Maciej Kupiec is the pay-per-click leader at LPP Group, the parent company of Polish fashion brand Sinsay. He oversees and supports a team focused on search engine marketing tools operating across various European markets.
Trying to launch a brand in a new country can feel like trying to find space in an already overflowing closet. For every hanger you find, there are five other brands already taking up the room. This is the challenge we faced at Sinsay, a Polish brand belonging to the country’s largest fashion retailer, LPP Group.
Aiming to double the number of stores and revenue by 2027, we decided to test how successful we can be in Western markets — particularly Germany and Italy — compared to our strong position in Central and Eastern European countries.
We adapted our approach for each market. In Germany, where we operate online only, we introduced free shipping to lower the barrier for a first purchase. In Italy, we offered the lowest possible prices, even if it meant less profit compared to our home market.
To make these decisions, we examined country-specific reactions to promotions. For instance, in Germany, our analysis showed that free shipping promotions consistently outperform others, because major competitors also offer this benefit.
The initial decision to lower prices in Italy was based on factors where we felt less confident than we do now, specifically delivery time and the presence of offline stores. By this point, however, both of these factors have drastically improved.
To truly scale this success, however, we needed a dedicated growth strategy. Previously, we measured our success by sales. But with our ambitious growth plans, we shifted our focus toward acquiring new customers.
Accelerating customer growth with AI
The focus on new customers required new advertising tools. The old way of manually excluding existing customers from campaigns to focus on new shoppers only was time-consuming and not ideal in a privacy-focused world. We needed a smarter, more automated solution to identify and reach first-time shoppers.
As we rethought our strategy, we began testing a feature called New Customer Acquisition within Performance Max and Search campaigns. This feature uses AI to find customers across all of Google’s channels. First, we supplied Performance Max with a list of existing customers; those who had bought from Sinsay at least once. Then, we set the campaigns to prioritise people who weren’t on that list.
We tested two approaches. The first, New Customer Only Mode in Google Ads, tells the AI to exclusively reach people who have never purchased before. The second, Value Mode, allows campaigns to reach both new and existing shoppers. However, it directs the AI to bid more for a new customer by assigning them a higher value.
Determining customer lifetime value
We sometimes ran campaigns simultaneously, with some set to Value Mode and others to New Customer Only Mode. We sometimes ran campaigns simultaneously, setting some to Value Mode and others to New Customer Only Mode. When we see peak growth, we run both at once. Once that trend ends, we scale back our new customer efforts, typically leaving just one method for acquisition.
The main hurdle in using Value Mode was quantifying a new customer's actual worth to inform our bids. We developed two primary approaches for setting this value. The first approach was simpler: we intuitively set the value in Performance Max and adjusted it based on market signals to find the balance between acquisition cost and return on investment.
The second, more rigorous approach involved analysing historical purchasing data from our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to forecast a new customer's realistic future spending. By adding this historically informed lifetime value, we ensured our bidding accurately reflected the new customer's long-term profitability.
Initially, we were surprised by the high cost of new customer acquisition, but we quickly realised the financial results remain satisfying in the long run.
Scaling success beyond Germany and Italy
The results of the campaign were impressive: we grew new customers in Germany by 2.6X compared to the previous year. And the growth in Italy was even more significant, reaching 4.3X.
We also compared the customer acquisition results to social media platforms we actively use as a brand. At the campaign’s peak, Google channels acquired new customers up to 5X more efficiently.
On top of the results, a major benefit was the huge amount of time the automation within Performance Max gave us back. Less time managing campaigns freed up time we could dedicate to higher-level planning, like creating the YouTube strategy for our Christmas collection.
We have now expanded the use of the New Customer Acquisition feature to additional markets — including Ukraine, Hungary, Greece, and Serbia — and we are planning to use it in all new markets we will expand to.
