CATEOGORY: Search Engine Marketing
SECOND-PLACE CAMPAIGN: Clicks to Bricks Campaign
AGENCY: Resolution Media
CLIENT: Pier 1 Imports
Like many retailers, Pier 1, which has 1,000 stores nationwide, built an e-commerce engine in the early days of the World Wide Web. And also like many retailers, the home goods retailer’s online and offline businesses were managed separately. But in 2007, when Pier 1 eliminated its e-commerce business, online media remained autonomous.
When the recession took hold, however, retailers were hit particularly hard, and Pier 1’s marketing team found themselves taking a new look at how online media could help. They were primarily interested in paid search and whether it could play a role in increasing brick and mortar traffic and lifting in-store sales while showing a positive return on investment for the campaign.
Search marketing agency Resolution Media worked with Pier 1 to “convince them that this test was worth investing about $200,000 in,” and with Google to “design, launch and conduct the clicks to bricks (also known as online to store) test,” Mike Kowieski, paid search specialist for advertising solutions at Resolution Media, explained.
They selected 59 test markets (based on city/DMA) and compared them to 93 control markets of comparable total population. Historical sales figures, seasonality trends and sociographic data were matched among test-and-control stores to ensure precise measurement. The Google Adwords campaign message focused on the store’s furniture lines, segmented by category, such as wicker or upholstery.
As Pier 1’s first attempt at paid search, “This was a benchmark for us,” said Jeff Haddox, interactive marketing manager at Pier 1. Previously, he says, they would simply count the number of people who came through the store and credit sales back to offline media running at the time.
Post-campaign, Resolution Media identified all the cells, transactions and traffic numbers in the test-and-control markets and sent the information to Google and Applied Predictive Technologies, a data analysis and software firm, to determine whether there was a lift in the test and control markets.
Despite the tough market, the campaign was a success. Across all markets, they saw a 1.4% lift in the furniture category. In addition, all categories enjoyed a lift simply by drawing people in to look at furniture. The dining category grew 2.9%, while rugs, pillows and window treatments increased 2.2%. In certain underperforming stores, sales increased as high as 5.3%. Overall, Pier 1 generated $3 in sales for every $1 spent on the clicks to bricks paid search campaign.
“The results were great,” said Haddox,” but what was really amazing is that “we ran this is October 2008 when the economy was sliding off the deep end, and we were focused on keywords for the furniture category which have a higher purchase consideration and higher ticket items. It was the worst time we could have run that type of test so to see even a 2 percent result was phenomenal.”
Thanks to the positive outcome of this test, Pier 1 is already planning their next paid search campaign and is committed to using online media to drive in-store traffic. —Lynn Russo Whylly
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