JohnBeerens.com – Google Premier Partner Awards

Delivering Beauty. That is the proposition of JohnBeerens.com. With more than 14 years of experience and being known for television programs in the Netherlands such as “John Beerens Salon Takeover” and “Holland’s Next Top Model”, he is entitled to be one of the best-known hairdressers in the Netherlands. Delivering Beauty goes for John Beerens beyond a complete and large assortment with distinctive beauty products. He also wants to be an inspiration in the field of beauty.

For him, delivering beauty is broader than just the brand JohnBeerens.com. Beauty means also beauty from the inside. For this reason he decided to participate in the television program “Steenrijk, Straatarm”. In this program, a wealthy family (John Beerens and his wife) swaps life for a week with a poor family (a lady with her 1.5 year old son). The fact that John Beerens had his heart in the right place turned out after he decided to help the poor family even after his participation in the television program.

The fact that JohnBeerens.com wants to stay at the top of the market is evident, among other things, from his ambitious revenue target. The target for 2018 is a total online revenue of €7 million, compared to €5 million in 2017. This means an increase of 40% in pure online revenue!

As a start, we as an online marketing agency, organized strategic sessions with the team of JohnBeerens.com where we created a multi-channel online marketing plan in which we can grow their business in 3 ways:

• Increase the number of visitors (traffic)
• Increase the average revenue per visitor (conversion)
• Increase the number of orders per customer (customer value)

In order to maximize results, Fingerspitz started with identifying the different target groups of JohnBeerens.com. Personas were created through strategic sessions. Users and their values were mapped through a before and after state.
In other words, first a situation was outlined with the typical problems / desire in the field of beauty for people aged between 25 and 34 years. In addition, a situation was outlined after the use of products from JohnBeerens.com. The after-state was then categorized into a ‘have’, ‘feel’, ‘average day’ and ‘status’ value. Also, the goals and values ​​of the target group in matter were also taken into account.

After mapping the target groups, the next challenge appeared; how do we create the most profitable channel mix for the specific target groups? Previous Google products could not give a complete insight into the entire customer journey all the way to the conversion. Where Google Adwords could measure cross-device conversions, this product could not support cross-channel measurements. And where Google Analytics could provide insights into cross-channel measurements, we missed the complete cross-device insights.

For JohnBeerens.com we needed a Google product in which the measurement went a step further. A product where cross-device and cross-channel could be combined. We needed a product to assign the right value to every touch-point of the customer journey. Google Attribution appeared to be the solution for JohnBeerens.com.

Approach

To assign the right conversion value in Adwords, we changed the conversion attribution model from last-click to data-driven with imported conversion statistics from Google Attribution. Subsequently, several audiences and similar audiences were added to all current campaigns in order to enrich the data and bidding opportunities. The audiences existed of regular visitors to high-engaged visitors, and the generated similar audiences of those groups. Besides, we changed the bid strategy of all campaigns to Ehanced CPC.

On January 23 2018, we changed the conversion import from Google Analytics to Google Attribution. Then we compared 1 February 2017 to 31 May 2018 with 1 February 2017 to 31 May 2017. The average conversion period was taken into account. In other words, when filtering the data, we also looked at the time frame on which a conversion took place after an interaction. In this way we prevent costs from being assigned, but the conversion was not yet measured. The choice for a comparison year over year was taken due to seasonal sensitivity. In the holidays, a peak is visible in the data that would not give a fair comparison.

Results

Comparing the data in Google Analytics from 1 February 2018 to 31 May 2018 with the same period in 2017, we see the following results (see table 1). Where the total revenue increased with 36.08%, paid search resulted in an exponential growth of 58.72%!

Table 1 – Revenue growth 1-2-2018 to 31-05-2018 compared with the same period last year

Channel	% Change in revenue
Paid Search	58,72%
Organic	32,78%
Direct	41,61%
Social	156,78
E-mail	0,81%
Total revenue growth	36,08%

As a result of the statistics in Google Attribution, Fingerspitz gained more insight for JohnBeerens.com in which campaigns and keywords perform best cross-device. And this from a multi-channel approach. This allows Fingerspitz to allocate the budget in the most profitable way and has resulted in amazing results. Sales in Google Adwords grew exponentially by as much as 58.72%. The number of absolute transactions also grew strongly by 87.35%. And all this while the ROAS remained almost the same (700%). These are results that the customer and Fingerspitz as an agency are very happy with!

After analyzing the data in Google Attribution we concluded that following the data-driven attribution model not only affected Paid Search, but we also detected shifts in other channels (see figure 2). For example, the Google Attributon data shows that 44.82% of the revenue is less attributed to direct traffic. We see the largest shift to paid channels. The shift from direct to non-branded traffic was larger than the shift to branded traffic. Although both branded and non-branded revenue has increased significantly, the data shows that branded traffic is also affected by non-branded traffic. 

Figure 2 – Google Attribution’s model comparison for channels

We also detected a substantial increase in AdWords revenue by an analysis in Google Analytics. Hereby we analyzed the conversion path in which the last channel was direct traffic and where at least one of the earlier channels in the conversion path was paid search. This conversion path had an increase in turnover of no less than 54.22% compared to last year. The number of absolute conversions showed an extreme growth of 80.77%. From this we can conclude that direct traffic is largely driven by paid search.

In addition, data from Google Analytics shows that organic traffic is also influenced by paid search. In Google Analytics, we analyzed the extent to which paid search was present in the conversion path that ended with organic search as compared to last year. The increase in revenue was surprising with 55.96%. The number of absolute conversions also increased by 67.46% in this conversion path. In other words, sales from organic traffic are also positively influenced by paid search.

Conclusion

By using Google Attribution and the data-driven attribution model, we see that more conversion value is attributed to paid search traffic. Also paid search turned out to have a big effect on organic and direct traffic. Since optimize our AdWords campaigns based on Google Attribution, we have seen an exponential increase in sales and revenue. This growth is much higher than we see in other channels. We can conclude that data-driven attribution with Google Attribution as a source for optimizing our AdWords campaigns, combined with the eCPC algorithm have a very positive effect on sales and revenue.

In conclusion, we as an agency, draw the following learnings from Google Attribution:

• Google Attribution gives us new insights in cross-channel and cross-device effects, which enables us to make better choices regarding channel investments. We now know exactly what the attributed value is for a channel in return for every euro we invest in it. As a result, Fingerspitz can better justify the actions taken as an online marketing agency which is driven by maximizing profit and adding value to their customers;
• The use of Google Attribution gives us more insight in channel performances and makes the client feel more comfortable to increase investments and maximize profit whit an equal or even better ROAS. As a result, we feel more confident to start upper funnel channels such as YouTube or Display. We are working on creating a Display and YouTube strategy for the rest of the year, including Black Friday and the Holiday peak moments;
• Now that we have more insights into which keywords are attributed to which conversions and conversion value, we feel more confident to move to (semi) automated bidding strategies in Google AdWords.
• Due to the fact that we gained a lot of insights we also started experimenting more with reactivating keywords in Google Adwords that were previously paused because they did not seem to deliver any conversion value;
• By embracing new technologies and let them work for you instead of against you, we as online marketing consultants have more time to add value for our clients on matters that do really have impact. We now focus more on a total funnel strategy and data analysis instead of (micro) campaign management.

The total strategy we followed, in which we used Google Attribution in combination with the data-driven attribution model as a source and the determination of multiple target groups and automated bid strategies, generated a massive increase of 58.7% in AdWords revenue. This while the return on investment has remained the same. Beautiful results!