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Automated bidding strategy opens doors for Hörmann

  Article , Success stories

Door maker boosts results with Maximize Conversions and Target CPA.

Hörmann logo

Bringing heart, soul, and fire to marketing doors

German manufacturer Hörmann is one of Europe’s leading providers of garage doors, front doors, and operators. Digital agency morefire GmbH is a Cologne-based agency that brings online marketing expertise with heart, soul, and fire. Hörmann embarked with morefire in 2019 to instigate a holistic digital strategy that would engage customers at every stage of the buying cycle. In 2020, morefire saw an opportunity to expand Hörmann’s digital horizons with Microsoft Advertising, especially in the B2B space, and so set a test budget to prove its effectiveness.

“I have always been a big fan of [Microsoft] Bing, some of our clients can be a little sceptical at first, but when they start seeing the results, they quickly become advocates of Microsoft Advertising,” said Laura Kunisch, Paid Media Consultant at morefire. This proved to be the case with Hörmann. After consolidating the search strategy in Germany in 2019, 2020 was about expanding horizons to new markets but also to new publishers. This included a test budget for Microsoft Advertising with the goal of increasing appointment leads and downloads of product brochures.

These strategies work really well and it was easy for us to tweak and adjust campaigns depending on what we wanted to emphasise for a given product.

— Laura Kunisch, Paid Media Consultant, morefire GmbH

Targeting by audience, not keywords

Hörmann is both a B2B and a B2C company, selling garage doors and operators to homeowners and industry. “The challenge we have from a strategy perspective is differentiating B2B and B2C customers when they both search for the same keywords.” explained Ramona Schüssler, Senior Strategy Consultant at morefire. “If someone searches for ‘garage door’ how do we know where to direct them?”

Morefire logo

To make the most of the Hörmann media budget, the morefire team took a broad targeting strategy at the keyword level but relied heavily on remarketing and audience targeting to finesse the campaigns and keep them efficient: “we can’t split the campaigns by keywords, so we have to do it with audiences,” said Ramona.

Efficiency through automation

Having a wide net for keywords meant the Hörmann campaigns were bulky to manage. Using automated bidding strategies helped to manage the load. As Laura described: “We assessed on a weekly basis whether we needed to drive more volume to a particular product or if we needed to control the costs to bring down the cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Then we used the Microsoft Advertising API to either implement a max conversion strategy if we needed more traffic, or a Target CPA strategy if we wanted to reduce our costs.”

The twin bidding strategies worked extremely well for Hörmann. By implementing Maximize Conversions, morefire saw 500% conversion growth, 5% higher conversion rate and an 80% reduction in CPA between June and October 2020. Using Target CPA to manage costs reduced the CPA by 50% with a 20% higher conversion rate and astonishing 900% conversion growth between August and November 2020. “We knew these strategies were working really well and it was easy for us to tweak and adjust the campaigns depending on what we wanted to emphasise for a given product,” remarked Laura.

Time saved freed creativity

Automated bidding and implementation through the API had the additional benefit of saving precious time for the morefire team — time that could then be repurposed for more creative account optimisations.

“There are so many product differentiators for Microsoft Advertising now that it’s really worth spending the time to optimise specifically to the platform. We’ve tried LinkedIn Profile targeting, niche in-market audience segments, image extensions and the native inventory of the audience network. These are all things we can’t get on competitor platforms but really work for the client. It’s the perfect example of what you can achieve if you invest a little effort into Microsoft Advertising and don’t just import your campaigns and forget about them.”

The results have led to a stronger and more trusting relationship between Hörmann and morefire. As Jakov Greenyer, Performance Manager at Hörmann said: “We’ve been delighted with the results that morefire have delivered this past year. Microsoft Advertising represents exceptional value for money, especially in the B2B space."

We’ve been delighted with the results that morefire have delivered this past year. Microsoft Advertising represents exceptional value for money, especially in the B2B space.

— Jakov Greenyer, Performance Manager, Hörmann

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