Summary
Links of London was one of the first luxury retail brands to move online and working in partnership with Ambergreen has clearly shown that high value luxury products can perform exceptionally well online. Luxury brands were initially slow to step online, wary of undermining their exclusivity and replicating their high standards of customer service and ambience. Being a retail site has given Links of London enormous competitive advantage and today, the Links of London website is the best performing store of the entire Links of London UK estate. Links of London is an international brand with stores in the US, Dubai, Hong Kong and the UK. It offers an eclectic mix of men’s and women’s jewellery in sterling silver and 18 carat gold, with a signature collection of charms and charm bracelets and a mix of leather and silver items, for the home and workplace. In 2005 Links of London re-launched its retail site and appointed Ambergreen to design and implement a sophisticated PPC campaign that would enable them to compete in one of the toughest online markets. From the launch of LinksofLondon.com, PPC has been integral to growing the online retail business. The complex relationship between high street stores, catalogues and website of this multi-channel retailer had to be seamlessly integrated to achieve optimum results. The sharing of information between agency and client ensuring a joined up approach and creating synergy between the different activities. Demonstrating a year on year increase of 180%, Ambergreen is today achieving a return on investment over three times higher than the industry average and has increased revenue from PPC by 89%.
Challenge
The key challenge for Links of London and Ambergreen was how to make the PPC channel work for jewellery. Jewellery is notoriously hard to run a PPC campaign for. People browse online but want to visit the store in person to see and touch the jewellery before buying. This makes it difficult to track the return on investment of a PPC campaign. Launching a new website into a highly competitive luxury retail market is exceedingly tough. Links of London needed to rapidly secure high visibility on the search engines. But the cost of keywords in the jewellery sector is extremely high, making PPC very expensive. Added to that the customer buying cycle for luxury products is four or five visits before purchase which stretches the lead time for each sale.
Solution
Ambergreen first developed a PPC campaign that ran only on Google to make best use of the budget available. Within a few weeks the success of the campaign resulted in budgets being increased and its scope extended to run on all the search engines. Ad testing was critical as the target market is professional women buying jewellery for themselves. This is very different from the gift market. Ambergreen refined the key words used in the campaign to ensure it focused sharply on the target audience that would consistently deliver ensuring Links of London continues to hit its sales targets. Following rigorous analysis it was also apparent that conversion rates increased if the PPC adverts brought customers to landing pages with more affordable jewellery, before allowing the customer to browse more expensive products. Ambergreen worked closely with the media schedules of Links of London and ensured that PPC campaigns were developed to dovetail with seasonal and other promotions. Links of London is a multi-channel retailer with high street stores as well as catalogue and sales. The sophisticated relationship between channels means that all marketing campaigns have to be seamlessly integrated to achieve optimum results. From the launch of LinksofLondon.com, PPC has been an integral part of growing the online retail business. A critical element of the strategy is that information is shared between agency and client ensuring a joined up approach and creating synergy between the different activities.
Results
LinksofLondon.com is now the highest selling store of the entire UK estate. In less than three years, online has emerged as the most successful channel, overtaking bricks and mortar. The aim was to drive PPC as a successful channel and the brand has seen continuous improvement in sales achieving its monthly sales targets since the start of the campaign and in November 2005, within a few months of the campaign starting, had reached the £1m sales milestone. Links of London has consistently achieved a 3:1 return on investment since the start of the campaign. This return on investment has now increased to 7:1, three times the industry average, demonstrating a year on year increase of 180% since 2007. Traditionally April is a slow period for the jewellery sector but Ambergreen has bucked this trend for Links of London. Comparing April 07 and April 08 revenue from the PPC campaign has increased 89% with the click through rate increasing by 22%. Links of London's Web Manager, John Werbinski comments: “We believe that our success will lead other premium brands to go online meaning we have to continue to innovate to maintain competitive advantage. We have worked with Ambergreen since we first launched and the agency’s fresh approach shows they are keen to work with us a true partner rather than just a supplier.”
“We believe that our success will lead other premium brands to go online meaning we have to continue to innovate to maintain competitive advantage. We have worked with Ambergreen since we first launched and the agency’s fresh approach shows they are keen to work with us a true partner rather than just a supplier.”
