Immi, a fast-growing food brand reimagining beloved Asian comfort dishes with high-quality ingredients, had ridden a series of tailwinds to find their products stocked in over 3,000 retail stores.
When Axon burst onto the ads scene in 2024, Immi's founders wanted to apply the experimental and analytical approach they had cultivated in their previous careers as PMs and VCs to their validate if the channel would work for their brand as well.
Key Takeaways:
Axon drove an 11.31% incremental lift on Shopify and 7.38% lift on Amazon via halo effect
46% lower iCPA when Amazon halo effect included
Axon's iROAS was 36% better than other ad channels in the marketing mix
"We were cautious at first — just given how it might affect our blended new customer acquisition — but WorkMagic has helped us unlock that data and scale our investment in Axon up.
Brandon Yu, Director of Growth at Immi
About Immi
Immi brings comfort food to the modern kitchen — recreating classic Asian noodle dishes with low-carb, high-protein, 100% plant-based ingredients. The founders wanted to pay homage to their favorite foods, while reimagining them with high-quality, modern ingredients.
Since launch, Immi has built a loyal following online and expanded into major retailers across the U.S., including Amazon, Thrive Market, Whole Foods, and Target.
Immi needed a full-funnel view to validate Axon by AppLovin as a new ad channel
Immi were no strangers to experimentation. One of their largest viral growth moments, after all, had come when Usher's talent agency had seen an Immi-branded truck on the streets of NYC — the result of an experiment cooked up by the intrepid marketing team.
With nascent ad channels, their approach was no different.
Excited to test out Axon's new ad formats, the team had put some budget behind ads on the channel, but at close to breakeven, they had suspected that the true impact of Axon was not being properly captured.
With a presence in over 3,000 retail locations, a D2C ecommerce storefront and a healthy presence on Amazon, the team had the sense that Axon was in fact driving incremental growth across these channels, but that they needed a solution to measure this.
Geo lift tests that measured Axon by AppLovin's unseen contributions
To understand Axon's true impact and benchmark it against another top-of-funnel channel with a similar reported CPA, Immi ran a 3-cell geo-based incrementality test in partnership with WorkMagic.
A 3-cell test allowed the team to run simultaneous lift tests across 2 channels, which both isolated Axon's contributions, and provided a direct benchmark against another key awareness channel.
Axon was significantly undervalued in Immi's marketing mix
Accurate measurement of Axon's true performance indicators
The incrementality test revealed two interesting insights:
1. The full impact of Axon Ads on Immi's Shopify orders were underestimated by 23.5%
This was consistent with what WorkMagic had seen in consultation with dozens of other high-profile ecommerce clients — the upper funnel impact of ad channels usually goes unmeasured in click-based attribution.
2. 40.7% of Axon's impact came in the form of the halo effect on Amazon sales.
Almost half (40.7%) of Axon's incremental impact had occured on Amazon and not Immi's Shopify store, meaning most of its value was missed by traditional attribution models. Without counting for that halo effect, the channels' performance looked less effective than it actually was.
Cross-channel clarity: Axon proved its strength in Immi's media mix
With a trusted measurement solution now in place, the team re-calculated Axon's core metrics with the goal of understanding how the channel would fit into their broader marketing mix.
They found that Axon's iCPA was significantly lower (-46%) than previously calculated, making it highly competitive against the other channels it was being benchmarked against.
Furthermore, the test showed that Axon's iROAS was 65% higher than previously reported. This newly benchmarked iROAS performance came in as a strong second amongst the channels they were investing in. further solidifying the case for continued investment in Axon's.
Comparing average order values (AOV) also showed that Axon's held its own, and was delivering new customers that had basket sizes comparable to other channels in the brand's marketing mix.
Looking Ahead
With accurate, experiment-based measurement, Axon's is no longer a mystery in Immi’s marketing mix — it’s a high-impact, scalable channel with a proven role in driving omnichannel sales efficiently.
Encouraged by these results, Immi scaled its investment on Axon's, increasing revenue driven by the platform by 4.2x.
“WorkMagic has given us a clear roadmap to improve performance and scale the channel efficiently. We came in looking to lower new customer CPA — and based on the results so far, it’s definitely working.”
— Brandon Yu, Director of Growth, Immi
As Immi continues to expand its reach and retail footprint, the team now has a blueprint for evaluating its omnichannel performance and making investment decisions grounded in data, not guesswork.