The challenge
Cedar Sports is a ski and snowboard rental store in Cedar City, Utah, on the other side of the world from us, in a market we had never set foot in. David, who runs it, had tried paid marketing before, more than once, but was never really convinced it had made any difference to his business. Part of the trouble was that he could never tell what any of it had actually brought in, because the tracking to prove it either way was never there.
There was a location problem too. Cedar City is not where most of his customers live, and it is not at the ski resort either. It sits on the main drive between Southern California and Brian Head, so the job was to catch people during that journey and give them a reason to stop and rent at Cedar rather than up at the mountain.
One thing Cedar was never short of was a strong offer: advance online reservations, expert fitting, early opening, and genuinely good value against the resort. The offer was not the problem. The right people just were not hearing about it at the right moment. Our job was to fix that, with both of us going in with our eyes open about the location challenge.
What we did
Before a single ad went live, we set up full revenue tracking through their rental booking system, working directly with the support team at WinterSteiger to get it done through their EasyRent software. This sounds routine. It is not. David had been trying to get proper conversion tracking in place for years, and nobody had managed it. We got it done before the season started, so every booking could be traced back to the search, campaign and ad that earned it.
Fully Charged Media has been able to accomplish things with marketing for our ski and snowboard shop that nobody else has been able to do. I have wasted thousands of dollars on other forms of marketing and companies. I feel confident that Darren and his team are the best for my marketing needs.
Cedar Sports · Ski and snowboard shop, Utah · 5-star Google review
With the data finally telling the truth, we built and ran the Google Ads to intercept that drive market, across Southern California, Las Vegas and Cedar City, moving budget through the season toward the audiences that actually converted. All of it put a strong, well-priced offer in front of the right people at the right time.
The results
This was year one, and one channel. It was also one of the worst snow seasons on record: Brian Head recorded around 119 inches against a normal 300 to 400 plus, with the hottest week the resort has ever seen. Across the local market, competitors were reportedly down on the year.
Cedar Sports grew anyway. Rental revenue was up 18% year on year, and the store put 13% more rentals out the door, even as the store's total sales were flat on the year. That last part matters. This was not a rising tide lifting every boat. It was Cedar taking market share, from marketing they had never run before. Direct traffic to the website rose more than 50%, and Google Ads sent hundreds of phone calls straight to the shop.
We will be honest about the numbers we do not love. The return on ad spend across the season came in around 4.3x, lower than we would like, weighed down by brand-awareness campaigns and a season with barely any snow. This is exactly why you look at the top line and the total result, not one channel's ratio in isolation. The impact is right there in the revenue, in a year the weather did everything it could to stop it.
Honestly, we cannot wait to see what a good snow season looks like. Proving this in the worst one on record tells you how much hidden revenue independent rental stores are sitting on when they are not marketing properly. Cedar want their website to be the best it can be, so we are already planting seeds over the summer, with SEO work, new pages and advice across the site, ready for next winter.