ULab streamlined our SEM activity – simplifying our campaigns and ensuring that we saw a strong uplift in conversions early on. I was impressed by how they kicked things off by quickly getting stuck into the research.
This is especially refreshing given that we work in a rapidly evolving and highly regulated industry. Their energy and enthusiasm is infectious making it easy to bring them into discussions with stakeholders even beyond the marketing team.
Michelle la O'
Digital Marketing Manager, SFI
SFI Health (SFI) is a premium global natural healthcare company, and its Flordis and Prospan brands play in the highly competitive natural health category.
The SFI Australia team needed to find a way to punch above its weight in terms of marketing effectiveness, improving search sophistication and increasing conversion.
The TL;DR snapshot:
- Search wasn’t as efficient or effective as it could be.
- The SEM account was too complex and not generating e-commerce sales.
- A unified search strategy, based on data-led insights, was the panacea.
- SEM revenue increased by 50%, with a 5% reduction in advertising spend, in three months.
- 499% increase in SEM conversions in six months.
- Digital activity drove customers to purchase in retail stores.
The challenge: You need search sophistication and maximum bang for your buck to beat the big boys
In Australia, SFI is a challenger brand in a highly fragmented market dominated by large established competitors. It has to ensure every dollar invested delivers maximum bang for its buck – and then some.
Similarly, its search engine marketing (SEM) account wasn’t driving the results it should.
It wanted a cohesive search strategy to better connect with its target audience and deliver tangible business results… So, they gave us a buzz.
How we approached it: Search data and customer insights powered the strategy
We had a head start given we’d already worked with the team on SFI’s brand experience map, which identified its customer-led emotional territories. The richness of these insights was the foundation of SFI’s search success.
Next, we did a deep-dive on the search behaviours and associated journeys for critical areas SFI wanted to ‘own’ including highly targeted areas that aligned its products and expertise within women’s health. Naturally, this unlocked customer intent and the content required at each stage of the sales funnel.
We also assessed its competitors’ search effectiveness to find low hanging fruit, as well as meatier opportunities.
From there, we conducted an SEM audit and uncovered ‘quick win’ optimisations to immediately improve performance within the first three months.
The solution: Strategy’s not worth the paper it’s written on without sublime execution
Once the strategy was locked down, we collectively rolled onto ‘doing the do’. This included optimising all relevant existing content for search, so it appeared on page one of Google.
We restructured the SEM account, streamlining campaigns into core, high performing ad groups and keywords. This typifies simplified sophistication, one of our top Google hacks. We also optimised audience and time targeting to help reduce wastage drive effectiveness.
Campaign copy was revitalised and new ad formats introduced to increase click-through rates. And conversion-based bidding strategies were implemented to ensure every dollar invested focused on tangible outcomes.
We also started bi-monthly ‘test and learn’ elements like a Shopify landing page to improve transactions onsite. This one was fun, and boy did it work. We’ll tell you about it another time.
Additionally, we worked with the team to ensure once we got people to the site, the path to purchase was frictionless. This included simple, yet effective, tricks like enhancing the placement of conversion buttons and optimising cart functionality.
SFI also embraced the fact that retrospective reporting is so ‘yesterday’. Instead, we collectively focussed on a ‘start, stop and continue’ operating model where we constantly reviewed the previous month’s data to prioritise opportunities to drive more traffic, customer engagement and conversions.
Making it happen: Search enters another stratosphere within its first year
The foundations of its success were mapping the customer journey, diagnosing the data, and turning it into tangible results.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: understanding customer behaviour and building audience tribes turbocharge your website performance.
Search is now a critical driver of sales and conversions online, and they have the Ferrari of SEM accounts.
In less than one year, we helped SFI achieve:
- 50% increase to SEM revenue, with a 5% reduction in advertising spend, in three months.
- 499% increase in SEM conversions in six months.
- 19% year-on-year increase in SEO traffic.
- 36% reduction in CPCs.
- 26% increase in quality SEM traffic.
- Thousands of new customers went offline and into partner retail stores to purchase SFI products.
Don’t just take our word for it.
For results like this,
get in touch:
Don’t just take our word for it. For results like this, get in touch:
