High street fashion chain New Look has hailed the implementation of Microsoft’s Audience Network for a 200% year-on-year increase in ad impressions and a 130% rise in clicks, which have resulted in a whopping 1,170:1 return on advertising spend over a 12-month period.
The retailer, which operates more than 300 high-street retail stores in the UK and Ireland, first started beefing up its digital shopping operations during the pandemic but is continuing long after it, with the performance marketing strategy also delivering on a far broader range of objectives.
New Look paid search manager Thomas Charlwood explained: “The past couple of years have really shown the potential of strong digital marketing activity – and it’s driven a mindset change from thinking about these campaigns in siloes to thinking about them as part of the overall strategy.
“Customer acquisition is a secondary KPI for us, alongside the more traditional performance metrics, but there’s a definite opportunity in reaching new customers, speaking to them in a different way, and potentially amending perceptions they might have had of our brand. There’s a definite belief in our team that the focus should be on prospecting rather than just remarketing.”
With control over how and where an ad appears crucial to this strategy, Charlwood briefed New Look’s agency, Crealytics, to build synergies between touchpoints along the funnel on Microsoft Advertising.
He added: “My previous company was an early adopter of the Microsoft Audience Network, and it’s very attractive to have such high-quality placements and levers you can pull to make sure you’re presenting the brand in the exact right way.
“The brand safety piece is obviously important to us and the reassurance that our ads aren’t going to appear somewhere we don’t want them to, however, the creative control matters, too. With Microsoft, you get previews that give you real clarity over how your ad will display. You know that automation is playing its part—but you also feel in control.”
The retailer is already using image-based native ads to align with new influencer campaigns, editorial coverage, and events like Black Friday and has been also been experimenting with using blog-style content and listicles.
Charlwood added: “The Microsoft Audience Network is all about being able to drive exposure to new people and chat about our proposition in an attractive way with high-quality control. We can do that and still give people in the business the confidence that it all works.”
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