2020 Bronze Sports

Agency: Search Laboratory

Client: Liverpool F.C.

Campaign Name: Liverpool F.C. scores international success

Campaign Overview

Scoring international success

Premier League champions Liverpool wanted to hit £50m in online sales in three years - beginning in a pandemic.

Strategy

Search Laboratory had a clear approach to this vast task. Its team of digital marketing experts identified new international markets to target, which would expand reach and drive customer acquisition.

Meanwhile, it adopted an audience-focused strategy across all markets, ensuring leads were qualified before they clicked. This included targeting affinity and in-market audiences, creating high-value lookalike audiences, and using discovery ads for prospecting and remarketing activity.

The team also utilised Google Ads’ smart bidding and smart shopping strategies to optimise campaigns. It reduced the time needed on manual bidding, allowing more time to proactively optimise campaigns.

Key campaigns were launched throughout the year when purchase intent was high, including the “Champions” kit launch when Liverpool won the Premier League title in 2020, and Christmas. Other market-specific campaigns launched when the club signed a player from that country, and a “Stay Home” campaign featured during lockdown when fans could no longer visit the stadium

Creativity

Liverpool's own-brand products have a higher profit margin than kits, so Search Laboratory pushed them using Facebook Product Feed and Google Shopping.

Campaigns aggressively targeted Liverpool fans and lookalike audiences based on high-value, “die hard” supporters.

A one-day Free International Delivery promotion was applied to attract new customers to the site and compete with local sellers. Localised ad content - copy and tone of voice - was employed to build trust.

Results

Liverpool FC successfully launched in multiple international markets. ROAS, traffic, online sales and revenue have all increased, despite the pandemic shutdown of sport and lack of a kit launch.

Google Shopping revenue for own-brand products was boosted from 57% to 69%. The club had record-breaking sales when the kit launched in August 2020, with PPC revenue up by 281% year on year to £4.1m. Transactions rose by 227%, and paid social revenue was 26% greater at £161,000.

The Team

Search Laboratory - Liam Hopton, Programmatic Account Manager - Kaleigh Motan, Programmatic Account Manager - Michael Saxby, Senior PPC Account Manager - Tia McKeon, PPC Executive