Edgars is a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer with 203 stores across South Africa. Recognising digital’s increasing importance in meeting the needs of today’s customers, the Edgars team invested heavily in their website and ecommerce platform. They saw, however, that users were interacting both online and offline, making it difficult to create a holistic view of Edgars’ marketing efforts. The team believed that better insights would help them make smarter marketing decisions and improve customer experience, leading to better business results.
About Edgars
Online retailer of clothing, accessories, footwear, and cellular products
Offering local, international, and own brands
Based in South Africa
www.edgars.co.za
Goals
Drive in-store sales
Consolidate measurement of online media and offline purchases
Quantify the effect of paid search on offline purchase behaviour
Optimise digital channels based on omnichannel sales
Approach
Implemented omnichannel measurement
Set up Store Sales Direct
Results
Found that Search and Shopping campaigns achieved 1:53 omnichannel return on ad spend
Discovered that 58% of offline transactions began on a mobile device
Using Google Analytics, Edgars could clearly see that many customers were researching online, but online transactions accounted for less than 1% of the total revenue generated by the business. Edgars wanted to bridge the divide between online and offline channels, allowing an understanding of the impact of Google Ads on in-store sales.
To do this, Edgars partnered with Google to understand how to successfully measure online activity and store sales. The Google team proposed Store Sales Direct. Store Sales Direct allows advertisers to use their customer relationship management (CRM) data to evaluate search ad effectiveness by matching Google Search ad clicks to offline purchases. This is done by matching the customer information from logged-in Google users to information provided by the customer at the point of sale through loyalty programmes.
The resulting analysis revealed that the return on ad spend for Edgars’ Search and Shopping ads was 1:53 – 50 times greater than when taking only online transactions into account. Additionally, the team made a valuable discovery about purchase journeys: over 58% of offline transactions were being driven by mobile device.
“Understanding the impact that digital marketing has on store sales is a game changer, resulting in better overall return on marketing spend through channel mix optimisation.”
– Daniel Messem, Executive Digital Marketing, E-commerce & Digital, Edgars
While their previous approach did not value Google Ads’ impact on offline sales, the new information demonstrates that Edgars could make their Google Ads and digital experience work harder to drive greater profitability and growth.
Based on the insights, Edgars has shifted their marketing focus from online-only to an omnichannel strategy that takes into account both online and offline activity and the impact on total sales. Looking towards the future, the team plans to extend their findings to refine their approach to Display ads and Google My Business.
“Understanding customer data has been a challenge for Edgars. Google has been a great partner in helping us to understand customers who use both online and in-store avenues to purchase. With Store Sales Direct, we are now able to derive these insights and make informed business decisions.”
– Kumbirai Tinashe Masanganise, Web Analyst, Search-Ecommerce & Digital, Edgars
