How do you drive more traffic to your brand site? San Pellegrino delivered 90,000 extra visits to its website through display ads tailored to specific audiences. This case study looks at how San Pellegrino achieved a 10% increase in click-throughs with a 14% lower spend than previous campaigns.
Case study summary
- The drinks brand wanted to learn more about the effectiveness of its online display ads, while at the same time driving brand awareness and online sales.
- Ran dynamic optimised creative ads versus standard ad to compare. responses, with 150 unique variants, and ran split tests on partner media sites
- Dynamic ads got a 10% higher CTR than standard ads, with a 14% lower CPC, delivering over 90,000 additional website visits to San Pellegrino.
Challenge
San Pellegrino wanted to learn more about the effectiveness of its online ads. They judge effectiveness based on how a campaign is driving both brand awareness and online sales, and they use “test & learn” approaches to uncover new ways to boost marketing effectiveness.
Solution
The brand invested in effectiveness testing of its online display ads.
Working with digital agency AdLib, they ran a new display ad campaign with dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) technology.
These dynamic ads were tested against standard ads to compare responses and help brand teams identify and quantify the uplift.
Each ad had different calls to action, such as:
- ‘Buy Now’
- ‘Discover More’
- ‘Watch Video’
Overall, the brand and agency created 150 unique variants that were served to target audiences on the internet.
In addition, San Pellegrino ran split tests on partner media sites, helping to get insights about media planning.
Results
The dynamic ads got a 10% higher CTR than standard ads, with a 14% lower CPC. The same ad spend delivered over 90,000 additional website visits to San Pellegrino
Other findings included:
- Day parting drove a 20% higher engagement – this can be key for all brands. In CPG we normally consider either the receptivity moments throughout the day (for consumption or consideration), or the time when the customer’s journey can be prompted to start – dayparting is one of the earliest forms of online advertising targeting yet is often overlooked.
- A single call to action performed 30% better than 2 messages appearing together – simplicity is key to creative cut-through and in getting a call to action to deliver, so this type of insight confirms one of the golden rules of advertising design.
- Seasonally adjusted creative (e.g. holiday time) increased performance by 17% – this works because the relevancy of the creative to the audience’s mindset is higher. Small changes in the advertising creative can have a big impact.
Why it matters
By carefully testing creative, San Pellegrino built up a war chest of data it could use to identify which messaging and content resonated best with their consumers. By understanding which calls to action work best in which context, all future campaigns can become stronger. This type of test you only need to run occasionally and can then apply the learnings widely.
By testing, they reconfirmed some of the existing rules of digital ad design, as well as identifying new rules – and those guiding principles could then inform all campaigns
