The Similarweb 2023 Marketing Awards Winners are Here

And it was a year of underdog successes!

Hear that? It’s a metaphorical drumroll

Because we’re ecstatic to showcase our Similarweb Marketing Awards winners of 2022!

Made up of brands deftly carving out top spots for themselves amongst competitor giants, these winners have colored us inspired.

How were the 2023 Marketing Award winners chosen?

We studied the brands that, through smart digital marketing efforts, flew to distinct heights in 2022. Then, using Similarweb Digital Marketing Intelligence, we reverse-engineered their strategies to find out how they did it. 

Winners were then ultimately decided by cold, hard data as well as input from our panel of marketing experts.

Simply put (and at the usual risk of things getting a little *meta* around here), we used our powerful data to reveal success threads in the winners’ data-driven approaches.

Aaand the winners are …

Spotlight Award: Panasonic

Multi-channel marketing success

Panasonic is undoubtedly an established, global company – but other players in its market (think Sony and Samsung) still dwarf it.

Our judges were happily stunned at the way Panasonic pulled a David and Goliath-esque feat via two key areas in 2022:

• Mobile search was prioritized: PPC ad spend for mobile web was 4.2 times higher than desktop ($1.6M vs. $38,000).
• As a result, mobile paid search traffic jumped from 2.8M visits in 2021 to 4.2M in 2022:
• Panasonic also streamlined its referral strategy, growing referral traffic in doing so.

Read More: Panasonic Wins the ‘Spotlight Award’ for Raising Brand Awareness

Referral Award: Pizza Hut Japan

Referral Marketing Impact

Pizza Hut Japan took a big bite out of market share, slicing out competitors with its affiliate strategy. Here’s how:

• Pizza Hut partnered with a wildly popular anime series, Blue Lock, during the 2022 World Cup. This was a bold move and it paid off!
• The partnership had an incredible impact on referral traffic, reaching over 50% growth in December:
• The brand used an elegant PR campaign alongside this, winning bonus points with the judges.

Read More: Pizza Hut Japan Wins the ‘Referral Award’ for Building Relationships and Traffic

Titan Award: Shein

Global impact on local market traffic

Shein’s growth has been prolific, with 2022 seeing its contemporaries’ traffic nose dive while Shein became the most searched fashion brand in the world. It’s legendary to see:

Having reached max brand awareness in its primary market (the US), Shein used its search learnings to expand in Brazil and impressed our judges:

• Shein continued pumping money into ads well after traffic had risen significantly. (Why not rely solely on direct traffic at this point? Because new customers were still being acquired.)
• The result was, across 2022, six months in which the number of new visitors increased month-over-month).
• The brand complemented this campaign with a solid, tailored social strategy.

Read More: Shein Wins the ‘Titan Award’ for Elevating its Social Media Strategy to Grow Globally

Streamline Award: Lululemon

The most efficient marketing program

Our judges were awed at the way Lululemon made, well, lemonade out of the past few years’ s. Facing a drop-off in traffic post-pandemic, as well as a global recession, Lululemon expertly navigated this:

• The brand upped spend on mobile paid search by almost 4x, doubling mobile traffic.
• The brand focused on DTC channels via a slick email strategy. The result was a boost in YoY email traffic by 62%, crescendoing on Black Friday with a dazzling 2.5 million site visits: 

Read More: Lululemon Wins the ‘Streamline Award’ for Leveraging Mobile PPC Strategy & Email Campaigns to Grow Its Audience

The Challenger Award: Hey Dude

Outperforming industry leaders.

The plot: in a digital retail world dominated by Amazon, is it possible for an up-and-coming shoe brand to take on behemoths like Nike and Toms, using the reach of Google and Amazon? Turns out: yes!

• Hey Dude owns 94% of the paid desktop traffic share for the keywords “heydude shoes”.
• The brand secured prime real estate on both Google and Amazon to meet high-intent searchers with the exact message they were searching for.

Read More: Hey Dude Shoes Wins the ‘Challenger Award’ for Using Search to Capture Market Share

Celebrating data-driven marketing

Marketers were faced with unprecedented challenges in 2022, and Similarweb is happy and proud to celebrate those forging the way with innovation and data-driven approaches.

Similarweb’s CMO, Benjamin Seror, highlighted: “Businesses today utilize digital data to make effective strategic decisions and achieve exceptional digital success. The Digital Marketing Awards put a spotlight on the best of the best across multiple highly competitive categories. 

While these winners are all different, what they have in common is that they demonstrate the payoff that comes from systematically evaluating metrics of digital success and seeking new ways of improving those metrics,” Seror said.

Similarweb can equip you in replicating these success stories

Fancy following suit? Similarweb is a potent tool that maps out the most accurate movements of our digital world.

Consider it a sophisticated compass to guide you through your industry’s online landscape. With it, you can craft remarkably detailed, game-changing strategies to materially impact your growth.

by Gerald Murphy

Solution Business Manager, Similarweb

Gerald, with 10+ years in SEO for brands like Nestlé and Shell, drives Similarweb's SEO strategy and is a digital enthusiast.