How a Circular Economy Stewardship Tracked & Increased Foot Traffic to Recycling Depots

Return-It

The Company

Return-It is a non-profit organization that makes recycling empty beverage containers easy through a large network of bottle depots and express drop-off locations. This convenient system helps consumers responsibly return their empties, keeping waste out of landfills and supporting a sustainable economy.

The Challenge

While Return-It has a massive network of physical depots, connecting digital ads to real-world visits has always been a challenge. To optimize their marketing spend, they needed a precise way to bridge this data gap and accurately measure how online ads drive foot traffic to their locations.

The Goal

Return-It’s goals were to:

  • Establish a Clear Attribution Model: Implement advanced location-based tracking to connect digital ad exposure directly to physical depot visits.
  • Tie Advertising Dollars to Actual Impact: Shift metrics away from abstract estimates by directly linking marketing spend to verifiable location visits.
  • Measure Performance Beyond Awareness: Move past standard top-of-funnel impressions to accurately track the tangible consumer actions that drive depot traffic.

The Results

By partnering with an advanced data and location-intelligence team to deploy precise footfall attribution tracking, Return-It successfully bridged the gap between digital intent and physical action, while achieving year-over-year improvements:

5,000+ Depot Visits Tracked in 2025

Directly from only one advertising channel.

413% Increase in Depot Visits YoY

By optimizing campaigns based on conversion data from 2025 to augment performance in 2026.

-80.5% in Cost per Depot Visit YoY

By optimizing campaigns based on conversion data from 2025 to augment performance in 2026.

Our Key Responsibilities

We partnered with Return-It to fully leverage cutting-edge location intelligence and data analytics, ensuring every localized campaign was optimized to drive measurable, real-world foot traffic. Our approach included:

  • Footfall Attribution Studies – Deployed advanced location-tracking studies to accurately monitor when a user who was exposed to a digital ad physically walked into a Return-It depot, turning vague metrics into concrete visit data.
  • Omni-Channel Remarketing & Tracking – Built a clever cross-platform framework that took users engaged on platforms that don’t support location tracking and retargeted them through attribution-ready channels to close the data gap.
  • High-Impact Localized Targeting – Implemented radius-based digital ad campaigns that targeted consumers within proximity of a depot, educating them on the standard Return-It services as well as the unique speed and benefits of Return-It Express locations.

Through this strategic approach, Return-It maximized its digital presence, eliminated marketing guesswork, and successfully laid the foundation for data-backed, long-term growth.

Evaluate

Arbutus Medical came to Able & Howe with a vision and a plan.

 

Strengths

As a young company, Arbutus Medical already knew what they wanted to achieve; they had set strong KPIs and were eager to reach their targets. Arbutus Medical had defined four potential market segments for their product, leaving ample opportunity for growth.

 

Weaknesses

Arbutus Medical lacked the execution resources required to narrow their focus on one target market segment and establish a channel partner pull strategy. They needed a system to measure and track which segments would help them reach their goals the fastest.

 

Function Gaps

The main function gap was a lack of an internal marketing team. Arbutus already had a strategy but no one with the expertise to execute it.

Create

  • Able & Howe developed a marketing execution strategy to help Arbutus Medical increase brand awareness, one of their key objectives.
  • We created messaging that was aligned with the knowledge, sales and marketing assets at Arbutus Medical through market positioning workshops

Evolve

  • Paid campaigns were quickly implemented to boost brand awareness
  • Able & Howe implemented email automation, for channel partners and outreach campaigns
  • We identified the buyer persona and internal champion
    • Able & Howe conducted market research to identify and assemble a list of prospects for the Arbutus sales team.

Activate

  • Able & Howe established a system to analyze and measure the results of Arbutus Medical’s channel partner pull strategy in different market segments.
    • We used this data to inform the channel partner pull strategy moving forward.

Enable

  • Able & Howe helped to hire, onboard, and train a marketing manager and marketing coordinator.
    • The marketing strategy moving forward was moved to the internal team with guidance, oversight, and occasional execution from the Able & Howe team.
    • Fast forward a few years later, Arbutus Medical found themselves without an internal marketing team.
  • The Able & Howe in-source marketing model allowed us to step in when the internal Arbutus Medical team exited.
    • We were able to carry on all marketing activities without delay or onboarding as we remained involved throughout the process.
    • Our in-source marketing model allowed Arbutus Medical to have a smooth transition, removing the need to frantically look for a new internal hire.