Creative use of Performance Max (PMax) delivers new customer acquisition at scale for British womenswear brand ME+EM
Founded by Clare Hornby in 2009, ME+EM is a British womenswear label specialising in flattering and functional investment pieces with the aim of redefining modern luxury for busy women. That means exceptional, long-lasting quality and expert construction for a flattering fit. It means versatile pieces that can play multiple functional roles in your wardrobe, for work, weekend and everything in between. And it means contemporary style that is easy to achieve with key forever pieces that help you save on the biggest luxury of all: time.
They call this intelligent style, and it’s designed to imbue you with confidence, now and forever.
Challenge
ME+EM were looking for an agency with deep ecommerce expertise who could efficiently scale their Search + Shopping activity whilst ensuring that strict new customer acquisition targets and ROAS efficiencies were met.
Activity to date had been heavily reliant on branded search terms with next to no non-brand activity and due in part to the highly competitive vertical of womenswear and rising CPCs they had been unable to scale non-brand activity without CPAs skyrocketing or ROAS plummeting.
Strategy
To address ME+EM’s challenges, we devised a multifaceted strategy focusing on two main areas: non-brand search and Performance Max. As new customer growth was important our approach involved leveraging customer match and remarketing audience lists to drive traffic from new customers. We combined these audiences with in-market and custom intent audiences to target high-quality users who were more likely to convert. By carefully optimizing audience targeting, we aimed to enhance the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.
Furthermore, we recognized the significance of restructuring the account to ensure efficiency and scalability. Starting with the most profitable categories, we reorganised the account structure, incorporating value-based bidding, broad keywords, and dynamic search ads (DSAs). This restructuring enabled us to identify key categories to focus on for non-brand coverage expansion, thus maximising their reach and targeting.
Maintaining account hygiene was also vital in sustaining a strong ROAS while increasing spend. We implemented various measures to optimise efficiency at every stage of the account growth. For instance, we developed robust negative keyword lists on Search to eliminate irrelevant traffic, excluded irrelevant website placements on Performance Max and YouTube, and curated the Shopping feed to align with ME+EM’s videos. These measures ensured that the account maintained efficiency and drove results.
Results
448%
increase in non-brand search revenue (year on year)
71%
of pMax revenue from New Customers
The strategy and our collaboration yielded remarkable results. Comparing January to December 2022 with the same period in 2021, non-brand revenue from new customers increased by an impressive 448% year over year (YoY). This increase was achieved with only a 565% increase in spend, highlighting the efficient allocation of resources and the success of our strategy.
In Q4 2022, an impressive 71% of Performance Max revenue came from new customers. This statistic underscores the efficacy of our approach in expanding ME+EM’s customer base and driving sales from previously untapped audiences and challenges the myth that pMax can only find low hanging fruit or generates the majority of its results from existing customers.
The restructuring of their account and the implementation of Katté’s best practice optimization measures enabled ME+EM to scale their non-brand campaigns while maintaining excellent efficiency. Despite the challenges posed by rising CPCs in the competitive womenswear market, our strategy allowed ME+EM to achieve sustainable growth and reach a broader customer base.
Our Client Says
The team at Katté have worked incredibly hard to build up our platform, and I am extremely grateful for their support. They are very proactive in making suggestions for day-to-day account optimisations and are consistently clear with sound recommendations for next steps. I highly recommend Katté & Co as a digital growth agency.
Ciaran McClellan, Growth Director at ME+EM