Objectives
The Southern Co-operative group approached equimedia in 2025 to support the promotion of seasonal and topical retail offers at local level, showcase the benefits of Southern Co-op membership, and grow their membership base with performance marketing.
Having already consolidated website hosting and improved security, set up GA4 and Google Tag Manager, optimised and advanced analytics to accurately track organic and paid activity results and developed a test and learn media strategy for their retail activity, we set about increasing their membership.
- Increase membership, cost efficiently
- Establish a scalable approach to membership growth
- Deliver volumes of new members at an acquisition cost 59% less than initial Google Ads performance
Our Approach
We focused on using a ‘test and learn’ approach to developing a media strategy that was scalable and delivered new membership sign-ups cost efficiently.
Our approach balanced ‘market making’ and ‘market taking’ activity, to allow for awareness-building while optimising sign-up acquisition.
Market making – activity to raise awareness
Meta was used as the primary channel for local promotions of seasonal and topical offers and discounts, supporting brand awareness and complementing Search Ads.
Demand Gen (Google Ads) was used to engage customers in considering membership, demonstrating the values of Southern Co-op, and the benefits of membership to customers. This activity was strictly geo-targeted in a radius around each store and emphasised convenience. Initially the campaign delivered a surge in impressions and clicks, with a very low cost per click, however the membership acquisition costs were high, so after rigorous testing, we paused Demand Gen.
Market taking – activity to convert in-market audiences to members
Search Ads (Google) – were used to drive membership sign-ups, and a number of tests were run to improve our cost per acquisition:
- Test 1: Brand and high-intent keyword targeting – In October and November 2025, we refined our campaigns and focused on key brand terms and intent-based keywords around convenience, value, and local stores.
- Test 2: Bidding strategy – Once we had accumulated sufficient data, we tested maximum conversions bid strategy to improve the volume of sign-ups.
- Test 3: Landing page test – We tested sending all traffic to the membership overview page, which highlighted benefits vs. sending users direct to the membership sign-up form.
Results
Using paid social to raise awareness and paid search to convert interest to memberships we delivered volumes of new membership sign-ups cost efficiently and consistently.
We continued to optimise and drive increased efficiency and achieved the client cost per acquisition goal in the second quarter of activity. Since then, we have consistently delivered new acquisitions for less than 50% of the target CPA. Through a data-driven approach, we’ve been able to provide our client with new membership sign-ups while increasing brand awareness through top-of-funnel activity.
- Cost per Membership reduced by 86%
- Paid search CTR increased to 17.9%
- Conversion Rate increased to 33%
Lucy Avison, Commercial Manager - Marketing and Engagement
“We’ve loved working with the equimedia team on these campaigns. Through their support we’ve been able to enrich our membership pool and spread the news about the benefits of membership more widely within our catchment areas and helped our customers access offers and discounts.”
CTR increased to 17.9%
Conversion rate increased to 33%
Cost per membership sign up less than 50% of target
Interested in seeing what we can do for you? Get in touch and let us know about your requirements today.
