When StockX launched a contest to win a pair of shoes that once sold on eBay for nearly $30,000, the company had a feeling people would pay attention. What it didn’t expect, however, was that it would drive $441,488 in new revenue — in less than three weeks.
"Ambassador’s role in making our influencer campaign super easy to setup and execute was a huge value-add. I don’t think we would have been able to manage the crazy numbers we did without the tools Ambassador gave us."
Stephen Winn, Senior Software Engineer, StockX
When Josh Luber and Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert co-founded StockX, the idea was to build a virtual stock market of things — a hub where buyers and sellers could swap in-demand goods at prices that were based on live market data. Rather than meeting the needs of every buyer and seller initially, however, the company honed in on a relatively niche community: Sneakerheads.
In June 2016, StockX’s brand got a huge boost when it announced a partnership with hip-hop icon Eminem. To celebrate, the company came up with a unique contest: Every time someone bought or sold shoes on its platform (or referred a new customer who did), that person would be entered into a drawing to win a pair of Eminem + Carhart Jordan 4 shoes — sneakers that once sold for nearly $30,000 on eBay. That said, the concept for the contest was the easy part — StockX knew people would covet the prize. The hard part was assembling the infrastructure that would allow the company to effectively and efficiently track and manage every purchase associated with the campaign, and identify exactly who deserved referral credit for it.
That’s where Ambassador came in. Thanks to the referral marketing platform’s robust API, StockX immediately had what it needed to develop the mechanics of the contest. “With Ambassador’s technology, every time someone placed a bid or posted a pair of shoes for sale, I could easily say, ‘OK, they came from this campaign, they were referred by this person’s link, and here’s how it all went down,’” says Winn. “The platform’s ability to simplify something that would have been really complex was pretty incredible.”
Throughout the influencer campaign, StockX saw sales increases by 100% week-over-week. And by the time the contest entry period closed, StockX had generated 1,614 new customers from referrals and $441,488 in new revenue. Winn also says the campaign wouldn’t have been as successful without Ambassador. “Ambassador’s role in making the influencer campaign super easy to setup and execute was a huge value-add,” Winn says. “I don’t think we would have been able to manage the crazy numbers we did without the tools Ambassador gave us.”