Proving the link between online ads and offline sales is the holy grail, as marketers need to understand this relationship to demonstrate ROI to the wider business and explain the customer path from online to store. Through geo-marketing testing with Google, EE and their agency MEC were able to research its customers path to purchase and found that for every 1 online sale driven through search, it drove an additional 2.6 offline in-store sales.
Approach
Partnered with Google
Geo-marketing testing - upweighting search spend in 12 regions and comparing sales results against control group of 12 "look-a-like" regions across UK.
Goals
Quantify the effect of online search advertising spend on purchases online and offline in-store
Improve the effectiveness of media spend allocation
Demonstrate true ROI to stakeholders across organisation
Results
Search ads delivered 2.6 sales off-line in-store for every 1 sale online
ROI proven - for every £1 spent on serach ads got £2.32 in revenue
For every one pound we spent on search we got £2.32 back. That is really important - especially when we are speaking to Finance.
-Oliver Folkard, Senior Digital Media Manager, EE
