Competing with big mobile retailers

In a crowded mobile phone market where nearly the entire population of the United Kingdom owns some type of mobile device, competition among mobile phone retailers is fierce. Value-centred retailers compete for customers who are looking for the best overall combination of products and services.

Mobiles.co.uk is the country’s first and longest-running online mobile phone shop. The company offers some of the best mobile phone deals in the market, whether customers want a SIM-only deal or a contract with the latest smartphone. Mobiles.co.uk provides customers with a wide range of support options not available through many competitors and has one of the highest customer satisfaction levels in the industry with a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.

Value brands primarily compete on price. It’s essential for Mobiles.co.uk to drive efficiencies and reduce costs to keep prices as low as possible. Mobiles.co.uk must also stay ahead of competitors by expanding its brand presence on multiple advertising channels. As a smaller brand vying for business against major networks and retailers, Mobiles.co.uk must be smarter with how it manages advertising and marketing spend.

The online retailer previously relied on the support of multiple agencies to manage advertising campaigns. But after rethinking its strategy, Mobiles.co.uk decided that internal teams needed to be more involved to react swiftly to consumer demands.

The company decided to refine its advertising strategy, supported primarily by newly developed in-house expertise and a selection of agency partners. Mobiles.co.uk works closely with experts at Adobe to help manage omnichannel campaigns with Adobe Advertising Cloud, part of Adobe Experience Cloud.

“Adobe Advertising Cloud allows us to bring multiple advertising channels under one umbrella,” says Jay Karsandas, Senior Digital Manager at Mobiles.co.uk. “Adobe is a key partner in helping us to understand how to distribute advertising spend across channels so that we can reach customers and grow market share while lowering costs.”

Winning over the competition on Black Friday

Mobiles.co.uk creates unified advertising campaigns across multiple channels, including display, video, audio and affiliate marketing. Affiliate websites are a particularly important channel for marketing at Mobiles.co.uk, due to the value and price-led nature of cashback and price comparison sites. Using Advertising Cloud DSP, Mobiles.co.uk can reinforce a consistent advertising message and create a greater sense of professionalism and trust for customers.

Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping periods in the United Kingdom. Mobiles.co.uk capitalises on this high-sales period with two weeks of limited-time deals. Using Advertising Cloud, Mobiles.co.uk created a series of ads timed to air only when a product or offer was active. When the deal ended, Advertising Cloud would automatically roll out the next deal across multiple advertising channels.

The most recent Black Friday campaign became the highest performing campaign on record. The company measured the click-through rates of each advertisement and adjusted spend to focus on high-performing creatives. By adjusting campaign performance, Mobiles.co.uk increased impressions by 376% and lowered cost per impressions by 87% over the previous year, even while reducing marketing spend by 38%.

In addition, video engagement increased dramatically. For the company’s “Oh My Deal” campaign, for example, Mobiles.co.uk created new audiences based on specific traits and targeted audiences with specific videos to maximise video views. The higher engagement helped videos reach 2.2 million impressions, up from just 13,400 impressions the previous year. It also contributed to a 30% lower cost per order for video compared to the previous year.

“None of our direct competitors could match the complexity of the Black Friday campaign we ran with Adobe Advertising Cloud,” says Karsandas. “Despite the intensely competitive market, it was our most successful Black Friday to date with an overall 41% increase in orders from display, audio and video advertising channels, whilst the cost per order decreased by 56% year-over-year.”

Cutting edge advertisements to stay on top of the mobile market

To cut through the noise of the busy Black Friday season, Mobiles.co.uk also worked closely with Adobe to venture into a brand new channel: audio advertisements through Spotify and DAX. Spotify offered a unique new way to target audiences with mood-based targeted. By connecting with users who were listening to playlists associated with spontaneity and assertiveness, the company could reach audiences more ready to hear about great Black Friday deals.

The audio advertisements yielded strong results, with more than 340,000 impressions and a completion rate of 98.85%. The company was so pleased by the results that it expanded the audio campaign, giving it a budget equivalent to that of display.

“With the support of Adobe experts, we have the freedom to challenge ourselves and try new things and not be scared to test and fail. This helps Mobiles.co.uk continually innovate and stay at the top of our game,” says Karsandas.

Reaching mobile customers across channels

The in-house Mobiles.co.uk advertising team works fluidly across channels, rather than specialising in specific channels. This encourages team members to look at how campaigns fit the broader user journey and use that intelligence to make a bigger impact on audiences by investing in campaigns and channels that reach customers more effectively.

Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, helps the team automatically adjust budgets and optimise spend. Performance Optimisation, powered by Adobe Sensei, tracks performance across channels and adjusts ad spend to achieve the best possible results for any desired return. The advertising team doesn’t need to worry about manually changing spend or carefully monitoring campaigns to adjust underperforming advertisements. Instead, they can spend more time testing new ideas for campaigns or channels to better reach customers.

“The artificial intelligence in Adobe Sensei enables us to work smarter and faster by automatically optimising performance,” says Karsandas. “With Adobe Advertising Cloud, we have a combination of artificial intelligence and human input working together to stretch our advertising budget further.”

The Mobiles.co.uk team also understands how their campaigns perform across touchpoints because Advertising Cloud provides a more accurate multi-touch attribution model. For each purchase, the company runs a check before an order is finished, tracking orders through completion and optimising according to what is converting and profitable.

Accurate attribution models allow Mobiles.co.uk to better determine true conversion rates on campaigns. A campaign may contribute to a high number of orders, but if a majority of the orders do not pass the checks for a completed purchase, then the campaign doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. Mobiles.co.uk can decide to shift spend away from under-performing campaigns or channels.

“By unifying all advertising on Adobe Advertising Cloud, we can better understand our advertising spend, make quicker decisions in real time and invest in activity that improves our bottom line,” says Karsandas.

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