Creative PPC Strategy Causes Revenue to Soar During the COVID-19 Lockdown: WaterRower

WaterRower benefits from a 301% increased conversion rate, 794% more sales and 1,522% more revenue over the period 15th March to 7th April 2020 vs. the previous period 20th February to 14th March 2020.

About WaterRower

WaterRower Inc. has designed and manufactured state-of-the-art indoor rowing simulators in the USA since 1988.
WaterRower (UK) Ltd was formed in 1991 to market and distribute the WaterRower throughout Europe for private and commercial use.
Their water rowing machines shot to fame when used by Kevin Spacey in the TV series ‘House of Cards’, and have increasingly grown in popularity ever since.

Coronavirus: an opportunity for growth

Having worked with WaterRower before the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, we saw a great opportunity to grow their brand further during the quarantine and self-isolation period. Government guidelines permitted a daily dose of outdoors exercise, recognising that physical activity has a big impact on emotional and mental health. By offering practical indoor exercise equipment, WaterRower further supported government recommendations and actively promoted the nation’s need for maintaining healthy fitness habits during unprecedented and challenging times.

We anticipated and observed an increase in searches for home workout and gym equipment, especially indoor rowing machines. Our goal was to ensure that WaterRower’s products would have maximum reach and visibility during a period of heightened conversion rate. We also set and exceeded important KPI targets including ROI and ROAS (Return-on-Ad-Spend) in order to spend their increased budget as effectively as possible.

Results

Big wins for Microsoft Advertising campaigns

Microsoft Advertising (formerly known as Bing Ads) experienced the biggest percentage gains with a colossal 9,496% increase in revenue over this period. We already knew that Bing’s demographics were weighted towards WaterRowers ideal target audience – male’s aged between 25 to 44. According to Microsoft Advertising, 55% of bing.com search engine users are male and 74% are under the age of 45.

By maximising visibility across this often neglected search engine, we were able to generate an ROI that surpassed Google’s and drive an additional 51 sales.

Approach

After several remote conversations with WaterRower, our team came together to develop a plan for capitalising on increased product interest. Trafiki Ecommerce took the following steps:

• Performed an account audit to check for any areas of inefficient spend.
• Checked and verified that suitable bidding strategies were being utilised for each campaign. Campaigns driving most traffic and ROI were prioritised by switching to ‘Target Impression Share’ bid strategy, aiming to achieve as close to 100% Impression Share as possible across top-converting keywords.
• Optimised product data, including product categorisation, title structures and product descriptions. Optimisations were carried out across the client’s product feeds: Google Shopping feed and Bing Shopping feed (Microsoft Advertising).
• Optimised Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) and Expanded Text Ads (ETAs), using top-performing ad components to inspire new ad copy. We ensured that ad copy centred on WaterRower’s USPs: providing safe, at-home workouts with optimal strength and weight management capabilities.
• Enabled Bidding strategy enhanced cost-per-click (eCPC) across ‘Maximise Clicks’ campaigns where ‘Maximise Conversions’ bidding strategy had proved inefficient historically. This helped to automate query-level and audience-level bid adjustments based on the likelihood of clicks to convert.

“Hygiene checks and necessary house-keeping, combined with bidding strategy and product data optimisation helped to leverage results which continually surpassed our expectations. We are confident that we’ve succeeded in producing turbo-charged, highly efficient PPC campaigns.” – Alex Ingram, Head of Paid Media

Could you increase your online revenue by 1,000%+?

Many industries are thriving during this pandemic, experiencing high sales growth online. The BBC News reports that the following industries have experienced booming sales:

• Bicycles and exercise/fitness gear
• Outdoor and indoor games
• Home and garden items
• Reading matter
• Electrical goods
• Coffee and artisanal beverages

We are currently working with many clients whose businesses have been positively impacted by the coronavirus. Increased performance has also been observed for other clients in these areas:

• Food and meat goods
• In-home care agencies
• Pre-owned vehicle sales
• Home security solutions, primarily car theft and driveway security

Tap into our expertise

If your business falls into one of the above industry sectors, or you feel you could invest in this opportunity, we can ensure that you’re getting the best results possible from your online advertising. Get in touch with us by booking a free 30-minute discovery call or call us on 0203 411 2680.