Global brand taps into search success using geo-level experiments
Overview
With multiple brands, one of Analytic Partners’ long-term clients was finding it a challenge to accurately measure the impact of search. However, companies within this fast-moving industry must be relatively agile and adapt to new situations or challenges as quickly as possible to stay on top.
The client’s insights team had made it one of their key goals to tackle the issue and find the underlying drivers. Based on previously successful projects, Analytic Partners suggested creating geo-level trial experiments to measure search’s casual impact on sales.
In close collaboration with the client and its third-party suppliers/vendors, Analytic Partners designed a test for one of the client’s brands. They were able to uncover correlations as well as improve search ROI while also decreasing overall investment.
What was the role of digital within the media mix?
Prior to the project, search ROI was believed to be relatively low. When there is little variation in search queries over time, companies can struggle to determine if search still has an impact or not, and it’s even harder to make improvements on a tactic like that.
For this FMCG client, it was even more of a challenge to attribute search impact correctly because most sales happen offline and there is no available user/customer data linking to them. The only available data was on a geographical level. Analytic Partners took these and connected them effectively to the client’s paid search activities through an A/B testing setup.
Key statistics
What results did you attain? What was the biggest achievement?
The analysis uncovered that search had in fact a very strong impact on the overall performance, being a direct driver of 11% of sales.
Following Analytic Partners’ recommendations after that test, the search ROI improved by 23% vs the previous year for one brand.
Following the strong performance of paid search in the first year for that brand, the client also invested in search for the next year for another brand. Through further recommendations towards a more optimal mix, that brand generated an additional £2.5 million with a £500,000 reduction in investment. Search was a large contributor to that.
In a sentence...
Global brand finds answers through geo-level experiments to measure and enhance true impact of paid search effectiveness.
