tarte™ Cosmetics' Triumphant Holiday 2018
A bidding strategy tailored to holiday shoppers helped unwrap a big increase in impressions, clicks, and orders.
Challenge
Efficiently grow global volume & awareness of the tarte™ brand and site during the 2018 holiday & gifting season through SEM. Drive incremental traffic, impressions & revenue at a higher AND more efficient rate (this in and of itself is a challenge) than holiday 2017 to achieve overarching tarte™ business goals & benchmarks. Do so against increasingly heavy competitive pressures and a large account spanning the US and many international markets. Focus on growth projects while seamlessly facilitating promotional messages and in-season product launches
Approach
Merkle’s solution was to advertise on brand and non-brand keywords relevant to the tarte brand and product selection across multiple search engines. This was achieved by managing bidding strategically through elite and proprietary technical tools, while leverging engine tools and levers to further hone bids. Merkle ran shopping campaigns, powered by high=quality feeds to compete in the product listing ad space. The ability to adapt quickly to changes in marketing, performance, priorities, and consumer behavior by adjusting message, budget, and targeting were imperative to the success of this campaign.
Our methodology started with an audit, update, and maintenance of strategic match types on keywords. This was critical to ensure we had both exclusive and exhaustive coverage across the account, from brand name to product selection. Ad engagement was maximized by leveraging Google opportunities, including DSAs, Showcase Ads and Countdown copy. Shopping campaigns were expanded into EU segments and structured shopping product groups to promote the best and most competitive product on the SERP in terms of click-through-rate, conversion rate, pricing, and query relevance.
Results
Keys to success
- Implement strategic bidding to cater to holiday shopping consumer behavior
- Maximize presences of ad types at all levels of the purchase funnel
- Implement advanced & dynamic structures within each ad segment for highly adaptable delivery
- Message key promotions & product launches effectively, leveraging audiences as a people-based marketing approach
- Run, provide, & act on advanced analyses and reporting frequently, often times intraday, to make important game time decisions