Background:

This e-commerce store had been using AdWords but was unable to attribute where their sales were coming from. Therefore they did not know if AdWords was working for them or not.

They had previously used another company to manage their Google AdWords campaigns however did not get a return on investment from their campaign and therefore decided to manage AdWords themselves.

Of immediate need was to increase e-commerce sales against a backdrop of heavy competitor activity from much larger e-commerce retailers like ASOS, Target and Bonds.

One of their biggest competitors, typically sold similar products at cheaper prices and had a much larger advertising budget.

The challenge was more difficult given that e-commerce sales and conversions were not recording correctly in Google Analytics so there was no history to improve the campaign immediately.

Objectives:

• Increase e-commerce sales
• Understand what marketing activities was driving sales

Solutions:

• Set up and manage a Google AdWords campaign
• Implement Google analytics so it correctly recorded sales conversions
• Work with the clients web developer who used their own proprietary eCommerce platform to install Google Tag Manager so client had more control over back end of website

Results:

• Revenue increased 511% from June 2013 to Sept 2013

• The cost per click decreased 9% from June 2013 to Sept 2013

• The cost of the campaign was relatively stable with the exception of August where spend increased slightly.

The case study highlights the importance of having good tracking metrics in place to help improve campaign performance.

Additionally, the absence of data means that it can take 3-4 months to really improve a campaign as we need to figure out what is working.