How to get 6800% ROI from a single eCommerce marketing campaign

Back in 2014, my consultancy (Ideal Interface) had an eCommerce client who was having a couple
of major issues:

1. The Return On Investment (ROI) from their Affiliate Marketing efforts using voucher codes was highly variable, having a significant effect on sales margins
2. Conversions rates were falling at key points in the checkout process, as customers were entering invalid voucher codes collected from across the web

The challenge was to take ownership back of the voucher code arena and develop a
marketing programme which would meet the following objectives:

• Test and develop a Voucher Code campaign that users would go to directly and increase the ROI from Voucher Code usage
• Reduce the impact on shopping checkout abandon rates where customers entered a Voucher Code
• Encourage these voucher code users to join the e-mail marketing programme, to subsequently entice voucher code users to become regular customers
• Devise and test a specific e-mail marketing programme for this list of customers that would increase the likelihood of purchasing again

So what happened?

• It was established that users searching on Google for voucher codes were the best group of potential customers to target.
• The first step was to test and develop a Google AdWords campaign based around keyword searches by potential customer using a range of brand name and voucher code related terms such as “<brand> code” and “<brand>; discount code”.
• Then several adverts and discount offers were tested and optimised within the Google advert copy. This was done to see which would provide the best rate of return and to evaluate the propensity to sign up to an email marketing programme.
• The impact on the shopping checkout rate was also monitored.
• An e-mail marketing programme was subsequently devised for this specific list of customers and tests conducted to see which headings, offers and promotions encouraged them to buy again.

The results?

• The Google AdWords Voucher Code campaign produced a staggering return on investment of over 6800%.
• The drop-out rate at the shopping checkout stage for those attempting to use voucher codes halved.
• Over 30% of customers recruited from the Google AdWords Voucher Code campaign went on to join the e-mail marketing programme.
• Over 55% of customers joining the e-mail marketing programme purchased again within 2 months.