Hair Club used a combination of online and offline marketing to achieve their business goals. Through their agency IMS, they developed Google AdWords campaigns to reach desktop and mobile users to bring in new customers.
Approach
Used Google Mobile Ads with location extensions and click-to-call
Developed a mobile-optimzed site
Goals
Promote Hair Club products and services
Drive better marketing returns at reduced costs
Increase product/services sales
Results
Grew mobile conversions to 6% of total sales
Achieved return on investment of 30:1
Increased synergies among mobile, desktop, TV advertising to enhance returns
Whether it's Julius Caesar crowning his thinning hair with laurel wreaths, or speculating about the status of modern-day celebrities, the issue of baldness has never receded. Alopecia – the technical term for hair loss — affects more than 35 million men and more than 30 million women in the United States alone.1 The good news is that there are now viable solutions, and Hair Club can help. With 35 years of experience and locations across North America, Hair Club is the world's leading provider of proven hair loss solutions.
Hair Club works closely with media agency Integrated Media Solutions to build out direct-response campaigns, with mobile becoming an increasingly important and highly complementary part of the marketing mix. Their primary goal is lead generation from their target demographic of men aged over 25 and women aged over 35, and ultimately to drive customers to one of an extensive network of 97 centers in North America for a consultation. This means using targeted advertising to drive leads at a local level and ensure users can take action quickly and conveniently.
Mobile in the mix
Hair Club uses a combination of online and offline marketing to achieve their business goals. Through IMS, they rely on Google AdWords campaigns to reach desktop and mobile users to bring in new customers. Hair Club also runs direct response TV ads which form a significant part of their overall activity.
The complementary strategy reflects consumers' multi-screen media consumption. "From our own research we know that 30% of the people visiting the Hair Club website do so because they've seen our TV ad, and often they are on the sofa with their mobile device or tablet. What better way to be able to have someone convert than on their mobile device?" says Lee Zoppa, Vice President of Marketing and Advertising for Hair Club.
Another dimension at work here is the discreet nature of a mobile device. "It's not a device you share with other people like a PC, so you're more inclined to make searches related to you personally", says Jennifer Taylor, Vice President Digital, IMS. "It's reported that 17% of US adults have used their phones to look up health or medical information."
A mobile-optimized site is key
A successful mobile strategy starts with a mobile optimized site. Hair Club tailored their mobile site to focus on driving new customers to their call center to schedule an appointment. For example, a click to call phone number is displayed prominently at the top of the mobile site. Since not every potential customer is ready to make that call, the site also captures user's contact information via a lead form, where they can be contacted at a later date by a Hair Club advisor.
IMS then created Mobile ads campaigns as the second key ingredient to the strategy. They took advantage of mobile- specific formats including location extensions. The location extension format makes it easy for the user to know where they are located in relation to Hair Club's centers by showing a map and also make it easy to connect them to Hair Club, with a click-to-call phone number directly in the ad.
The results show the campaigns are proving an efficient way to generate more leads and interest in Hair Club. "While desktop searchers constitute 94% of sales, mobile is rapidly gaining ground, capturing 6% of sales over the last three months," says Lalita Warren, Hair Club's Media Director. Indeed, Hair Club's number of clicks from mobile search ads has grown by 100% over the past year.
Reaching users across the mobile web
Hair Club also extended mobile ads beyond search to include the mobile Google Display Network (mGDN) and it's proving to be a key part of their success. The company is using call-only ads that are contextually targeted to websites for greater relevancy and more qualified phone leads. Google's sophisticated targeting technology accurately matches Hair Club ads to pages about hair care and hair loss treatments. Hair Club achieves this through well-defined ad groups containing tightly knit themes such as 'hair implants', 'thinning hair,' and 'alopecia'.
Since the mGDN campaign was set up in June 2011, it has succeeded in driving calls at a 72% lower average CPC when compared to mobile search. Clearly, mobile users are prepared to take action after being prompted by the relevant content on a web page.
"We are generating hundreds of calls a month through Google click-to-call ads alone," says Zoppa.
Impressed by conversions from mobile ads
Hair Club has also been impressed by the high conversion rates they're seeing from mobile ads. Capturing a new lead's contact information via a form has shown a conversion rate of 10% from mobile ads. Even better is the conversion rate from a lead to an actual sale: Hair Club reports this to be 11% from mobile ads.
All in all, Hair Club and IMS are seeing an excellent return on investment of 30:1 on Google mobile ads.
"Google mobile ads provide a successful, incremental platform for us. Mobile and tablet usage is increasing exponentially. Given our target demographic, we get more qualified traffic through mobile," says Zoppa.
