Search, Display, and Social Advertising Mix Boosts High-End Retailer’s YOY Sales by 70%

Case Study

Challenge

Seeking to grow its online business dramatically and quickly in the face of mounting competition, this luxury fashion retailer doubled its search budget. But search alone can’t scale that fast for a prestige brand in a hotly competitive sector. The brand needed a broader program.

Solution

Elite SEM focused on stimulating brand engagement among female college-educated 20-somethings—the persona of the brand—through a mix of paid search, programmatic display and paid social (Facebook and Instagram). The approach allowed us to reach more prospective customers, trigger more branded searches, and retarget site visitors with relevant offers.

While department teams set and pursued individualized metrics for each channel, we created an attribution model to credit the non-linear impact of display and social advertising. We prioritized business results over channel metrics, reasoning that sales lift far outweighed channel metrics. The media mix proved mutually reinforcing (e.g., branded searches more than doubled).

Results

Fashion retailer posted 70% YoY sales growth, 80% revenue growth in Paid Search, and 90% revenue growth across all Elite-driven marketing channels (Paid Search/Display/Social).