Increase in AOV across the period of advertising.
Increase in Shopify sales compared to the previous period.
Increase in website sessions as a result of our advertising.
The Challenge
This business is an online store where you can buy everything from pens, pencils and whiteboards to bundles for Students and Teachers. When they came to us, the brand wanted to replicate results from their Irish store and improve their visibility in the UK market.
They also wanted to increase their overall revenue, daily sales, AOV, and repeat business during the busiest time of the year (the ‘Back To School’ period between July-September).
Through our initial analysis, we recognised the following challenges:
- Before we took over the account, the daily sales were low, leaving a narrow margin for profitability.
- Lack of brand awareness in the UK market and high competition with industry leading brands.
- AOV was low, which made the business less profitable and therefore made presented a challenge in scaling the business.
- They had a low rate of repeat business, at around 5.4%, so heavily relied on first-time purchases. Increasing repeat purchases would be key to being able to expand the business.
Solution
To increase the daily sales figures, we needed to spread awareness and encourage first-time purchasers to buy. We set ourselves the target of reaching a minimum AOV of £22 and a daily sales target of 25 on average, also hoping to increase repeat purchases.
Google Advertising
To improve visibility in the search results, we set up a Google shopping campaign promoting all products and a Google Search campaign targeting Back School-related and general stationery keywords. These campaigns promoted all Back To School and best-selling products.
Our ad copy for our Google Search campaign mainly focused on ‘Back To School’, promoting the business as a one-stop shop for everything stationery related. These ads included all relevant extensions and site links and used keyword insertion so that they were as relevant as possible to the search made by the user. Within the campaign, we combined copy for general stationery interests with ads promoting specific products.
Following strong initial results, we continued to increase the budget for the Google shopping campaign, which provided a strong ROAS of 3 as soon as we launched and consistently stayed within the 2.5-4 ROAS range. Through our testing process, we found that the general stationery keywords had a high cost, high competition and a low conversion rate, so we stopped targeting these keywords.
Instead, we focused on Back To School keywords and the tailored bundles and products for this, as this is what the client specialises in. The Back To School Search campaign performed consistently well, generating a ROAS of 2 despite a highly competitive space.
Facebook & Instagram Advertising
To achieve our revenue objectives and build further awareness, we decided to set up a paid social campaign targeting new potential customers. With this focus on reaching new audiences, we gave the majority of the budget to the cold campaign, while the rest was used to retarget customers using a hot campaign.
In order to target the ideal customers, we conducted audience research using Facebook Ads Manager. We identified interest groups, including general stationery interests, competitors, teacher interests, as well as parents of students and students themselves. Once the cold campaign had gathered enough data, we would then set up a retargeting campaign to move customers further down the funnel.
Our paid social copy for the cold campaign was similar to the Google copy in its content, with some ads promoting popular products and others with a Back To School focus to target teachers and students. We kept messaging consistent to ensure strong brand recognition, repeating phrases that represented the brand’s offering.
For our paid social campaign, we used a range of creatives (single images and videos), including the brand logo to spread awareness. Through testing our creative on multiple ads, we found that video ads showcasing many products, especially Back To School products, were the most effective.
Once we had optimised our cold campaign, we set up a dynamic retargeting campaign. This type of campaign used dynamic ads to show users the products they had shown interest in by using product names and price placeholders in the ad text. Through testing different audiences, we found that the budget for the cold campaign was best used to target specific audiences such as teachers and parents of students. Then, further down the funnel, the dynamic retargeting ads targeted those who have added to cart but not purchased. The cold campaign’s main focus was to generate interest, link clicks and engagement, but this still managed to generate a positive ROAS.
The Results
Over a four-month period, we were able to:
- Increase the AOV by 12% across the period of advertising, allowing us to make the business more profitable.
- Generate a 161% increase in total Shopify sales compared to the previous period.
- Implement efficient Top of the Funnel audiences that increased brand awareness and generated conversions.
- Generate a 58% increase in sessions on the website.
- Increase the returning customer rate by 107% from the previous period.
- Utilise Google shopping to generate a consistent ROAS between 2.5-4.
- Increase the conversion rate by 39% to 2.7%.
