EXTERNAL MARKETING PLAN CASE STUDY
A Mission Worth Fetching: The Second Throw & RecycleBalls
How more than two years of unified strategy, with paid, organic, design, and marketing leadership under one roof, transformed a patchwork of agencies into a cohesive growth engine with a passionately engaged community.
When we met RecycleBalls, they were already doing something remarkable: turning one of sports’ most beloved (and most landfilled) objects into a vehicle for sustainability. But behind the scenes, their marketing looked the way growing organizations’ marketing often does: a collection of agencies, internal team members, and contractors, each handling their own piece of the puzzle. The Second Throw had a social presence, but it ran almost entirely on user-generated content without a consistent strategy behind it, hovering under 2,000 followers.
The pieces were all there. What was missing was the through-line: a partner who could bring paid advertising, organic social, design, and strategy together into one clear, coordinated effort, freeing the RecycleBalls team from managing a roster of vendors so they could focus on the mission itself.
The Challenge
Uniting a patchwork of agencies and contractors into one consistent strategy for a brand balancing eCommerce goals with a nonprofit heart.
Our task was twofold.
First, bring clarity and cohesion to how all the moving parts of marketing (paid, organic, design, and structure) fit together for The Second Throw.
Second, navigate a genuinely interesting strategic puzzle: The Second Throw needed to thrive as an eCommerce brand in the pet space, while sitting comfortably under the RecycleBalls umbrella with just the right amount of distance from the nonprofit itself.
When do you lead with the product, and when do you lead with the mission? How do you speak to dog lovers and sustainability advocates, two vocal, proactive, participation-hungry communities, in one coherent voice?
Getting that balance right was the heart of the work.
Why Grand Western Tour Chose Aligned
Every marketing service under one roof: a true partner, not another vendor to manage.
Our partnership began the old-fashioned way: an in-person referral. After meeting their operations admin at a coworking space, we were brought in for project work with RecycleBalls, and it quickly became clear the fit went deeper.
At the time, the team was DIY-ing parts of their marketing while also working with another agency, and what they really wanted was a smaller, more dedicated partner who could support the organization fully without constant management, and without being treated like just another account number.
The ability to bring paid ads, organic social, design, and strategic guidance under one umbrella, refreshing their creative and messaging along the way, is what sealed the deal.
The Process
Part One: Messaging & Strategy, First Things First
We began with in-depth brand and messaging work, digging into the relationship between RecycleBalls’ mission and The Second Throw’s playful, product-forward identity. This foundational strategy work gave every future campaign, post, and design a clear north star and answered the crucial question of how mission and merchandise would share the stage.
Part Two: Resetting the Foundation
With strategy in hand, we conducted a full platform review, resetting the existing ad accounts and refreshing the creative approach for organic social. What had been an inconsistent, UGC-only presence became an intentional content strategy, and the paid accounts were restructured for performance rather than inherited habits.
Part Three: Full-Service, Full-Funnel Management
From there, we managed the full engine on an ongoing basis: paid advertising across platforms, organic social media for The Second Throw, and community engagement with an audience that genuinely loves participating. One highlight: solving a puzzle the previous agency couldn’t crack by getting the Google Ad Grant account (notoriously tricky for traffic capture) to actually spend, moving an additional $1,500+ per month toward the RecycleBalls brand through careful, incremental adjustments.
Part Four: A Marketing Director in Their Corner
Beyond channel management, we served in a marketing director capacity: designing impact reports, building decks for prospective sponsors, updating landing pages, and providing strategic guidance as the organization evolved. And evolve it did: like any growing, partnership-driven organization, RecycleBalls navigated natural shifts as external stakeholders and opportunities changed. Our job was to flex with them, adjusting strategy thoughtfully and quickly so momentum never stalled.
The Results
Over more than two years of partnership, The Second Throw has grown from an inconsistent, UGC-only presence into a strategic, engaged brand with a community that shows up.
In the last 18 months alone, the brand’s following grew 58.5% to more than 2,300 followers, with profile visits up 78.6% to nearly 29,000. On the paid side, our campaigns drove 3,600+ purchases and more than 11.7 million impressions from January 2025 through mid-2026, while our traffic campaigns delivered over 92,000 landing page visits at well under $0.10 apiece. And that’s on top of the unlocked Google Ad Grant, now driving $1,500+ per month in additional value toward the RecycleBalls brand.
But some of our favorite results don’t fit in a spreadsheet. The Second Throw’s fans are passionate: they know their purchases are tied to a bigger mission, and they act like it. UGC applications have grown meaningfully in the last year, with customers dreaming up creative ideas with their pets and eagerly joining the brand’s story. And for the RecycleBalls team, consolidating their marketing under one aligned partner has meant less vendor-wrangling, more clarity on how everything connects, and more time to focus on what they set out to do: build healthier communities, sports, and a healthier planet, one tennis ball at a time.
Pages from RecycleBalls’ catalog-style impact report, designed to make the mission’s numbers as engaging as the story behind them.
The Second Throw’s UGC-driven Instagram feed, where passionate fans and their pups bring the brand (and the mission) to life.
A peek inside the brand’s recent messaging update, aligning The Second Throw’s playful voice with the RecycleBalls mission.