Success Stories

Hardsoft

London Underground Brand Awareness Campaign

4000

New Site Visits

50%

A CPM 50% lower than the industry average

419%

A CTR 419% higher than all other HardSoft display campaigns

HardSoft are a computer hardware leasing business based in Hertfordshire but operating nationally. Having already generated excellent revenue from various paid media campaigns delivered by our team, HardSoft wanted to see how extremely targeted Paid Display media could impact ROI on their Above the Line poster campaigns.

This poster campaign was focussed on London underground stations where their audience, start-up and high growth business, were likely to transit. Previous ATL campaigns possibly worked. This campaign measurably worked.

The Challenge:

HardSoft have had success running above the line poster campaigns in and around London. They understood these campaigns worked, but how well? And could they sweat these campaigns more?

HardSoft wanted to use an above the line poster campaign that was constrained in location to drive their ‘Devices for Teams’ offering.

Devices for Teams is a flexible DaaS (Device as a Service) subscription service, tailored for start-ups and dynamic businesses within the creative and tech industries. Rather than purchasing hardware, companies can lease what they need allowing them to save money, invest and grow at their own pace.

In January 2019, we began working on Google display campaigns to support the roll out of a London Underground poster campaign promoting the HardSoft ‘Devices for Teams’ offering.

The aim was to create a ‘Commuter’ audience profile using the data gathered and target travellers on the London underground, driving traffic to the ‘Devices for Teams’ website and the wider ‘HardSoft Computers’ business with highly targeted ads.

The Solution:

Our paid media team devised a two-phase strategy that at first sought to develop brand awareness of the ‘Devices for Teams’ offering whilst gathering vital information of the potential audience for the second phase.

Over the 2-week period that HardSoft ran the ‘Devices for Teams’ poster campaign on the London Underground, we rolled out a Google display campaign mirroring the ads.
Geo-targeted ads were deployed across all locations featuring the above the line advertising within a 2km radius of each London tube station in exit point.

The data collected included engagement, location and time of day and helped to create a feedback loop which informed the wider business’s PPC campaigns and offline marketing.

This first phase campaign identified the locations which were most engaged and offered the highest-conversion rate. It also revealed when and where best to target our key demographics.

The second phase of the strategy aimed to utilise the intelligence gathered during phase one to create highly targeted ads based on geographic and demographic data. This second phase lasted for a further period of just 2 weeks and achieved significant results.

The Results:

The campaigns generated 273 conversions costing £21.62 each. Given that the lifetime value of a new customer is up to £200k, this is an exceptional return.

These 273 conversions broke down into:

17 Devices for Teams direct enquiries
21 Wider business direct enquiries
235 assisted conversion enquiries
CPC averaged £0.22

CPM was £1.03 – 50% less than the industry average and therefore cost 50% less to run than the industry average display campaign.

Click-Through Rate peaked at 1.01% on the last day of the campaign which was 419% higher than all other HardSoft display campaigns and 188% higher than the industry average.

272 users were channelled into the remarketing funnel that then had a 2nd engagement with the ads. Over 2 million impressions were shown to highly targeted users who fit HardSoft ‘commuter’ profile and most impressions came via 25 – 44-year-olds (35-44-year olds were most engaged).