Rutland Cycling

The Challenge

Rutland Cycling faced many challenges as a result of the pandemic; their bricks and mortar stores were impacted by lockdown restrictions and the sharp increase in demand for their products led to an ever-changing stock situation.

We needed to help Rutland Cycling to grow profitably, creatively structuring our approach so that we could invest as much as possible in priority areas whilst ensuring minimal wasted spend on out-of-stock products.

The Strategy

Whilst stores were closed or facing lockdown restrictions, we set out to implement a full-funnel strategy to drive users to Rutland Cycling’s ecommerce site, no matter what stage they were at in their journey.

Top and mid-funnel search campaigns targeted lower-intent search queries for users that were in the research phase and interested in purchasing bikes. Higher-intent queries were targeted with search campaigns through DSA ad groups built on a dynamic page feed, restricting spend to only in-stock and high-priority products
Search query-filtered shopping campaigns ensured we maintained a high impression share for users looking for specific bike models, delivering revenue at the bottom of the funnel
Due to pervasive stock shortages in the cycling industry, we had the additional strategic challenge of restricting spend to particular products with a greater level of stock depth to prevent wasted spend, particularly through search and shopping campaigns

Results

We helped Rutland Cycling increase revenue by almost 30% despite severe stock difficulty (October 2020 – March 2021 vs previous year).

It took a few process iterations to streamline our ways of working around identifying priority products based on an evolving stock situation, and using lists to update our campaigns accordingly. We realised that by creating a centralised document for priority SKUs to be updated and dynamically pulling this into page feeds and custom labels, we were able to take most of the manual work out of the task allowing us to focus more on bid optimisation and managing overall budget allocation to different product categories and maximising Rutland Cycling’s retainer time.

Impression's approach to account management and ways of working have helped solidify the success we've seen through the strategy and tactics deployed by the Paid Media account team

James Chester Ecommerce Manager, Rutland Cycling