ATHLETIQ CASE STUDY
Introducing Athletiq
Athletiq is a performance-first pickleball brand from India, founded by Harsh Sharma, built around a simple idea: equip serious players with pro-grade paddles and gear that elevate spin, power, and control. Through its Athletribe community and clear, spec-led education, Athletiq brings premium materials and thoughtful design to players who train regularly and want measurable on-court gains without losing the fun and inclusivity of the sport.
Challenge
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Pickleball is new in India, so a large share of people are just trying the trend. Broad targeting brought lots of random interest, but very few people who wanted premium paddles.
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The real buyers are serious, regular players who understand spin, power, balance, and face materials. Isolating them from casual experimenters required more precise signals of experience and intent.
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Legacy retailers sell generic paddles at less than half our price. We needed to clearly differentiate materials, build quality, and on-court performance to justify a higher AOV.
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Early traffic skewed toward curiosity clicks rather than committed buyers. Purchase readiness was low, and conversations revealed gaps that slowed movement down the funnel.
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Repeated questions—fiberglass vs carbon fiber, spin vs power bias, and entry-level vs pro—created friction and delayed decisions, indicating the need for clearer specification education.
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Standard interest targeting around “pickleball” was too broad and pulled in fitness/general sports audiences. We needed tighter behavioral and contextual cues to reach high-intent cohorts.
To address audience quality and premium positioning in a nascent category, we ran a two-phase plan that combined human-assisted selling with conversion-ready assets and then scaled into direct website sales.
Started with Click-to-WhatsApp for high AOV: For ₹10–14k paddles, we used CTW campaigns so a trained rep could guide prospects through fit, feel, and specs in real time, reducing hesitation and improving match quality.
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Structured the sales conversation: The chat flow qualified playing level and style (control, spin, power), recommended the right model, and scheduled timely follow-ups to close.
Turned FAQs into creative improvements: Objections captured on WhatsApp informed ad copy and visuals that answered material differences, spin versus power bias, and entry-level versus pro suitability upfront.
Built a creative pipeline with AI: As a new brand with limited photo and video assets, we relied on AI image and video generation to produce high-quality, on-brand creatives quickly. This gave us enough variations to test specs, use-cases, and visual hooks without slowing down execution.
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Aligned the landing page to the decision path: We added clear material explainers (fiberglass vs carbon fiber), model-by-player-level guidance, simple spec tables, and trust elements to remove friction.
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Transitioned to website sales after first month: Once objections were pre-answered and the page converted better, budgets moved from CTW to conversion-optimized site campaigns to scale purchases.
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Used proven formats, localized to Athletiq: Instead of reinventing from day one, we adapted winning global paddle ad patterns to Athletiq’s look and the Indian market, focusing on paddle face close-ups, motion demos, and crisp spec overlays.
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Tightened targeting with high-intent signals: We shifted from broad “pickleball” interests to cohorts such as regular league players, spec-seekers, video engagers, WhatsApp-qualified lookalikes, and high-intent site audiences.
Solution
The Result: Brand Achieved
1.89X ROAS
Within three months (June–August), average ROAS improved from 0.75× to 1.89×. Our best-performing campaign peaked at 3.94× ROAS.
Video Work
Static Work
Harsh Sharma
Co-Founder, Athletiq
Best part of working with the HBF team was their professionalism and systematic approach towards the assigned job. Their ability to patiently listen to client's need and then come up with suitable solutions around that, is what sets them apart from regular PM agencies. I also loved the quick response and promptness from their end.
The creatives were made keeping into consideration the need of the hour. Be it handling Prime days or Freedom sales during August month, the HBF team did their best to launch relevant and effective campaigns.
HBF was the first agency that we on-boarded when we started the business and we could see an uptick in numbers from month 1 itself.
Team was very prompt and responsive in their execution that helped us to achieve good revenue numbers and ROAS in initial months.
We strongly recommend HBF as a go-to partner for any company looking to grow their numbers, their professional approach is commendable and HBF could be as an asset for any organization who are looking for partners-in-growth.