MandM Direct is a veteran British retailer, best known for selling end-of-line sports products across Europe. Since taking the leap to become an online pureplay, the company is now one of Europe’s leading off-price retailers with over 2.5 million active customers. Throughout 2019, the company looked to refine its audience strategy and deliver precision focus to their marketing activities. A suite of Microsoft Advertising audience products, including
In-market Audiences, Product Audiences and the
Microsoft Audience Network were used to achieve this goal.
A more qualified prospecting opportunity
The benefit of using In-market Audiences for MandM Direct was that it provided a more qualified prospecting opportunity, selecting audiences that have displayed multiple signals of intent in their search, demographic and browser activity. Although audiences with an interest in apparel performed extremely well, the company’s Digital Marketing Manager, Bill Davies, was also keen to expand beyond audiences that aligned directly with the company’s core product lines. To make the most of campaign optimisation, In-market Audiences were embedded into all MandM Direct prospecting campaigns. Each audience started with no bid adjustments, was then evaluated on a monthly basis and finally adjusted according to performance in 5-10% bid increments.
Crucial to the success of this model was the trust and transparency Microsoft Advertising delivered in its reporting functionality and bid recommendations. “We trust the Microsoft Advertising data, so we haven’t felt the need to implement capping on our bid modifiers,” Davies said. This combination of a considered incremental approach and trust in the data has led to “some pretty punchy upweights” in In-market Audiences bidding, which has resulted in a click-through rate (CTR) that is 23% higher than normal campaigns, as well as a conversion rate 3% higher than standard campaigns.
Re-engaging with valued customers
The Microsoft Audience Network also provided a new avenue for MandM Direct to reach its existing customers with carefully tailored messaging. It delivered additional 2% conversions to the bottom line, converting at a 30% higher rate than their standard search campaigns and maintaining a 66% reduction in cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Because the CPA on the network was so efficient, MandM Direct’s return on advertising spend (ROAS) for the Microsoft Advertising Network was 130% higher than its average search campaign.
Additionally, MandM Direct also successfully employed Product Audiences as a new way to dynamically retarget customers based on the products viewed on the website. This has resulted in a 40% reduction in CPA compared to the rest of its search account, with a 68% higher conversion rate and 70% higher ROAS.
“This is all about increasing our coverage and serving people with relevant ads wherever they are on the net,” said Phil Twigg, MandM Direct’s Head of Acquisition, about the collaboration with Microsoft Advertising.
View the In-market Audiences, Product Audiences and Microsoft Audience Network infographics to discover how MandM Direct got closer to customers, or head to the website to read the full case study.