A successful digital transformation for Edigroup

Background and Objective

ASENDIA PRESS EDIGROUP S.A. is part of the Asendia Group which is a major worldwide group for the distribution, shipping and mailing of international mail.

Since 1983, EDIGROUP has specialised in the promotion, distribution and management of subscriptions to magazines, publications and newspapers from all around the world.

The biggest press publishers trust EDIGROUP to manage and promote their subscriptions in Switzerland, including: Animan, Bayard presse, Milan, Mondadori, Fleurus, Groupe Marie Claire, Prisma…

The edigroup.ch website proposes to web users, in Switzerland, to subscribe to 500 magazines of various countries and of all types: youth/children, well-being, art of living, news, sport, leisure, feminine, culture…

Edigroup have put their faith in us to develop AdWords campaigns on the Search network as part of their digital transformation. Before the launch of our campaigns in June 2016, the company had practically no online presence and the main source of orders came from the catalogues sent out to clients by post.

We were given “carte blanche” to use all the possible techniques on the Search network to generate sales. The sole condition was that we had to meet the target of a maximum CPA of 15 CHF.

Strategy

Our work consisted of several phases.

Phase 1 / Advanced Analytics e-commerce configuration

We configured an advanced Google Analytics e-commerce tracking to track all transactions on the website,increase sales value and measure all user actions. The turnover made it possible to measure the real profitability of the campaigns and to optimise them according to the ROAS. The 3 main conversions are transactions, account creations, and contact form submissions.

Phase 2 / Setting up the first AdWords campaigns

The first AdWords campaigns started one year ago, in June 2016.

At first, Suisseo used multiple relevant keywords by creating campaigns mainly:

• To cover all topics: decoration magazines, magazines for children, animal magazines, sports magazines, etc. Each ad group of this campaign represents a topic and contains: the variants of keywords making it possible to look for particular types of magazines, unique and relevant announcements dealing with the topic and encouraging the user to subscribe.
• To cover all the names of magazines: 2 campaigns were created to solve this issue. First, a best-sellers campaign where each ad group deals with a particular magazine. Each ad is personalised according to the magazine, highlights its specificities and the percentage of discount on its subscription. A Dynamic Search Ads campaign complements the visibility of all other magazines.

To cover keywords that are more widespread but nevertheless relevant to Edigroup, such as “Swiss magazine subscription” or “journal subscription”.

Results in 1 month:

• -50% of average CPC,
• x5.5 the number of online sales from the campaigns
• ROAS of 770%

Phase 3 / Improve Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Once the main campaigns were set in place and demonstrated incredible results in such a short period of time, we wanted to improve the quality level by introducing advanced search features to increase the click-through rate and ad position.

Here are all the exploited features:

• Ad extensions. We have enabled ad extensions for sitelinks, callouts, site snippets, and pricing.
  Sitelinks and price extensions were used extensively for ad groups in the topic campaign. For example, the “children magazine” topic includes 4 links to subcategories: for toddlers, ages 3 to 9, ages 9 to 13, and for teenagers over 13 years of age. The same technique was used for price extensions. Using this example, 4 magazines particularly appreciated by children are displayed with the correct price. Ad extensions are also used to highlight a promotion in progress, for example for Valentine’s Day or for Black Friday.

  

  

• Remarketing. Qualified lists of audiences were created to acquire new clients and retain existing ones. We used them on different networks: search, display and native.
  They have been used in several ways: through the search campaigns already in place, by adjusting the bid on this target and by excluding users who have subscribed within the last 320 days. After 320 days, Internet users are refocused to update their annual subscription.
• IF functions. As the Edigroup site is mobile friendly, we wanted to use the IF functions in some ads to adapt the message to mobile users and encourage them to go through the funnel conversion on their device.

  

• An ad scenario was also set up on the 3rd day after the first visit to the site. This audience sees a special offer to encourage them to complete a transaction.

  

• Insertion of keywords. We have deployed at least one ad variant with a {KeyWord} tag, in each ad group. The ads are therefore more relevant to users looking for Edigroup products and the CTR is 2 to 3 times more efficient on this type of ad.
• The enterprise data flow. The flow was created in order to customise the ad to the full, with the magazine name, the regular price, the final price, the percentage reduction and the subscription period. This also ensures the accuracy of the information in relation to the current price and promotion, which tend to be changed on a regular basis.

  

Results

Thanks to these AdWords campaigns, the edigroup.ch website has successfully completed its digital transformation.

• The CPA is 2.3 x lower than the target set.
• ROAS is over 1500%.
• The CPC was divided by more than half compared to the campaigns they managed before our intervention.

It is a real success and we are proud to assist Edigroup.ch in its development. During this year, the group entrusted us with the management of AdWords on other e-commerce sites, in several languages and countries.