INSPIO
How in 2 weeks we increased sales from 0 to 500 in the particular German market
Year
2020
Segment
Home / Decor
Services
Facebook Ads, ROI Hunter, Web Analytics
Specialists
4
INSPIO is a Slovak manufacturer of interior decorations. It has been operating in Slovakia since 2006 and entered the German market with our help at the turn of 2018/2019.
Sales went from 0 to 500
Our efficient setup helped us reach 500 orders in the first two weeks.
Starting Point
INSPIO approached us with a challenge to create an effective advertising campaign for the German market. The focus was primarily on a new product – Valentine’s Table (a personalised gift for partners).
The eshop customer inserts their quotes into the table and creates his interior decoration with the help of an online designer. The launch of the campaign was on January 15 and represented a top priority for the upcoming Valentine’s Day.
We also prepared campaigns for other products. The online campaign was in the form of a Facebook ad, as it was a visually appealing product that the customer could personalise directly and order right away.
Budget, Conversions, and Production Capacity
When setting up the campaigns, we specified a few important parameters to follow:
- Maximum cost per conversion – €5 (the target for SK and CZ was €2.5)
- Approximate budget ceiling (credit) – €5 000; more important was the conversion cost
- Production capacity – about 1 000 tables per day; the ceiling reached in the campaigns is currently 660 tables
Specific Situation in the German market
The German market is challenging and demanding. It is more complicated for ecommerce businesses to succeed in these lands. Here are some specific characteristics of this unique market:
- Up to 50% of ecommerce sales are made via Amazon: It can be a huge competitor or a useful sales tool
- A native German copywriter is a must: We don’t recommend a German-speaking foreigner. An unnatural text with mistakes can deter your customers from buying
- Around 30% of orders are not recorded in Google Analytics or Google Ads, because Germans use a lot of ad-blocking tools
- Specific demands are made on the communication of the entire purchasing process
- The price and shipping must be on the product details
- The customer is rational. Therefore, avoid communicating superlatives like ‘cheapest’ or ‘best’. You will not impress the Germans with a low price, the product may appear to be of poor quality
- German customers have no problem paying extra for express 24-hour delivery
- Invoice payment is the norm. Payment is made after delivery via the payment gateways Klarna or Amazon Pay
Why Has a Fine-Tuned Website Great Value?
The cornerstone of any ecommerce site is the website that converts a visitor into a customer.
Your website should be 100% tuned. Germans do not tolerate any hesitation or a feeling of an eshop without a good reputation. Try to appear as “German” as you can.
Explain in detail and simple terms the things that customers are often interested in.
Communicate the Benefits of Your Eshop
Benefits are important information even in Germany. Not because of the discount, but because Germans want to have this basic information right away. That’s why we worked with them directly: in the main category where the campaigns were directed, and also in the main product.
We disclosed the delivery speed and free postage wherever possible. This way the customer had everything they needed in one place along with a distinctive “BUY” button.
Germans Don’t Like PayPal
The second big challenge was to gain credibility when paying. Originally, we used PayPal, but the Germans don’t consider such a payment trustworthy, only secure. With Paypal as an only payment option, 6 out of 10 orders went unpaid. Either their payment gateway crashed, or they changed their mind when filling out the card.
Email notification about uncomplete payment or an additional bank transfer in advance option also failed.
What Was Our Solution?
Only by adding “invoice payment” via Klarna, we managed to reduce the number of unpaid orders to 0. In the transition period, we used both – PayPal and Klarna.
However, PayPal was still producing such customers, so we turned it off completely. It took us about 70 days to set up the Klarna system for the German eshop.
Google Analytics & Facebook Pixel
First of all, order tracking via Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel should be fine-tuned. It’s useless to run expensive campaigns if we can’t evaluate how people behave on the website.
To know who to exclude or to remind with remarketing, you must know who is interested in your product, from what ad, and which visitors. Otherwise, you are spending unnecessarily.
But in the end, by mutual agreement, we discontinued the cooperation until the technical issues were resolved. It didn't make sense to do things makeshift. Now we are getting results because of properly tuned Facebook Pixel analytics, which decides what works and what doesn't.”
Clarify Your Business Case and Gain Product Know-How
Knowing the marginal cost per conversion or margin is the absolute key. Ambiguity in such a case can be very expensive or will hinder the campaign’s launch.
Every market entry is about learning. However, this learning can be significantly shorter if the client shares their know-how, which we combine with our technical expertise. We appreciate that the client shared their product knowledge with us. It helped us create a stunning campaign.
Communication Is Important
Success in marketing is all about good communication towards the eshop customers. The same applies to communication between business partners. The more successes and especially failures the client is willing to share with us, the better the overall result of the cooperation will be.
Take Advantage of the Market Situation and Enter the Market at the Right Time
We took advantage of the Valentine’s Day shopping wave when we entered the market, and it paid off. If you enter the market this way, there is no time to wait. You need to prepare everything (including web support) for a quick response – it can soar fast but fall even faster.
Watch Out for Targeting
“INSPIO has had experience with the product in other countries. They knew what to expect if the campaign was launched at the right time and with the right team of people. We put a lot of emphasis on the precise timing of each activity.
We knew that if we were going to launch the campaigns on January 15, we needed to target only women. Campaigns targeting men would not be effective as men don’t start buying Valentine’s Day gifts until just before the end of January. At the same time, we were aware that a text like ‘This gift will make her cry’ would not work on women.
“We had to choose accurately mixed graphics, combine the right background and message with just the right amount of personalisation. INSPIO has already tested this on the Slovak and Czech markets,” says Slavomíra Kollárová, INSPIO CEO.
An example of a Facebook ad campaign creative.
Adapt Your Market Strategy
Since we used Facebook advertising, our goal was to minimise the learning phase of the campaign to see if the campaign had the potential to work as soon as possible.
What prolongs the learning phase:
- Lots of parallel testing of different forms of advertising
- Complicated and narrow targeting
- Too small a budget to run the test with enough data
- Many changes to the campaign several days in a row
- Overall small amount of data for FB Pixel on the web
Think of Facebook’s Limitations
Several images were rejected by Facebook because of text. Of course, we know that Facebook doesn’t accept more than 20% text in creative, but given the nature of the product, which is all about personalised text, we had to find the optimal layout.
Results of a successful Valentine’s Day campaign.
Mobile Version as the Eshop Base
Most purchases were made on mobile phones – up to 94%, which only confirms the necessity of having a perfectly adapted mobile website. Targeting with the best CPA was successful when remarketing to people who liked or commented on Facebook and Instagram fan pages posts.
The second-best setting was acquisition targeting women in relationships (engaged and married), which is understandable since this was a Valentine’s Day product.
Project in numbers
Results
+500
Increase in Orders
Our efficient setup helped us reach 500 orders in the first two weeks.
+170
Daily Orders
On our most successful days, sales came up to 170 orders per day.
+2700
More Orders
A successful campaign with the client made us reach 2700 orders in one month.
Success Thanks to Great Communication
A successful campaign is a combination of a good product, the right timing, and above all, excellent communication with the client. This allowed us to fully prepare in advance.
Efficient and quick communication between the client and the marketing professionals is priceless. I'm looking forward to seeing how we put the second wave together for Father's Day, as we at INSPIO are already getting everything ready."
Responsible Project Supervisor
Richard Kondáš
Richard works at Dexfinity as a Senior Performance Marketer. He takes pride in a positive ROI on clients’ projects.
His portfolio of managed projects includes more than 100 clients (both B2B, B2C), eshops from different, even diametrically opposed industries, and markets (Europe, Asia, USA). He has experience in successfully managing advertising accounts on Google Ads, Facebook, and YouTube.
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DIRECT CONTACTS
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Pavol Adamčák
Executive Director
+421 918 435 105
pavol.adamcak@dexfinity.com
Vladimír Nociar
Head of Business Development team
+421 903 568 464
vladimir.nociar@dexfinity.com
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