“While we were successful in driving increased sales via Facebook and Instagram, it was important for us to have a cost-effective strategy to do the same. By moving to a value-driven optimization, not only did we see an increase in our sales but we also saw a reduction in the cost per transaction. Facebook and Instagram have been our go-to channels to drive incrementality.” – Mithil Shah, Senior Marketing Manager – Digital at Centrepoint (Middle East)
In January 2020, retail store chain Centrepoint, part of the Landmark Group, launched a large campaign on Facebook and Instagram, aimed at increasing sales and attracting new customers in Saudi Arabia to its online platform.
Launched in Kuwait in 2005, Centrepoint illustrates the Landmark Group’s strategy of fostering synergies between its core retail concepts – Babyshop, Splash, Shoemart, and Lifestyle – under one identity. With Centrepoint, the group created a single fashion destination for an aspiring generation of shoppers. It now has 140 stores across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Lebanon, serving 35 million customers shopping for fashion, makeup, home décor, and baby products.
The campaign relied on Facebook’s Dynamic Ads solution, along with Collection and Carousel ad formats, to target Saudi customers and encourage them to purchase products from the brand’s online catalogue.
The initiative, that ran for two months, delivered impressive results, allowing for substantial returns on ad spend and conversions at a lower cost.
Here’s what Mithil Shah, Senior Marketing Manager – Digital at Centrepoint, told us about the campaign.
What were the main goals for the digital campaign that ran on Facebook platforms?
Our main objective was to boost incremental online sales in Saudi Arabia while increasing return on ad spend. Working with Facebook’s media agency partner Forwardpmx, we developed a series of campaigns around the catalogue sales objective, driving people to buy products from this catalogue online.
Why did you choose Facebook’s marketing solutions, out of many alternatives?
For the last three years, Facebook has been a strong strategic partner to grow Centrepoint’s e-commerce business through a varity of optimization solutions, especially focusing on online conversions and customer acquisition. We have also been successful in serving relevants ads to our retail customer via SSD & SSO optimization solutions provided by Facebook. With this combination, Facebook has been able to provide a holistic omnichannel solution for Centrepoint, which has given us the edge over our competition. With Facebook, we can reach the most relevant customers while maintaining our cost of sale and cost of acquisition. Another reason why we chose Facebook was the ease of implementation and testing. Our counterparts at Facebook, along with our agency Forwardpmx, have been quite proactive in driving optimization, tests, and also providing creative solutions when it comes to Centrepoint’s ads. Facebook’s insights tool has come a long way and this has particularly helped us in creating relevant audiences and measuring test results very quicky, which gives us the opportunity to learn and implement fast. Facebook will remain a strong strategic partner for us to grow our overall omnichannel business across the Middle East.
Which Facebook/Instagram solutions/products did you use for this campaign?
Once our catalogue was uploaded to Facebook, we used Facebook Dynamic Ads, as well as Collection and Carousel ads, to optimize results for specific actions throughout the customer journey – such as Purchase, Add to Cart or View Content – and target the people most likely to perform these actions. We also used bidding strategies in order to determine which approach drove the best results.
We had a dual objective: to increase purchases from existing customers and to attract new customers. As a result, all of our ads targeted Saudi adult customers (aged 18 years and older) who had never visited the Centrepoint website or used its app in the past 30 days. This included the Collection and Carousel formats; Carousel ads can display up to ten images or videos on cards within a single message, which leaves more room for products, portions of a brand story, or specific calls to action. Meanwhile, Dynamic Ads displayed relevant products to people who had visited the company’s website or used its mobile app. In addition, these Dynamic Ads were also shown, using broad targeting, to people who hadn’t visited the site or app, but who had visited, viewed, or interacted with similar products to Centrepoint’s and who were identified as high-intent shoppers.
The campaign also used automatic placements on Facebook and Instagram to generate sales at the lowest average cost.
What were the results of the campaign and did you achieve your goals?
The campaign achieved desirable results with a sales lift of 36.8% while improving efficiencies with a ROAS lift of 2.45x.
Which measurement methods did you use to gain new learnings?
We looked at a Facebook conversion lift study for the incremental metrics, and at data from Facebook attribution to get a deeper view of the results based on demographics and the ideal windows to target users.
