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Winning Plays: Scaling Sports Apparel With Data Clarity
500 LEVEL accelerated growth with data clarity and speed, maintaining strong growth momentum and maximizing performance during high-impact sports moments. By unifying performance, revenue, and cost data in a single source of truth, they built a strong foundation for sustained success and a clear view into profitability.
Ryan Donovan
CMO, 500 Level
results
10x
Lift in Sales following a hot market
26%
YoY DTC Revenue Growth
Company
500 Level
Industry
DTC
Consumer Goods
Scale
Growth
Stage
5M Shirts sold
Winning Plays: Scaling Sports Apparel With Data Clarity
500 LEVEL is a fan-driven sports apparel brand built to bring the excitement of the game to life in every product. The company was already on a strong growth trajectory, but they weren’t satisfied with steady progress. They wanted to accelerate, move faster, and capture more of the market.
That’s when they turned to Onward.
“When you hire Onward you get expertise, you get project management, you get execution and media buying, you get engineer, you get a small scrappy team of digital marketers.” – Ryan Donovan, CMO, 500 LEVEL
Building Clarity and Speed
Onward helped 500 LEVEL transform how they approached growth. Instead of overwhelming reports and gut-based decisions, everything was tied back to a clear, real-time source of truth. Marketing, analytics, and growth teams could finally work from the same playbook.
Key unlocks included:
- CAC and ROI modeling to guide paid media investments
- Faster social marketing testing around big moments in sports
- Day-over-day clarity on attribution and margin
Game-Changing Results
With the right visibility and execution in place, 500 LEVEL hit breakout numbers:
- 26% year-over-year growth in D2C revenue
- 10x lift in team apparel revenue following the Stanley Cup
From Momentum to Machine
For 500 LEVEL, working with Onward wasn’t about chasing one-off wins. It was about building a durable growth engine. Now, they operate with speed, precision, and confidence, and their fans are showing up bigger than ever.
"You know, a lot of established agencies will, operate on Roas. I think Roas is dead. I think Roas is vague, and I don't think it gives you a good sense of, performance. It is based on revenue. It's not based on, margin. And as a result, you don't have the same sense of preciseness in your measurement and in your tracking and then in your decision making and optimization as you do with onwards approach."
Ryan Donovan
CMO, 500 Level
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