Mobile search marketing

US firm Legal Brand Marketing managed to increase click-through rates by 89%, while halving its cost per lead, after switching to a mobile-only lead generation strategy.

The company delivers qualified leads to law firms and DUI attorneys, but found that the search landscape had changed, particularly following Google’s shift towards giving localised results more weight. 

In response, LBM developed a new marketing strategy that could deliver a low enough cost per lead, while still returning a profit. 

A core secondary objective was to devise an approach which would reach potential leads on the platform they use most. Additionally, LBM was keen to obtain more insight into the success of its phone service.

LBM looked to Webtrends to provide the research, data and strategic insight needed for the development of its new marketing strategy.

After comparing the cost per conversion on desktop and mobile, LBM discovered that targeting people on a mobile platform was 35% more cost effective than its current desktop marketing strategy.

In response LBM created a new strategy including a mobile optimized landing page, a mobile-friendly form and a second opportunity for the visitor to click and call the company’s 24-hour phone service.

Additionally, it placed phone extensions in LBM’s ads and used Google call forwarding to track call time and length.

Results

LBM’s new mobile marketing strategy resulted in an 89% increase in click-through rates and cut the cost per lead by more than 50%.

KLM

Airline KLM had two objectives for its first mobile-only campaign:

  • It wanted to convince customers that mobile booking is simple, fast and reliable. To do this, KLM needed to change attitudes and build trust in booking flight tickets via its mobile site or the KLM app.
  • It needed the initiative to be a test bed for new mobile marketing techniques such as its mobile passbook, location-based notification and the retargeting of visitors across mobile.

During a campaign period of three weeks, KLM offered an incentive of free lounge access to anyone who used its mobile booking engine. 

Customers received their lounge access in the form of a mobile coupon within their passbook for Apple users and in their Google wallet for Android users. 

These apps then sent a location-based push notification when the customer was in the vicinity of the lounge, so they were reminded to use the coupon. 

KLM created a responsive campaign page, which displayed a ticker for how many vouchers had been claimed.

Results

As a result of the campaign, which initially targeted the UK, Netherlands and Germany, KLM saw a 17% increase in visits to its mobile site, which generated 34% more bookings and 38% more mobile revenue.

In terms of traffic drivers for the campaign, its communication channels could be broken down as follows:

  • 46.6% mobile banners.
  • 35.4% social media.
  • 13.1% search engine advertising (SEA).
  • 2.3% newsletters.
  • 2.8% other.

Topshop mobile personalisation

After redesigning its mobile site, which involved a significant change to the navigational structure, Topshop ran a series of tests to optimise the user journey.

Topshop changed its homepage and, using real-time feedback from Qubit’s Visitor Opinion tool, highlighted a number of areas for improvement. 

The retailer wanted a way of testing whether several small changes to its product page would have any positive effects and wanted to test these changes before allocating extensive IT resource to it.

A navigational pointer was shown to new mobile users on their first visit, showing for five seconds as they entered the site. 

The pointer highlighted where the new menu was, helping visitors navigate to other pages.

Using this data alongside the qualitative feedback, Topshop designed four different search variations, testing both changes in copy and the addition of a border to the search box. The test was split evenly across all users.

Optimisation of the search tool is important as quantitative data found that people using Topshop search typically convert 10 times higher than those who don’t.

The retailer also tested changes to the size selector, the ‘details’ and ‘delivery’ tabs, the ‘added to bag’ confirmation pop-up, and buttons such as the ‘size guide’, the ‘add to bag’, and the ‘check stores’.

Results

The new mobile layer resulted in a 4% increase in products added to baskets, while the search bar generated a 5.8% increase in conversions. 

The product page changes generated between 9%-11% increase in conversions.

Asda

British supermarket chain Asda is the UK’s second largest chain by market share, and has more than 500 UK stores.

The retailer’s objective was to meet the growing use of mobile by building an app that made shopping quicker and more convenient for its customers.

More specifically, it wanted to achieve:

  • 10% of grocery online shopping orders through the app.
  • Industry leading usability and functionality.
  • Increased convenience for Asda mums (busiest and most savvy shoppers).

These aligned with Asda’s long-term objective of creating ‘stores without walls’.

Customer feedback showed that customers wanted an app that was simple and easy to use, so the resulting design included a recipe finder, barcode scanner, and a store locator.

The approach was to let customer experience drive the technology, rather than vice versa, and new features have included live petrol prices and merchandised banners.

Results

The app exceeded its objectives:

  • Mobile now accounts for 18% of all grocery home shopping sales – 90% of this from the app.
  • Asda app shoppers are twice as likely to become loyal, repeat customers.
  • Shopping frequency for mobile is 1.8 times higher than desktop.
  • More than 2m downloads.
  • The Asda app won a ‘2013 Mumsnet Best award’, getting a 5-star reviewer rating.
  • The app was Google’s ‘staff pick’ over the Christmas period.

Argos

As part of a wider programme to reinvent Argos as a digital leader, the retailer wanted to deliver a truly multichannel experience, encompassing a website, mobile-optimised site, iPhone app, iPad app, and Android phone and tablet apps.

Across the various channels, the aims were:

  • Mobile proposition – to offer convenience and immediacy to new customers, providing competitive advantage in attracting customers on the move.
  • Stores – refurbishment programme would be designed for the multichannel customer.
  • iPad app – reposition Argos from a catalogue-led business to a digitally-led business.

A three-year investment programme founded on customer research and clear corporate objectives was embedded business-wide.

The multichannel journey capabilities mean that customers can now have 14 combinations of order and fulfilment to suit their needs; they can easily start their journey in one place and pick it up in another.

The new iPad magazine showcases the retailer’s range and inspires new customers.

Results

ROI expectations have been exceeded, achieving ongoing returns:

  • Multichannel sales penetration increased to over 50% of total sales, with Argos.co.uk receiving 440m visitors per year.
  • The internet accounted for 42% of total company sales and ‘Check and Reserve’ was Argos’ fastest growing channel.
  • The iPhone app has been downloaded over 2.5m times, the Android app over 625,000 times and the iPad app over 450,000 times.
  • The iPad app has already exceeded sales targets, achieving more than double the target set at launch and contributing to the 12% of total company sales now accounted for through mobile channels.
  • Search channels continue to grow with SEO achieving non-brand growth of 32%.
  • PPC has grown revenue over 60%.
  • Email visits have grown by 49%.
  • Performance marketing campaigns have supported visit growth of 15%.

Very.co.uk

We’ve written a lot about Very.co.uk recently, including a review of its new iPhone app.

In this case study the retailer worked with Somo to create an integrated, multichannel campaign that aimed to boost sales in the run up to Christmas 2014.

The campaign used:

  • Twitter synced TV advertising.
  • Geo and time-located SMS.
  • Shazam TV/music recognition.
  • Mobile video.

The campaign led to a 45% increase in mobile sales year-on-year and ROI of more than 15:1.