Manchester Collection
Refining the online shopping presence for one of Australia’s most loved bedding & homeware brands.
Background
Manchester Collection is an Australian bedding & homeware brand that brings a perfect blend of both quality and affordability. The brand offers a variety of contemporary and classic styles while passionately promoting the fact that competitive pricing does not necessarily translate into cheap quality. With seven brick-and-mortar stores in Melbourne and a growing online presence, the brand is now a strong competitor against some of Australia’s home fashion retailers. Manchester Collection aspires to inspire modern living while keeping comfort, quality, and affordability at the heart of its brand. With their exclusive products and a massive range of bed essentials, home decor, and homeware, you’ll never run out of choice!
The Challenge
With Manchester Collection growing its footprint in Melbourne and the pandemic hitting hardback in 2020, the need to establish a strong but continually growing presence online was a no-brainer. The brand’s KPIs were sophisticated but straightforward, and SearchMax eagerly rose to the challenge.
The expectation was three-fold. Already having a strong search presence, one part of the puzzle that was presented to SearchMax Digital Marketing Agency was how to further boost Manchester Collection’s presence on the Google shopping space against other top online home fashion retailers? The second was to drive the non-brand ROAS up past 250%. The underlying challenge was to eventually grow the ROAS to 400% within three months. Provided that these KPIs were met, marketing dollars thrown in could be kept flexible. In a highly competitive space, it was our challenge to identify how the brand’s low presence on Google shopping can be first boosted with a shorter learning curve while also bumping up the ROAS quickly.
Our Approach
SearchMax conducted an initial detailed Google Ads audit to identify loopholes. Using the BCG (Boston Consulting Group) matrix, a clear-cut distinction was made between products that were clear winners versus products that were bleeding money. The very first task was to fine-tune shopping campaigns that were not delivering results at expected levels.
Consumers were influenced by a range of both monetary and non-monetary benefit-related factors. Once that was identified, SearchMax crafted a strategy driven by the research. Through a carefully tested approach, it was identified that eCommerce conversion rates were at least four times higher when a discount was offered and slightly better when the core product features and benefits were incorporated into the copy. Once the experiment was determined successful, this approach was implemented across the account.
Although Manchester Collection is price competitive, competitors were dominating the shopping ad space a majority of the time. Hence, after SearchMax took over the focus was predominantly shifted to improving the shopping market share for Manchester Collection. Using a phased approach, shopping campaigns were completely restructured, keeping in mind which products were clear winners versus budget bleeders while also considering the impact of seasonality on bedding purchases.
Shopping Campaigns were broken down into SAGs (Single Ad Groups) based on past revenue-based data while separating the high revenue generators from medium and low revenue generators. A mix of both standard shopping campaigns and smart shopping campaigns were utilised to piggyback on both Google’s artificial intelligence and manual optimisation. Using advanced audience data from Google Analytics, we addressed key micro-moments and factors which deeply influence purchase decisions while layering audiences into campaigns. A strong remarketing strategy was then made part of the mission, identifying that certain pages had a higher drop-off rate. Granular audience layering was done to push very specific products to very specific audience segments (product – audience match).
After this cleansing process, the next step was engaging feed optimisers. Using feed optimisation tools, the shopping feed product titles and descriptions were revamped based on past search trends data. The aim was to help Manchester Collection to more effectively grab real estate ad space on shopping.
Niche customer segments were identified after extensive market testing and research, and these were effectively and seamlessly integrated into the account to ensure that they did not affect ongoing momentum negatively.
Results
Our short-term optimisation and strategy have improved the non-brand return on an ad spend to 340% in the Australian market.
The average eCommerce conversion rate has improved to 3% while the customer acquisition cost has dipped by 18%.
The shopping market share improved to nearly 50% while shopping ROAS improved from 1.67% to 3.40%
Although the depth of changes was new, using a balanced mix of optimisation, feed changes, and artificial intelligence, the shopping eCommerce conversion rate has also improved to 3.20%.