How Toucan Helped Merisant UK Achieve Record Amazon Sales Through Strategic Deal Pulsing

January is one of the most important trading periods in the grocery category. As consumers embrace healthier lifestyles and New Year's resolutions, competition intensifies, with brands increasing promotional activity and advertising investment to capture demand.

For Merisant UK, the challenge was clear: drive year-on-year growth while improving advertising efficiency during one of the busiest and most competitive months of the year.

By combining strategic deal pulsing with a full-funnel advertising approach, Toucan helped Merisant UK achieve its strongest January performance to date.

The Challenge

The sugar substitutes category experiences a significant uplift in traffic during January as consumers focus on healthier eating habits.

While this presents a major opportunity, it also creates a highly competitive marketplace where brands aggressively compete on both pricing and advertising visibility.

Merisant UK needed a strategy that would:

  • Increase revenue during a key trading period.
  • Improve advertising efficiency.
  • Maintain strong visibility against competitors.
  • Maximise promotional activity without sacrificing profitability.
  • Convert increased category traffic into measurable sales growth.

The goal was to achieve year-on-year growth while making advertising investment work harder.

The Strategy

Toucan implemented a deal pulsing strategy designed to keep Merisant products highly visible throughout January.

Each week, selected products were featured within promotional activity, balancing support for top-performing products alongside strategic SKUs where additional visibility was required.

To maximise the impact of these promotions, Toucan paired the pricing strategy with a full-funnel advertising approach. This allowed the brand to engage both new and existing customers throughout their purchasing journey, moving shoppers from awareness and consideration campaigns into highly targeted conversion-focused activity.

The strategy was further strengthened through promotional mechanics including Prime Exclusive Discounts and slash-through pricing, helping Merisant remain competitive throughout the month.

The Results

The campaign delivered exceptional results during one of the most important periods of the year.

Performance highlights included:

  • +13% sales growth versus target
  • +27% month-on-month sales growth
  • Record Amazon sales month achieved
  • +3% year-on-year increase in conversion rate
  • 23% reduction in advertising spend year-on-year

By combining promotional activity with efficient advertising execution, Merisant was able to generate stronger sales performance while simultaneously reducing advertising costs.

Creating More Efficient Growth

One of the most significant outcomes of the campaign was the improvement in advertising efficiency.

Rather than simply increasing investment to compete during a high-demand period, the strategy focused on using promotions and advertising together to improve conversion rates and maximise return on investment.

This enabled Merisant to drive stronger sales growth while reducing advertising spend, creating a more profitable and sustainable approach to growth.

Final Thoughts

High-traffic retail periods often tempt brands to increase spending aggressively in pursuit of sales.

Merisant UK's success demonstrates that a smarter, more strategic approach can often deliver better results.

Through carefully planned deal pulsing, promotional execution, and full-funnel advertising, Toucan helped the brand achieve record Amazon sales while improving efficiency and maintaining a competitive position during one of the most challenging periods of the year.

The result was stronger growth, improved profitability, and a repeatable framework for future promotional events.

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