MY M&M'S, an online service that lets you customize the iconic candy, wanted to raise brand awareness and drive sales. Core to this was a solid multi-screen strategy. By upgrading to enhanced campaigns in Adwords, this became a lot easier to execute and drove impressive increases in conversions, revenue and ROI.
Goals
Reach on-the-go target audience across screens
Increase clicks, conversions, and overall ROI
Target based on geographic location
Approach
Upgraded Search and Display campaigns to enhanced campaigns
Took advantage of location and remarketing bid adjustment
Results
41% increase in conversion rates.
22% increase in revenue
31% boost in ROI
MAKING CHOCOLATE EVEN MORE FUN
M&M'S snack-sized pieces of chocolate in a candy shell are instantly recognizable all over the globe. Over 400 million M&M'S Chocolate Candies are produced in the U.S. every day. In 2004, M&M'S launched My M&M'S at www.mymms.com, leading to a worldwide sensation. The online service enables customers to print their own personalized message, logo, or even a photo on the shells of M&M'S candies.
To help market the personalized sweet treats, MY M&M'S worked with full-service agency The DuMont Project, a company specializing in direct response advertising. For My M&M'S, The DuMont Project handles SEM, web analytics, display advertising, social media marketing, and video.
"Our goal is to raise brand awareness and drive online sales while ensuring we meet or exceed MY M&M'S ROI targets," says Luke Hubbard, VP of Client Services for The DuMont Project.
A BAG FULL OF BITE-SIZED CAMPAIGNS
An important key to the success of My M&M'S is a multi-screen strategy. The DuMont Project previously separated out campaigns for desktops, laptops, and smartphones, which quickly became challenging to manage. The size of the account grew to 150 campaigns, each with different keywords. The number of keywords and display ads became so big that downloading them to the AdWords Editor consumed an inordinate amount of time.
This is why The DuMont Project got excited when enhanced campaigns launched, realizing that it would simplify multi-device marketing and avoid the need to set up and manage several separate campaigns. The agency upgraded all of My M&M'S campaigns to enhanced campaigns during April 2013.
Initially, Hubbard had some concerns that combining desktop and tablets into one category may negatively impact sales efficiency. But the opposite ultimately proved true. By combining desktop and tablet campaigns, the agency and client actually saw even healthier ROI, a pleasant surprise.
MANAGEMENT TIME DECREASED
"Our upgrade experience to enhanced campaigns was simple: we turned on the enhanced campaigns, deleted old mobile campaigns, and set up bid adjustments. It was faster and easier than anticipated," Hubbard says.
For both The DuMont Project and My M&M'S, the upgrade to enhanced campaigns has eased marketing in the multi-device world and improved returns. DuMont was able to consolidate from 150 campaigns to 50, generating significant account management time savings. The agency finds it easier to avoid inadvertent errors, because ad groups are simpler and less in number.
"We save approximately three to five hours a week in account management due to reduced complexity," says Hubbard. "To achieve optimal ROI results, we no longer have to add keywords or manage bids in separate campaigns for desktop, tablet, and mobile. Also, download and upload time from systems such as the AdWords Editor is quicker because of the reduced account size."
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF BID ADJUSTMENT
Enhanced campaigns display features have also given the agency an opportunity to remarket to those who've already shown interest or actually made purchases. The team is using remarketing bid adjustment to boost bids by up to 20% for people who have already purchased on the site. Next, DuMont plans to increase bids by 5-10% for users that initiated the MY M&M'S customization tool but did not purchase. For GDN remarketing, results have been positive with a 136% increase in clicks and a 102% increase in revenue.
The DuMont Project took advantage of several features in enhanced campaigns, including the ability to set bids higher in areas such as Las Vegas, New York City, and near Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, all places where My M&M'S are exceptionally popular.
Last, the company is testing different landing pages and looking closely at their performance to ensure that only the highest-performing ones are live. The process was much simpler because the team could examine and manage all tests in one place.
SWEET SUCCESS
Increased efficiencies have been accompanied by impressive performance and ROI improvements. By comparing the three weeks prior to the upgrade to the three weeks after, search campaigns showed a 41% increase in conversion rates. During the same period, DuMont and MY M&M'S saw a 22% increase in revenue and a 31% boost in ROI.
"Since upgrading to enhanced campaigns, we have advanced and improved our approach to multi-screen marketing," says Alex Sutton III, Acquisition Manager at MY M&M'S. "In response to both usage and industry trends, MY M&M'S is working to enhance our tablet and mobile device designs to provide optimal user experiences."
