Sembot cracks Polish retail market

Making shopping ads smarter

Digital MarTech provider Sembot creates innovative software solutions for brands and digital agencies. The company focuses on the e-commerce market to make shopping ads smarter and reduce the cost of advertising for its clients. One such client is retailer Sklep Życia—a health and beauty specialist native to Poland.

In the summer of 2021, Microsoft Advertising launched the beta for 29 new markets across Africa and Europe, including Poland. When Sklep Życia noticed their competitors started to advertise on Bing.pl for the first time, they reached out to Sembot to join the beta. Having never run ads with Microsoft Advertising before, Sklep Życia went from nothing to thousands of clicks in its first 30 days, delivering an incredible 1550% return on ad spend (ROAS).

Adding to the flywheel

“Our approach to e-commerce is based on a flywheel. Every element contributes to make the flywheel incrementally better, and the more elements we can add, the better we can service our clients,” said Michał Zieliński, Chief Operating Officer at Sembot.

Microsoft Advertising holds an important position on the Sembot flywheel, bringing additional clicks and conversions to clients that drive sales at an efficient cost. “At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to our clients is the number of sales they can drive versus the cost input to get those sales. Microsoft Advertising represents another touchpoint on the customer journey—it’s another channel of converting traffic for e-commerce that just works,” commented Zieliński.

Not wanting to miss out on a strong first-mover advantage, the Sembot team got Sklep Życia set up with Microsoft Advertising and started using Microsoft Shopping Campaigns in September 2021. From experience, Sembot knew that Shopping Campaigns tended to convert better and were more profitable than text ads, so the focus was on feed optimization and getting Sklep Życia advertising in the Polish market as quickly as possible.

Shopping drove amazing results

“We knew that entering into a new market would be a good opportunity for the client, but even we were surprised at how quickly they were generating amazing results,” said Zieliński. Within two days of the campaigns going live, the benefit of the Microsoft Advertising platform was obvious to see.

The client achieved an incredible 79% share of voice, compared to 39% on Google Ads. At the same time, the clicks they were receiving were coming in at a quarter the price of competitor platforms. “This meant we were covering a lot more ad space with a lot less cost,” explained Zieliński.

In the 30-day period between September 15, 2021 and October 14, 2021, [had delivered 9% click share and 6% conversion share compared to Google Ads]. Coupled with low cost per click, Microsoft Advertising delivered an astonishing 1550% ROAS. “The click share is well above what we expected. We thought we might get 3-4%, but 9% is huge for a brand new market,” said Zieliński.

Not only were the volume of clicks and conversions higher than expected, the low cost made Microsoft Advertising an incredibly efficient platform for the client. Overall cost per click was four times higher, and the cost of sale was three times more expensive on Google. This meant that the ROAS for Microsoft Advertising was nearly double what was achieved on Google Ads.

One of the advantages of the Microsoft ecosystem that Sembot noticed was the reach of workday consumers that were active on PCs and laptops during the working day. These task-oriented consumers tended to be high spenders and made quicker purchasing decisions, leading to faster conversions in fewer touchpoints. “This is a growing audience we see on Microsoft Advertising that is highly engaged and has contributed to the successful results of these campaigns.”

Krzysztof Rojewski, Co-owner of sklepzycia.pl said: “We have been pleasantly surprised but totally delighted with the results of our search marketing with Microsoft Advertising in Poland. The quality of the audience and the efficiency of the clicks we receive has been fantastic.”