“It was indeed a tough call to look to increase our investment with MediaVision as the 'credit crunch' loomed but given the implicit trust we have enjoyed for several years now, we signed off the incremental budget increases. The concept/brief was to mitigate our PPC spend in lieu of increased investment in SEO for a better ROI. Well, what can we say, other than, simply astonishing!
My only complaint is that they did not nag me harder a longer time ago. More seriously, we are profoundly grateful to Katia for the Account Management and notably Melissa for the superlative performance results achieved with PPC. Thomas and Louis head up a fantastic team who have become an intrinsic part of our successful operations.
Indeed, with our Racing background, as I mused with Louis recently; if Dickies is our Lewis Hamilton and DickiesStore.co.uk is the McLaren, it is satisfying to know we have the grunt and the technical know-how of MediaVision behind us as our Mercedes. World Class!”
John Macknay, MD of DickiesStore
Background and Brief
DickiesStore.co.uk is the primary official distributor of the legendary Dickies Work Wear brand in the UK.
DickiesStore approached MediaVision in the second quarter of 2008 with bloated PPC campaigns that were internally managed. The PPC return on investment was underperforming compared to the SEO campaign that was being managed by MediaVision. It was, however, difficult to track results, as the Google analytics hadn't been implemented correctly in-house.
July 2008 – November 2009
After taking over the DickiesStore PPC campaign in mid 2008, our tightened PPC control resulted in less budget wastage on protective ranges that they didn't stock, and as a result, the traffic increased by 16%. Due to better targeting and the site changes suggested for SEO, the conversion rate increased by 17%, creating a 40% increase in revenue from paid search.
DickiesStore was naturally pleased with the results and had built a great working relationship with MediaVision in a very short space of time.
HOWEVER…In line with MediaVision’s approach to continuously improve upon what we’ve achieved, we were determined to find ways in which we could further improve the DickiesStore PPC campaign in 2010.
Goals and Strategy for 2010
Having built a great working relationship with DickiesStore and really understanding how the workwear industry operates, MediaVision set the goal of increasing overall ROI from 600% to 700% on the DickiesStore PPC account by the time the workwear industry’s sales peaked at the end of 2010.
As a key tactic, MediaVision opted to focus the entire PPC campaign solely on branded keywords whilst the SEO campaign targeted solely non-branded traffic. Branded search provides the highest quality traffic and this in turn results in better conversion and greater ROI.
By testing different keyword combinations within the account during the year in preparation for the peak season, MediaVision was able to formulate a near perfect campaign in time for the peak season, all whilst constantly improving traffic volumes, quality and overall ROI throughout the year.
Results
November is one of the busiest months for DickiesStore each year, which is why we have compared November 2009 to November 2010 below. The results that were achieved over the course of the year and during the peak season for the workwear industry were excellent; all of which were achieved without any drastic fluctuations in budget.
November 2009 – November 2010
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PPC Traffic to the DickiesStore site increased by 58.64% when comparing November 2009 to November 2010. With this improvement in traffic (shown below) came the following improvements:
- Almost 3% improvement to an already exceptional Bounce Rate of just 11.55%
- 69.75% increase in ad impressions
- 54% increase in click-throughs
- 53% increase in total goal conversions
- 53.16% increase in revenue from PPC traffic
By the end of the 2010 peak season, MediaVision had not only achieved its goal of 700% ROI on the DickiesStore PPC campaign, but rather exceeded it by achieving an overall PPC Return on Investment of 800%!
Conclusion:
Whereas the DickiesStore SEO campaign is completely dominating the workwear industry for non-branded organic search traffic, DickiesStore is now also a clear leader in the supply of Dickies branded workwear throughout the UK; outperforming even the official Dickies workwear website. Having come to know and understand the workwear industry through a mutually beneficial working relationship with DickiesStore, we are confident that we can strive to achieve even higher goals for the DickiesStore PPC campaign in 2011. Watch this space…