Thanks to a smart social ad strategy, NOMAD achieved 16.02% growth

Pro tips from the frontline

• Optimise your advertising assets for attention. People behave differently across platforms. For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users watch less than 1–2 seconds of a video ad on average. If your brand isn’t front and centre in those first seconds, you’re throwing money away.
• Geo-target your ads. If your business is restricted by physical location, be focused. For example, we discovered the average distance someone’s willing to travel to a gym is 7km. Using this insight, we set precise geo-targeting for NOMAD Bouldering Gyms ads.‍
• Consistency saves money, effort and works harder for your business. You don’t need to reinvent your ads every week, month, or even year. For SMEs with smaller budgets, a solid advertising strategy that stays consistent will drive results over time—stick with it.

Setting the scene

Bouldering is booming, but with over six new gyms opening, NOMAD Bouldering Gyms customer base was at risk.

NOMAD Bouldering Gym was one of Sydney’s first dedicated bouldering gyms, launching back in 2017 (check out their website, here). But by 2022, the landscape had changed—over six new bouldering-specific gyms had opened, with many gyms opening their second, or even third locations to capitalise on the sport's growing popularity. Worst of all, within NOMAD Bouldering Gyms catchment area ~7kms there were two new gyms that opened.

Suddenly, there was more supply than demand. And while NOMAD Bouldering Gym had legacy on its side, being the first wasn’t enough to guarantee future success. With just one location to its name, NOMAD Bouldering Gym was at risk of getting overshadowed and forgotten in a market increasingly dominated by multi-location gyms.

NOMAD Bouldering Gyms advantage lay in its strong brand—a go-to gym for climbers who want to “try hard and train.” They’d already built distinctive assets through their owned media (check out their standout Instagram, here): a bold logo, recognisable colours, and a unique tone of voice. But legacy alone wouldn’t keep climbers coming through the doors.

Kicking the project into gear

That’s where our marketing Pros stepped in. Tasked with transforming the strong brand into a powerful social media and online video ad strategy, they broke down the project into clear steps: recommending budgets, optimising creative assets, planning and launching campaigns, managing performance, and reporting on results.

For NOMAD Bouldering Gym, working with a verified Pro was essential. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube make it too easy for SMEs to spend money on ads, but without experience, it’s just as easy to waste that budget and miss the mark.

Delivering results that matter

A consistent and strategic social media advertising approach delivered measurable results. Year-over-year, NOMAD Bouldering Gym grew by 16.02%, surpassing the category growth of 13.27%.¹ This success is even more remarkable given the surge in competition—since COVID, the number of bouldering and climbing gyms in Sydney has increased by 44.44%.

^{1 Google Trends 2022/2023 ‘NSW’ Search Interest in ‘Bouldering’ as a proxy for category growth}

‍