Stores-Discount.com is France's leading e-commerce retailer of interior and exterior blinds and has recently broken into new markets, including Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Enhanced campaigns has enabled the company to make the move to mobile advertising, supporting its rapid European expansion.
Approach
Upgrade to enhanced campaigns
Bid adjustments based on actual performance
Targeted ad extensions
Goals
Easier campaign management to break into mobile advertising
Expansion into new countries
Results
Campaigns optimized for new devices and new locations
Overall mobile transactions tripled
67% increase in conversion rate in Switzerland
Stores-Discount.com is France's leading e-commerce retailer of customized interior and exterior blinds. Its online platform, Stores-Discount.com, allows customers to browse a wide range of products and place orders to meet their specific requirements. The company was established in 2004 in Roubaix, near Lille, and has started to expand its business into new European countries, including Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg.
To increase sales and improve conversion rates of its online visitors, Stores-Discount.com uses Google AdWords to promote its products, principally through Search, but also through the Display Network. The company also uses remarketing channels. Due to time and resource constraints, campaigns were previously limited to only targeting desktop users. "We've always known the opportunities mobile advertising can offer, especially for the type of business we are in," explains traffic manager Romain Duhomez. "But without the time and resources available to properly manage and track a number of different campaigns, we felt it was always just too risky."
The launch of AdWords enhanced campaigns, with its simple and flexible campaign management tools, was the perfect opportunity for Stores-Discount.com to expand into the world of mobile. "Enhanced campaigns was the reason we started in mobile advertising," says Romain. "Previously we would have needed to duplicate campaigns for mobile devices, and we would have had too many campaigns to manage. We can now simply expand an existing campaign and optimize it for new devices and new locations."
Stores-Discount.com upgraded to enhanced campaigns in February 2013. "The upgrade was really simple, and the new interface allows us to optimize our campaigns more quickly and efficiently than in the past," says Romain. "We use Google Analytics to look at the conversion rates on groups of products and adjust the mobile bids on our ads accordingly, and we do the same for location. It's as simple as having Analytics open in one window and AdWords open on another. You then simply adjust the bids in the enhanced campaigns interface."
The mobile revolution is happening, so implementing an effective multi-screen strategy is crucial.
Being able to modify campaigns based on actual performance has allowed the company to enjoy almost immediate results. In March 2013, just one month after upgrading to enhanced campaigns, the overall mobile transactions on the site tripled. The move is also supporting Stores-Discount.com's goal to break into new European markets. By optimizing ads for Switzerland using location bid adjustments, the company's conversion rate in the country increased by 67 percent from February to March.
Enhanced campaigns is also helping the company expand and target their use of ad extensions. "Thanks to enhanced campaigns, we now know the click-through-rate and conversion rate of each of our sitelink extensions," says Romain. Call extensions have been implemented for mobile ads, so customers have the opportunity to speak directly to Stores-Discount.com specialists to help them place and finalize their order forms. "Click-to-call is new for us, but it sits really well with the personal nature of the service we offer," Romain explains. Call extensions are scheduled to appear only during the time Stores-Discount.com's call centre is open. Product extensions are also helping Stores-Discount.com to focus on products that out-price their competitors, which again offers more targeted promotion.
As Stores-Discount.com launches into mobile advertising, the company is rethinking their mobile strategy and looking at ways of optimizing their website for the multi-screen world. "The mobile revolution is happening, so implementing an effective multi-screen strategy is crucial," says Romain. "As customers use mobile devices more and more to shop online, I'm certain there will be a lot of potential to capitalize commercially in the not-too-distant future."
