Google Ads generates 11% of our web traffic and roughly 15% of our sales revenue.
Jason McCarthy
Founder
Jason McCarthy is a decorated combat veteran who served overseas in the Special Forces from 2006 to 2008. While visiting his wife, a Foreign Service Officer working in the war-torn city of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Jason assembled a “go-bag” for her to keep in her truck. “In the Special Forces, when you go out on a mission, you put extra supplies and gear in the trunk of your Humvee in case your vehicle gets disabled and you have to fight,” he said. “So I made her a bag filled with medical supplies, radios, and other things that were adapted to her lifestyle on the Ivory Coast.” When his wife’s colleagues began requesting bags of their own, Jason thought he might have a business opportunity on his hands. With no previous business or product training, Jason turned to YouTube to learn more about how to design backpacks from online tutorials. From there, he created the GR1, a bag designed for use anywhere — in Baghdad or New York City. Jason officially launched GORUCK in 2010, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to sell his products online. Once Jason realized the high costs of producing his first rucks, he knew that going digital was the difference between “life and death,” and he turned to the internet.
Once online, GORUCK partnered with a marketing agency to use YouTube and Google Ads to speak directly with consumers and share its brand message. “Google Ads generates 11% of our web traffic and roughly 15% of our sales revenue,” said Jason, who cites an $11 return for every dollar spent on the platform. Today, Jason’s team uses Google Analytics to keep an eye on their campaigns and Google Optimize 360 to run A/B tests and make adjustments on the fly. They also use Google Trends and Google Correlate to help them find search patterns in real time. GORUCK also relies on Google organizationally, using G Suite to communicate and stay organized. “We just find it better for collaboration,” Jason said.
Google Ads has helped GORUCK serve more than 55,000 customers to date and will continue to be a pillar of its marketing efforts moving forward. “I think it’s telling that our customers are making more than one transaction per customer,” said Jason. The company has grown both in size — it now has 30 employees — and in impact. It hosts hundreds of events each year to help people get out and engage with the world. That includes its hallmark team endurance event, the GORUCK Challenge. “Technology is great, but we view it as a means to get people more active and involved in their communities,” concluded Jason.