With Cyber Week 2020 just around the corner, autumn is the ideal time to boost holiday readiness for your retail customers. In 2019, holiday sales topped $1 trillion in the U.S. alone, and online sales grew by 13.2%. This year, as the global health pandemic keeps more consumers at home, e-commerce is expected to surge even higher.
The first stop for holiday shoppers? Online search. Which means having a paid search strategy is key to driving retail sales.
Below, we’ve highlighted recent success stories to inspire winning campaigns that can help you maximize retail and brand advertising dollars. For additional guidance for capitalizing on holiday shopping trends, visit our Retail industry insights and resources.
MediaCom amplifies holiday sales volume for Bose
In an increasingly competitive market, Bose needed to keep their products and brand top of mind while also driving conversions. To meet these objectives, MediaCom leveraged Microsoft Advertising to promote sales and offers, reinforce their brand message, and deliver enticing calls to action.
MediaCom built more than 50 Remarketing audience lists to target previous website visitors with highly relevant offers and messaging. To expand their audience, they leveraged curated lists of in-market searchers through In-market Audiences, and used Similar Audiences to target shoppers who resembled current Bose customers.
Their efforts paid off. Bose enjoyed a 69% click-through rate (CTR) increase from Black Friday to Cyber Monday year on year. Additionally, In-market Audiences delivered a 28% higher CTR than non-audience visitors, as well as a 21% higher conversion rate. In fact, 47% of all Bose’s site visits can be attributed to using the three audience targeting features.
Read the full Bose story here.
Merkle styles paid search success for fashion retailer
A leading fashion retailer that emphasizes individual style needed to increase volume while driving conversions over the holidays — all while maintaining a steady return on ad spend (ROAS). To help, advertising partner Merkle worked with Microsoft Advertising to tailor-fit a paid search strategy using the Microsoft Audience Network and Product Audiences.
As a result, they were able to increase conversion rates by 153% while increasing ROAS by 182% and decreasing cost per acquisition (CPA) by 75%.
Read the full Merkle story here.
i-Cherry helps Brazilian fashion retailer expand online audience
With consumers choosing online shopping over in-person experiences, retailer Riachuelo needed to transform its website into its primary sales channel, so they looked to digital marketing agency i-Cherry. By partnering with Microsoft Advertising, i-Cherry identified and implemented comprehensive campaign optimizations to drive traffic, boost online sales, and lift revenue.
The first month following the optimizations accounted for 65% of revenue captured in 2020, representing a 224% increase over the month prior, which was the second-best month. Additionally, they achieved strong ROAS of 4.08%, a substantial improvement over the first quarter of the year.
Read the full Riachuelo story here
Paid search is critical to omnichannel retail strategies, especially with the predicted spike in e-commerce this holiday season. Advise advertisers to set up their paid search campaigns right now to make the most of the early holiday shopping, while increasing chances of capturing last-minute shoppers.
For additional industry insights and resources, including festive shopping trends, get the Holiday 2020 Insights Guide and visit the Microsoft Advertising retail hub.
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