New Look Sees Stronger Performance and Higher Average Order Value by Diversifying Their Search Budget with adMarketplace

Key Stats: 

• 27% higher AOV than Google non-brand
• 35% improvement in target COS goal during summer promotion
• 25% increase in CVR during flash sales

Background:

New Look is a “feel-good” fashion retailer with nearly 400 physical store locations across the UK and Ireland. 

The brand’s mission is to be the go-to destination for fashion that empowers people to feel their very best, with an eye toward sustainability and accessibility.

In 2022, the brand received more than 238 million visits to its website and app, ranking number two in market share for overall womenswear in the 18-44 age range.

Challenge:

Delivering an Innovative Consumer Shopping Experience 

What does it take to become the number one fashion destination for everybody?

This is the question that drives New Look, and one that certainly opens itself up to a variety of responses. One way New Look approaches that question is by being at the forefront of innovation. 

Boasting a strong bricks and mortar presence, New Look faced a similar challenge many physical retailers encountered during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: “How do we refocus our approach to business in a world that has shut down?”

The retailer’s premier digital marketing and search team was instrumental in building out an e-commerce strategy that helped the brand evolve during these years. Looking forward, a new challenge emerged: how can New Look continue to build on its strengths in an increasingly competitive space?

Adapting to the Evolving Consumer Journey

Wisely, the retailer directed its attention toward consumers in order to better understand where and how they were engaging with and purchasing from the brand.

It’s no mystery that the consumer shopping journey is becoming increasingly fragmented and complex. Today’s shoppers are searching for and buying products across a multitude of devices and channels.

Where search was once confined to the legacy search engine results page (SERP), this landscape has drastically evolved to encompass everything from social media to e-commerce sites.

As New Look pursued incremental revenue generating opportunities, they began to ask other crucial questions, including:

• Where else are shoppers searching outside of Google?
• How can we meet them in these environments where they’re ready to buy more?

The path forward became clear. New Look sought to diversify its search budget and media portfolio beyond its established media partners to grow performance and sustain the success the brand was seeing digitally.

Strategy:

Not All Search Is Google

New Look’s first course of action in driving increased investment was to trial new formats with existing partners. 

One example was partnering with Microsoft to deploy ads across their Audience Network. New Look was looking for new ways to communicate with customers across the entire funnel in order to drive exposure of its brand to new customers and launch stronger shopping campaigns.

The gambit paid off. Utilizing Bing search and Microsoft Audience Network helped New Look increase efficiency, drive more clicks at a lower cost, and reap a greater return on advertising spend (ROAS).

Seeing these results got New Look thinking: could the company replicate or, better yet, improve upon the success they were seeing by diversifying their performance marketing mix?

Enter adMarketplace.

Embracing a Diverse Media Portfolio

With its primary focus now centered around a cost of sales (COS) KPI, New Look sought out a partnership with adMarketplace to improve its COS results and continue diversifying its search investment outside of legacy search engines like Google and Bing.

New Look also hosts seasonal sales and promotions throughout the year as key business and revenue drivers. It’s during these business moments that the performance of its non-brand keywords is particularly essential, making the retailer interested to see if they could move the needle even further beyond the successes they were seeing from Google and Bing.

With the stakes set and the goals mapped out, New Look turned to adMarketplace’s dynamic, transparent media placements and exclusive distribution partners in an attempt to drive incremental revenue with greater efficiency.

Outcome / Results:

Growing Performance at Scale

New Look tasked adMarketplace with achieving an ambitious COS - a target that’s been consistently met or exceeded since the beginning of our partnership in November 2022.

By leveraging unique distribution types like privacy browsers and buy now, pay later (BNPL) apps, adMarketplace’s media solutions—including AMP Find, AMP Suggest, and AMP Results—exceeded target COS goals and generated a higher average order value (AOV) for the retailer versus Google and Bing.

Throughout 2023, adMarketplace’s media solutions and placements across Firefox and the BNPL app Laybuy generated a 27% higher AOV than Google non-brand. 

Additionally, during key promotional sales and deals, delivered incremental revenue while improving channel efficiency – in line with New Look’s wider business objectives.

During some of these promotional periods, adMarketplace’s media saw ad clicks lift by as much as 63% in some instances and delivered increases in conversion rates (CVR) by as much as 25%—particularly during flash sales.

Moving Forward:

With performance of adMarketplace’s media consistently growing in strength, New Look hopes to continue future-proofing its business and growing its digital media footprint beyond legacy search.

The retailer is particularly invested in understanding the impact adMarketplace is driving for new customers as part of our long-term partnership moving forward.

Client Testimonial:

“We’re pleased with the results adMarketplace’s media placements and solutions have achieved for our search marketing initiatives. We’re consistently looking for opportunities to drive even stronger performance and have tailored activations to acquire higher value users we wouldn’t have normally reached with traditional search tactics. It’s been a pleasure to work with a team who are equally passionate in delivering both success and innovation in this space.” – Thomas Charlwood, Senior Performance Marketing Manager at New Look

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