Challenge

Previously Paid Search activity focused primarily on online performance, meaning the influence of Paid Search on offline activity was not visible within our campaign outputs. Merkle and B&Q wanted to understand the true halo effect of digital activity and how it can influence offline as well as online performance. Ultimately, our objective was to:

• Effectively measure total (online and offline) revenue
• Actively bid towards total (online and offline) revenue
• Demonstrate how digital search activity can increase revenue across both online and offline channels.

By validating the true value of digital, the business hoped to justify further digital investment.

Approach

We approached this challenge by creating custom omni-channel formula columns in SA360. Due to data limitations which prevented us from accurately ingesting in-store revenue into our SA360 platform, we had to create a bespoke solution. Utilising B&Q internal data, we assigned a static value to store visits, allowing us to utilise formula columns in SA360 to create a proxy in-store revenue value. We could then amalgamate this value with our online metrics to create an omni-channel view of revenue. By integrating this new omni-channel revenue metric into an Auction Time Bidding Target ROAS bid strategy - we could effectively bid to combined online and offline revenue figures. This meant we could prove that paid search activations could uplift total revenue.

Outcome

By bidding to a combined online and offline data source, we achieved a significant increase in total ROAS by 32%, total sales by 32% and total revenue by 19%. Crucially it helped us to start a conversation around the full value of digital – and how online-only measurements don’t account for total campaign value. It helped to highlight a key data ingestion issue across the B&Q brand and helped pave the way for more holistic campaign measurement and evaluation going forwards. In the short term we were able to obtain additional B&Q investment for Search Local campaign formats - further bridging the online to offline user journey. In the longer term, we have started to scope out full store sales integration with our online platforms – meaning that for future campaigns we should start to be able to pull through dynamic offline revenue figures (rather than the static store visit value figure used within this test.