Exploring new ideas: Camping World increases campaign efficiency 20% with Bonsai

As a household name for outdoor enthusiasts with significant marketing investments, Camping World faced a critical visibility challenge that was undermining their ability to optimize spend effectively. Their marketing team had been struggling for years to build an internal multi-touch attribution model, but despite substantial effort, only 2% of leads within their database could be tied back to marketing touchpoints. For a brand investing heavily across multiple channels, this attribution blind spot represented a major strategic roadblock.

Challenge

Camping World's marketing team had invested considerable resources attempting to develop their own multi-touch attribution capabilities, but the data connections remained elusive. With only 2% of leads within their database traceable to specific marketing touchpoints, the team lacked the visibility necessary to make informed budget allocation decisions or optimize campaign performance effectively.

This attribution gap meant that substantial marketing investments were operating without clear performance insights, creating risk of misallocated spend and missed optimization opportunities in an increasingly competitive outdoor recreation market.

Solution

Rather than continuing to struggle with internal development, Camping World partnered with Bonsai to architect a comprehensive attribution solution that would transform their marketing visibility.

The Bonsai team began by conducting a thorough diagnostic of the existing attribution infrastructure, identifying that the core issue wasn't lack of effort, but rather inconsistent web traffic and lead form tagging processes. Working directly alongside Camping World's web development team, Bonsai simplified and standardized the tagging framework to ensure consistent data capture.

Bonsai’s approach dramatically improved the system's ability to connect customer journeys with marketing activities, creating the foundation for reliable performance measurement.

Results

The transformation delivered immediate and dramatic improvements in attribution visibility. Camping World's attribution rate surged from 2% to 66% of all internet leads, representing a 33x improvement in marketing visibility and creating unprecedented insight into campaign performance.

Campaign efficiency increased by 20% within the first three months of the new multi-touch attribution system going live. Most remarkably, Camping World achieved the same sales volume year-over-year while reducing marketing spend by 10%, demonstrating the power of data-driven optimization enabled by accurate attribution.

This wasn't merely a tactical improvement — it marked a fundamental shift from guesswork to data-driven decision making. With clear visibility into which campaigns drive results, Camping World's marketing team now operates with the confidence and precision necessary to compete effectively while building a scalable foundation for continued growth.