Objectives
Our client, a well-known high street stationer and book retailer, tasked us with proving that online campaigns could drive increased footfall to stores.
Our BAU digital campaigns are targeted at driving online sales, however we knew we were also driving footfall to stores and store sales through this activity. By targeting a group of specific stores with the new Performance Max (PM) for Store Goals campaign we set out to drive conversions at a lower CPA that the current online activity and increase their store footfall significantly, while also driving online sales.
With searches for ‘now near me’ having grown globally by over 100% year on year and searches for ‘in stock’ having grown by 800% year on year the Performance Max campaign we tested is designed to capitalise on the growth in these types of searches and deliver local traffic to the right retailers online, and on the high street.
- Drive store visits for a lower Cost Per Action (CPA) than online sales
- Increase store visits significantly
- Achieve online sales through the test campaigns at an acceptable CPA
Our Approach
The client gave us a list of 10 stores for which we launched a Performance Max for Store Goals campaign. The campaign aimed to find people in each store locality looking for products our client sells, near them.
We needed to ensure the client’s ‘Google My Business’ account was linked to the Google ads account so that the 10 store locations could be selected for inclusion in the campaign.
PM Store Goals campaign – How it works
- A customer is signed into their google account and opts into location history in their account settings. The customer then finds an ad and interacts with it;
- The customer visits the shop’s physical location;
- Google then connects the customers visit to the shop;
- Google add in an extra layer of verification; they do this by surveying selected users about their shop visits and then compare the survey data to their campaign generated data.
Ads were able to show in a variety of locations, including You Tube home page, display ad slots, the discovery page, in paid search, Gmail and maps. The creative messaging used in the campaign ads reflected the in store sales messages to provide consistency and reassurance to the user.
Results
We were able to drive a large increase in local reach for the 10 stores and saw a huge increase in both store visits and ‘Get Directions’ clicks.
- Local Reach impressions increased from 12,000 impressions up to 12.1m impressions in the month of activity for the 10 stores! In part this fabulous result is due to the increased online locations we were able to show the ads.
- Store Visits for the 10 selected stores increased by 400%!
- ‘Get Directions’ clicks rose for all stores combined by 16,647%!
- As well as driving store visits, we saw 20% of the Test budget returned in online sales revenue.
Jamie Prictor, Head of Paid Search at equimedia commented:
"My aim is to make sure we're offering our clients the ability to remain ahead of the curve and their competitors, so being able to test the newest campaign types from Google always puts a smile on my face. Testing new ways of getting our clients products in front of the right audiences and joining up online and offline, makes the success of this test even better!"
Get Directions clicks increased 16,647%
Store visits increased 400%
20% of test budget returned in online sales
Interested in seeing what we can do for you? Get in touch and let us know about your requirements today.
