Starting with Paid Search in 2018, our partnership with Clarins expanded to include paid social and retail media.
Success in the US led to managing additional markets and brands. By Q1 2023, we took on full-funnel US media (Digital AOR). Now in our 7th year, we manage paid search, social, video & display, retail media, OOH, partnerships, and creative/dashboarding.
Challenge
For Clarins, shifting consumer behavior post-COVID prompted concerns of an over dependence on owned and operated sales channels and a need to reduce reliance on direct-to-consumer bottom-of-funnel media.
Discovery
Wary of simply shifting media investment closer to the point-of-sale, Clarins sought to maintain top and middle of funnel media investment, while actively meeting customers where they choose to shop. This meant shifting investment from DTC-focused media towards Amazon Ads in a way that was coordinated and fluid, where we could work to convert audiences primed by our upper funnel media within their chosen retailer, complementing sales made on the DTC site.
Hypothesis
As upper and mid funnel media efforts intensified, we wanted to ensure that lower funnel audiences were ‘harvested’ wherever they existed. Whilst, existing lower funnel efforts such as paid search, shopping and social conversion campaigns could be expanded and refined, we theorized that incremental audiences existed on retail platforms, most notably Amazon.
We therefore wanted to ensure that we were not ‘leaking’ customers that had been persuaded by our upper funnel media by not focusing on lower funnel audiences on the Amazon Ads platform, and so a retail media strategy was born.
Key Findings
Deployment
Launching media on a platform for the first time requires careful planning and an agile approach on order to react to real time learning and performance. We knew that key to the success of the launch would be:
1. SKU Analysis
Limited budget meant that not all products could be included in the media mix and so we considered a SKU analysis that determined which products, aside from hero products, would be most appropriate to run media for on Amazon, based on a combination of volume and profitability.
2. Ad Format Budget Allocation
Having selected SKU’s, we next allocated budget according to ad type. We prioritized budget for Sponsored Products ads for product-focused searches and Sponsored Brands where we wanted to protect brand.
Results
We were able to maintain DTC sales, whilst also growing amazon sales revenue by 30% year over year, thereby introducing a whole new sales channel to the revenue stack. So successful was the media programme, that we were able to invest in top of funnel amazon media, resulting in an 60% in brand impressions.
+30%
Revenue YoY
+26%
ROAS YoY
+60%
Impressions YoY
