Measuring the Impact of Paid Search on U.S. Polo Assn. Brick-and-Mortar Retail Sales

The U.S. Polo Assn. is a retailer offering high-end casual clothing and denim through their website and a variety of online retailers. They also have their own brick-and-mortar stores.

Challenge

Elite SEM wanted to prove that Paid Search efforts were driving in-store traffic and revenue. The hypothesis was that Paid Search ads were generating brick-and-mortar sales, positively impacting overall Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). However, measuring Search-to-Store attribution has always been a challenging, if not impossible, proposition.

Solution

Elite worked with U.S. Polo Assn. to craft and execute a multi-phase strategy that proved Paid Search led to purchases in brick-and-mortar stores. The strategy included four separate phases.

Phase 1: The first goal was to measure how many people came to the site looking for a local store from Paid Search ads. Elite used existing campaigns with ads targeting a forty-mile radius around each store. They tracked users who clicked the Paid Search ads and then store locator clicks within the website to identify search-to-store intent.

Phase 2: Next, Elite included “Find a Store” as a sitelink (an additional website link located beneath main ad copy) within Paid Search Ads to track further interest in store location. Any clicks on “Find a Store” sitelinks indicated intent to find local stores via Search Ads. Elite bid aggressively on mobile for store-driven campaigns, so that when potential customers were searching for U.S. Polo Assn. on their mobile devices, they would easily spot the “Find a Store” link and thus, the nearest store.

Phase 3: After implementing Phase 2, Elite incorporated an in-store only coupon tied to a sitelink (with in-store only messaging) to bring prospective customers into the physical store. The coupon sitelink linked to a campaign-specific landing page with an exclusive coupon. This phase was critical for tracking, as customers could only access this coupon through this sitelink.

Phase 4: Lastly, to expand on this strategy and maximize exposure, Elite created a mobile-only ad entirely focused on an in-store coupon (vs. a promotional sitelink within the ad). Like in Phase 3, this ad led to a unique landing page with a coupon barcode that was only accessible via this ad and could only be redeemed in-store. The ad targeted brand terms and people within a forty-mile radius of each store.

Results

Following the completion of Phase 3 of the strategy, U.S. Polo Assn. witnessed a 22% Conversion Rate, which encouraged them to expand testing. Phase 4 then resulted in 1,257% ROAS and 336% increase in total revenue.

As it turned out, 77% of the total campaign revenue could be directly attributed to the in-store coupon, showing that these targeted Paid Search efforts drove even more revenue at brick-and-mortar stores than online.

“Collaborating with Elite is educational, engaging, and—most importantly—effective.”
Matt Debnar, Vice President, E-Commerce