PetsRPals — Digital Marketing and Growth Hacking
Digital Marketing · Ecommerce · Brand Development · Product Design · Growth Strategy
Project overview
PetsRPals is a digital marketing and growth-hacking capstone built around the launch of an organic dog shampoo.
The project explores how a pet-care brand could introduce a new product through a connected combination of ecommerce, search, paid media, social content and email marketing. Rather than treating each channel as a separate activity, I developed a single proposition and carried it through the complete customer journey—from initial discovery to product consideration, purchase intent and retention.
The original work included market and audience research, campaign objectives, customer personas, SEO planning, paid-media forecasts, social content, email journeys and performance analysis. I then developed a responsive Hostinger website to bring the strategy, product range and campaign materials together as a coherent digital experience.
PetsRPals is a portfolio marketing concept. The website demonstrates the proposed experience, but it does not process real purchases.
The brief
The brief was to create an integrated digital launch campaign for PetsRPals Organic Dog Shampoo.
The campaign needed to:
Introduce the product to a clearly defined audience.
Build awareness through relevant social content.
Capture active demand through search.
Explain the product’s ingredients and benefits clearly.
Provide a credible path from advertisement to product page.
Grow a permission-based email audience.
Establish a practical measurement and optimisation framework.
The work needed to demonstrate both strategic planning and execution across the full customer journey.
The challenge
Pet-care marketing is crowded with exaggerated claims, inconsistent product information and highly promotional creative. Smaller brands must compete for attention while also building enough trust for customers to use a new grooming product on their animals.
The challenge was therefore broader than producing advertisements. The complete experience needed to feel consistent and dependable.
A customer discovering PetsRPals through an Instagram post or Google search should encounter the same proposition, visual identity and product information when they reach the store, product page or email journey.
The central positioning became:
Better everyday care for pets, made simple.
This gave the campaign a practical and reassuring direction without relying on inflated wellness claims.
Project objectives
The capstone defined a 60-day launch framework with three connected objectives:
Generate 3,000 qualified website sessions and 150 online orders.
Increase Instagram reach by 30% and generate 600 product-page referrals.
Build an audience of 1,000 consented email subscribers.
These were planning targets created for the capstone, rather than realised commercial results.
The campaign also established supporting measures for:
Search click-through rate.
Product-page conversion.
Cost per acquisition.
Return on advertising spend.
Social saves, shares and referrals.
Email sign-ups and click-through rates.
Audience frequency and creative fatigue.
Audience research
Two priority customer profiles were developed to guide channel selection and campaign messaging.
Maya Chen — discovery-led customer
Maya is 29 and based in Chicago. She values natural ingredients, responsible packaging and products that fit comfortably into everyday life. Instagram, TikTok and creator-led recommendations play an important role in how she discovers new brands.
She responds to warm lifestyle photography, accessible ingredient education and authentic demonstrations rather than heavily promotional advertising.
Daniel Ortiz — research-led customer
Daniel is 38 and based in Austin. He values dependable quality, convenience and clear product information. He is more likely to begin with Google, compare alternatives and look for evidence that a product meets his pet’s needs.
He requires clear benefits, straightforward instructions and an easy route from search result to purchase.
Together, these profiles created a useful balance between visual discovery and active search intent.
Channel strategy
The campaign was organised around four connected channels.
Google Search
Google Search was selected to capture people already looking for organic, natural or sensitive-skin dog shampoo. This part of the campaign focused on high-intent searches and a close relationship between keyword, advertisement and landing-page copy.
Instagram and Meta
Instagram provided the visual discovery layer. Reels, carousels, product demonstrations and community prompts were used to turn the product into useful, saveable content.
Meta advertising extended this creative system into prospecting and remarketing campaigns.
SEO content
Search-led editorial content allowed PetsRPals to answer wider questions about grooming, ingredients, sensitive skin and wash-day routines. The aim was to build useful entry points beyond the product page.
Email connected first-time visitors with a longer-term relationship. A welcome sequence introduced the brand and product, while promotional messages created a clearer route back to the store.
Brand and visual direction
The original supplier material was visually inconsistent and did not support the calm, considered positioning developed for the campaign.
I created a more coherent PetsRPals product and campaign system using:
Warm cream packaging.
Forest and sage greens.
Muted ochre accents.
Botanical ingredient illustrations.
Amber bottles and simple containers.
Soft natural lighting.
Calm domestic pet photography.
Clear PetsRPals labels across every product.
The redesigned range includes organic dog shampoo, coat-care spray, detangling mist, paw and nose balm, grooming tools and home accessories.
The visual system gives the range a recognisable family appearance while still making each product’s purpose easy to understand.
Ecommerce experience
Although the capstone was based on a Shopify project, I created a separate Hostinger prototype to demonstrate the proposed customer experience as a complete portfolio piece.
The responsive website includes:
A campaign-led homepage.
Product collection grid.
Individual product pages.
Product descriptions and routine categories.
Shopping-bag interaction.
Responsive navigation.
Campaign overview.
Dedicated paid-media, educational-content and community pages.
Clear portfolio-concept disclosure.
Product prices are displayed in pounds and the prototype makes it clear that no genuine transactions are processed.
The homepage brings together the product range, brand proposition and launch strategy without making the campaign material feel separate from the shopping experience.
Search and content strategy
The primary search theme was organic dog shampoo, supported by topics including:
Natural dog shampoo.
Dog shampoo for sensitive skin.
Gentle coat care.
Organic pet grooming.
Calmer dog wash-day routines.
Everyday coat care between baths.
The main long-form content concept was:
5 Reasons to Choose Organic Dog Shampoo
This article was designed to answer customer questions while creating internal links to the product page and related educational content.
A seven-day distribution plan extended the same subject across blog content, Instagram Reels, ingredient carousels, customer stories, polls and short-form video.
This approach meant that one well-defined content theme could support search visibility, social engagement and product consideration.
Paid-media strategy
The proposed 30-day media test used a $1,000 planning budget for the original US campaign scenario:
$500 for Google Search.
$400 for Meta prospecting.
$100 for Meta retargeting.
Google activity focused on high-intent product searches. Meta used lifestyle creative and product demonstrations to build demand, followed by remarketing for people who had visited the product page or shown stronger intent.
The forecast model estimated approximately:
850 website visits.
26 purchases.
A target cost per acquisition of approximately $38.
These figures were campaign-planning assumptions, not live performance results.
The final paid-social creative uses the PetsRPals packaging and website palette so that the advertisement feels like a natural extension of the landing page.
Social campaign
The social plan used a repeatable content rhythm rather than a series of unrelated promotional posts.
The proposed seven-day sequence included:
A bath-time or fresh-start Reel.
An ingredient education carousel.
A lifestyle or pet-wellness image.
Behind-the-bottle Stories.
A community prompt using a campaign hashtag.
A weekend wash-day Reel.
A poll or question designed to gather audience insight.
Calls to action varied according to the purpose of each post: save, learn more, comment, share, join the conversation or visit the product page.
Three finished creatives were developed to demonstrate the system:
Paid social: Gentle care for every coat.
Education: Behind the bottle.
Community: Show us your wash day.
Each creative uses the same palette, product photography and packaging system as the website.
Email journey
The email work focused on two points in the customer relationship.
Welcome email
Subject concept: Welcome to gentler wash days
The welcome email introduces PetsRPals, explains the everyday-care proposition and provides a clear route to the featured product.
Promotional email
Campaign concept: Save £4 on a gentler wash day
The promotional message uses a single product, one saving and one primary action. This reduces distraction and keeps the message connected to the wider campaign.
Both emails use the same calm visual system as the product page and paid-social creative.
Campaign content pages
The connected campaign section of the prototype links to three dedicated pages.
Paid media
This page presents the relationship between Google Search, Meta prospecting and remarketing. It explains how product attention would be turned into more qualified website visits.
Education and SEO content
This page shows how ingredient education, search content and product guidance could address the questions behind the purchase.
Community and social
This page demonstrates how routine-led content could encourage participation and make everyday pet care more shareable.
This structure allows the portfolio website to show both the finished creative and the strategic thinking behind it.
Data analysis and optimisation
A separate optimisation exercise was used to demonstrate how campaign data could inform later decisions.
The dataset indicated that high-intent search terms and remarketing audiences offered the strongest efficiency, while broad audiences and weakly matched search terms produced higher acquisition costs.
The recommendations included:
Increase investment gradually around proven high-intent audiences.
Reduce spend on broad or weakly matched traffic.
Improve query-to-landing-page relevance.
Build retargeting audiences from high-value search visitors.
Reuse successful search language in social creative.
Test one major variable at a time.
Review CTR, CPA, ROAS, conversion rate and frequency each week.
The analysis recommended a future test allocation of approximately 55% Meta and 45% Google, based on the supplied capstone dataset.
This was a simulated optimisation exercise rather than performance from a live PetsRPals business.
Outcome
The project produced a complete, connected marketing concept rather than an isolated set of advertisements.
Final outputs included:
Campaign brief and SMART objectives.
Customer personas and channel justification.
Keyword and SEO planning.
Long-form content concept and distribution calendar.
Google and Meta advertising strategy.
Paid-social creative.
Seven-day social content plan.
Welcome and promotional email designs.
Ecommerce storefront and product-page concepts.
Branded packaging system.
Performance-analysis exercise.
Optimisation recommendations.
Responsive Hostinger portfolio prototype.
The completed work demonstrates how research, content, ecommerce design and campaign planning can support the same customer journey.
Skills demonstrated
Digital marketing strategy.
Ecommerce merchandising.
Customer and audience research.
Buyer-persona development.
Full-funnel campaign planning.
SEO and keyword research.
Content strategy and content calendars.
Google and Meta advertising concepts.
Social-media planning and creative direction.
Email campaign design.
Responsive web design.
Product packaging direction.
Data analysis and campaign optimisation.
AI-assisted copy and visual development.
Evaluation and refinement of AI-generated outputs.
Reflection
The strongest aspect of the project is the connection between strategy and execution. The customer personas influence the channel mix; the keyword research informs the content; the content supports the product page; and the same proposition continues into advertising, social media and email.
The later website and packaging work also improved the original capstone by giving the campaign a more credible and consistent destination.
The project reinforced the importance of reviewing AI-assisted outputs rather than treating them as finished work. Labels, claims, hierarchy and product consistency all required deliberate correction and refinement.
Future development
The next stage would be to test the concept with real customers and replace forecast assumptions with observed behaviour.
Future work could include:
Moderated usability testing.
Product-page A/B testing.
Live search-term analysis.
Real campaign conversion tracking.
Automated welcome and abandoned-basket journeys.
Customer reviews and user-generated content.
Accessibility auditing.
Structured product data.
Expanded editorial content.
Cohort and retention reporting.
A real Shopify implementation with secure checkout.
Project note
PetsRPals is an educational portfolio marketing concept created as part of a Digital Marketing and Growth Hacking capstone. The products, campaign targets, forecasts and performance-analysis exercises are presented to demonstrate strategy, execution and optimisation skills. They should not be interpreted as results from a currently trading pet-care business.