+30% acquisition efficiency for a multinational telecommunications brand

Case studies / Telecommunications

The situation

A multinational telecommunications brand selling contracts, handsets and broadband online, in store and through call centres, with consumer and business lines running in the same accounts. Joseph led the search and integrated performance strategy at agency director level.

The problem

The brand paid the highest CPCs on its own handset and contract terms, competing with the retailers that sold its products and the comparison sites. Consumer and business search shared structure and targets. Handset launch weeks doubled CPCs with budgets not ready. Store and call centre sales were invisible to the online reporting, so search looked worse than it was.

What Joseph did

• Separated consumer and business search into their own structures with their own targets.
• Built the launch calendar into the plan, with budgets and creative ready before each handset release.
• Set brand and partner rules so retailers and affiliates added sales rather than took margin.
• Connected online, store and call centre data so attribution reflected where sales actually happened.
• Ran a landing page and conversion programme across the main acquisition journeys.
• Integrated search with the wider media plan, so TV and launch activity was met with the right search coverage.

The result

• Acquisition efficiency improved by 30%.
• Conversion volume rose by 25%.
• Cost per acquisition fell by 20%.

What this means for you

If your sale happens in more than one place, the online channel is probably under-credited and under-funded. Fixing the measurement usually pays for itself before the first bid changes.