With ecommerce clients, tracking sales, revenue, and ROI is straightforward; but when your client sells products in stores, measuring results is a bit more complicated. Discover our approach to help our client in the consumer healthcare products market meet and exceed their KPI’s, and how we continue to achieve success for them with innovative and strategic, data-driven decisions.

The Goal

Our client, the manufacturer of an oral care product line, sought to drive retail store sales of their products, in addition to increasing and expanding the distribution of their products into more retail chains.

The Strategy

Geographic Targeting. Because our clients’ products are not available in all retail stores nationwide, we knew geotargeting would be critical to the success of our campaigns. We asked the client for a list of all stores that stock the product, and targeted a narrow radius around each store.

Search Campaigns. The keyword strategy began by understanding all possible uses for our client’s products, as it treats gingivitis, bleeding gums, and mouth sores. We identified product-specific as well as informational keywords, separating campaigns by keywords that indicated users were already in buy mode vs. those users who were higher in the funnel researching solutions to their oral care needs. 

Display Campaigns. To generate broader awareness of the products, we executed display strategies, first utilizing contextual keyword targets, and evolving to utilize custom intent and affinity audience targeting methods as Google’s targeting options expanded.

Video Ads. In addition to leveraging banner ads to generate brand and product awareness, we also implemented YouTube ads that highlighted the health risks of gum disease and positioned the client’s products as a solution. 

Audience Analysis. After a thorough discovery, we began to identify a unique niche for treating mouth sores caused by chemotherapy. This audience is very different from your average adult with gingivitis, so we recommended the creation of a separate microsite to specifically speak to cancer patients undergoing chemo and how our client’s product could help ease the painful oral side effects.

We also learned that the Hispanic demographic places a high value on one of the key ingredients in our client’s product – aloe vera. With this in mind, we recommended a Spanish version of the landing pages, included Spanish keywords, and implemented Spanish ad creative in both the search ads and display ads.

Tracking

With our various campaigns in place, we were ready to drive qualified traffic to the website; but without users buying directly from the website, we needed a way to measure success.

The website features a “Where to Buy” page which contains store locator maps where users can enter a zip code to identify the local stores that carry these products. We implemented advanced tracking on this functionality to understand how many users took that step. The website also features various outbound links to online retailers like Amazon, so we implemented tracking on those link clicks as well. These soft goals, or micro conversions, indicate a quality visit with demonstrated intent to purchase.

The Results

Our search campaigns average a conversion rate of 8% with a cost per action between $7-$10 depending on the keyword. On the display side, we average a conversion rate of about 4% and a cost per action between $8-$12 depending on the target audience. Interestingly, while conversion rates are highest for search, both the search and display campaigns convert at a similar cost per action.

Although our video ads drive minimal traffic to the website, they have strong view rates, and therefore support brand awareness, helping ensure shoppers recognize our client’s products when they’re standing in front of the shelves in store.

That said, measuring micro conversions only gets you so far. What reinforced the success of these campaigns was the weekly emails from our client celebrating the uptick of in-store sales, and their ability to use that data to gain distribution in new major retail chains.

When we first started, our client averaged an ad spend of $5,000 / month. With the proven success of our campaigns driving in-store sales and supporting distribution expansion, the client has since increased their budget to over $20,000 / month.

Overview

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