Deep Search™ platform nets 31% higher revenue than Google Search Ads 360

Head-to-head test proves better performance, increases traffic, and reveals audience insights

Signature Hardware, a large home renovation and design e-commerce company, came to Adlucent (now BarkleyOKRP) to understand why their paid search efforts were not improving year over year. We decided to run a DMA geographical split test to see how Deep Search campaigns performed against SA360 and uncovered valuable insights to grow revenue and efficiency.

Challenge

Signature Hardware, a retail company offering high-quality, unique finds for the bathroom, kitchen, and home, first partnered with Adlucent (now BarkleyOKRP) in 2018 to manage its performance advertising program. Throughout the partnership, Adlucent made many strategic shifts to the program to maximize revenue across paid search and shopping ads. In 2022, Adlucent recognized a revenue plateau in shopping as demand flattened with its manual campaign structure. After previously utilizing both manual bidding and Google’s Smart Shopping, it was time for a new scientific approach to help Signature Hardware’s paid search outperform.

Insight

Adlucent developed an effective bid management strategy that helped boost the client’s search campaign performance and uncover limitations of the SA360 bidding strategy that led to a decline in search performance. Over three months, we performed a designated market area (DMA) geographic split test for Signature Hardware’s top product categories, with the control group’s campaigns managed by SA360’s Budget Bid Strategy and the test group’s campaigns managed by our Deep Search bid manager.

We saw that utilizing SA360 alone, without the help of Deep Search, lowered audience reach, decreased efficiency, and cut off conversion paths that would otherwise increase revenue. However, layering them together allowed us to adapt faster to fluctuating demand and changes. The dynamic duo of SA360 bolstered by Deep Search uncovered a shift in customer demographics from an older to a younger age range by leveraging audience data.

Solution: Omnichannel for the win

While Adlucent (now BarkleyOKRP) had started to see success with Google’s Performance Max across many retail clients, our team was skeptical about automation working for Signature Hardware, given the longer purchase cycle for bathroom and kitchen renovation products. We advised testing on a category level with a geo-based test and control structure, allowing our team to remain agile and evaluate real-time campaign performance. We further partnered with Signature Hardware to ensure the team leveraged the best ad creative to maximize results.

With Performance Max, we took an omnichannel approach, enabling Signature Hardware to reach customers across all avenues, such as Search, Display, and YouTube, and capture demand across the buyer journey, including previously untapped upper-funnel consumers.