocation followed.

PILLAR 01

The Places

Boutique architecture, retail interiors, and craftsmanship environments.

200K+ unique reach / post
PILLAR 02

The Collections

Hero product photography, signature pieces, and limited-release drops.

200K+ unique reach / post
PILLAR 03

The Experiences

Masterclasses, dining, and brand-hosted events with measurable conversion intent.

2.9× ROAS
PILLAR 04

The Talent

High-profile guests including Billie Eilish + Finneas. Each appearance produced measurable spike.

Spike on every drop
Durant didn't add complexity. They removed it. We're spending less, generating more, and finally know which dollar produced which lead.
JH
Brand & Marketing Lead
John Hardy
What was shipped

Concrete deliverables.

Every artifact lives in the client's account. No black-box methodology, no platform lock-in.

Paid social architecture

Two-funnel stack (masterclass + dining) with creative-first ad sets, audience exclusions, and clean attribution.

Content pillar system

'The Places' and 'The Collections' codified as repeatable post types with a measurable reach floor of 200K+.

Search recovery program

Bid + creative refresh that produced a +405% conversion lift in the final month vs. quarter open.

Celebrity placement playbook

Repeatable framework for capturing organic spike around high-profile guests — Billie Eilish, Finneas, etc.

Reporting cadence

Weekly performance brief + monthly strategy review tied to ROAS, CTR, and pillar reach.

Community management

27,364 follower foundation with a 2× lift in interactions over a single quarter.

Currently taking 2 retainers for Q2

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