Client: Steve Madden
Services: Full-funnel media strategy, planning, buying, optimization, influencer partnerships, and analytics
Overview and Challenges:
Steve Madden, a global fashion accessories brand with over 220 stores in 80+ countries, partnered with January Digital to scale its media strategy from a year of platform testing into a disciplined, full-funnel growth engine. With trend-driven product demand, a diversified channel mix, and a loyal but evolving customer base, the brand needed a more precise, incrementality-led approach to grow .com revenue and deepen cultural relevance without losing what made it distinct.
Steve Madden faced strategic, measurement, and market performance challenges:
- Channel scaling and investment confidence: The brand had promising signals across TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and Pinterest from 2024 testing, but lacked the incrementality data needed to confidently scale spend behind the right platforms and formats.
- Measurement sophistication: Reliance on platform-reported attribution masked true incremental value, making it difficult to allocate budget based on what was actually driving net-new demand.
- Longer, more complex purchase journeys: Tariff-driven price increases contributed to purchase journeys expanding from 8 to 12 touchpoints, requiring stronger media presence and sequencing across the full funnel.
- Sustaining cultural relevance at scale: As a well-established accessories brand, Steve Madden needed to keep evolving consumer perception and deepen its authority in the category while staying true to its trend-driven, accessible identity.
- Full-funnel creative and platform alignment: Each platform required a distinct content and activation approach to perform, demanding tighter creative strategy and platform-native execution across a growing channel mix.
Goals:
In 2025, Steve Madden and January Digital set out to turn a year of platform learning into measurable, scalable growth.
- Scale channels, tactics, and creative formats proven to drive incremental demand.
- Grow .com revenue year over year and surpass annual business goals.
- Improve media efficiency through incrementality-led budget allocation.
- Strengthen Steve Madden’s cultural relevance and brand consideration among new and existing audiences.
- Reduce reliance on any single platform by building a diversified media ecosystem.
- Translate trend-driven product demand into sustained commercial growth across key accessories categories.
Our Work:
January Digital led a full-year strategy grounded in incrementality measurement, disciplined channel scaling, and platform-native creative to turn testing into growth.
- Moved from experimentation to scaled investment: With a year of testing behind us, January Digital identified the channels, formats, and audience strategies that demonstrably delivered incremental value. Rather than spreading investment broadly, we concentrated spend where the evidence pointed, scaling what worked and pulling back from what did not.
- Built and executed a disciplined full-funnel channel strategy: We activated TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat to drive upper-funnel discovery among trend-conscious, younger consumers, while Meta and Google captured and converted existing demand. Pinterest supported consideration through trend-led discovery. Each platform was activated for what it does best, not as a catch-all.
- Used incrementality data to drive budget decisions: Rather than relying on platform-reported attribution, January Digital used incrementality measurement to validate which channels were generating net-new demand. This informed ongoing budget reallocation and gave the team confidence to scale newer platforms where iROAS was strongest.
- Executed seasonal campaigns as accelerants, not the whole story: Fall 2025 was a priority window, and we built campaigns to capitalize on trend-right assortments and cultural momentum. These seasonal pushes amplified an always-on strategy rather than replacing it, ensuring performance held across the full year.
- Connected brand energy to measurable business outcomes: A viral appearance by founder Steve Madden on The Cutting Room Floor podcast created a cultural moment that the team used to reinforce brand-building investment. Sustained upper-funnel activity paired with this organic momentum helped lift search volume and signal rising brand consideration alongside sales conversion.
- Ran structured platform experimentation throughout the year: January Digital tested new platform features and ad formats on an ongoing basis, maintaining a test-and-learn cadence even as we scaled proven approaches. This kept the strategy adaptable and surfaced incremental opportunities throughout the year.
Results and Business Impact:
2025 was Steve Madden’s most successful year to date. The shift from experimentation to disciplined, incrementality-led scaling delivered growth across revenue, efficiency, and brand health, proving that a diversified media strategy built on real evidence can outperform any single-channel approach.
- Steve Madden .com revenue reached $149.7 million, up 6% year over year and above goal.
- Q4 demand reached $56.1 million, up 11% year over year and 8% above goal.
- Incremental demand rose 35%, while iROAS improved 23%.
- Diversified channel investment drove 100% iDemand growth with an average $3.50 iROAS across scaled platforms.
- Fall 2025 revenue reached $19.5 million, up 21% year over year; incremental revenue of $14.8 million, up 45% year over year.
- TikTok delivered a $6.62 iROAS.
- Snapchat incremental demand increased 202%.
- Brand-building activity and a viral cultural moment drove a 7% lift in search volume in H2, signaling rising brand consideration alongside commercial growth.
