Problem

Challenge

Our objective was to compete in a crowded digital paid media environment in search and social, inject life into a stagnant digital paid media program and ultimately increase revenue through online transactions.

To accomplish this, Creative Guild would need to establish a predictable and positive return on ad spend by determining the right channel mix and media weighting and executing against a full-funnel digital strategy.

Additionally, the approach would need to support 38 Topper’s locations across Ontario with a limited budget across multiple channels.

Inherited account challenges included paid media budgets that did not evenly distribute across all locations, brand keywords capturing 70% of the budget, limiting growth and the opportunity to target new, qualified audiences. Other hurdles included limited use of audiences for targeting and remarketing, a mixture of shared and individual budgets, campaign goals (from max clicks to large-range target CPA) that hindered machine-learning opportunities.

Thinking

Strategy & Approach

We started with three KPIs rooted at the core of the strategy and tactical plan: 1) Website transactions, 2) Call Centre phone calls and 3) app downloads.

In developing our strategy, we performed deep-dive housecleaning to help develop our approach.

We conducted a Performance Gap Analysis with an accounts audit and marketplace review to uncover gaps in the digital paid media strategy, account structure, online tactical execution, and data measurement plan.

Next, we restructured the paid media account through budget optimization, establishing dedicated campaigns for each location, allowing equal opportunity to benefit. Keyword optimization shifted the emphasis to non-branded terms to attract new site visitors. Reducing the campaign volume to 38 (from 117 in the old structure) strengthened the machine learning capabilities against our core objective—increasing online revenue.

Campaigns were moved from Max Clicks (as previously configured) to Target Cost-Per-Acquisition (tCPA) to optimize bidding strategy and maximize budget against our core objectives.

We then migrated campaigns from a combination of linear attribution and last-click attribution to data-driven attribution. Essentially this leveraged the most data points available with an increased attribution weighting against consumer touchpoints along the path to purchase, maximizing Topper’s return on ad spend.