Leveraging Value-based Bidding for M&S Improving the Efficiency of Paid Search

Client
Marks and Spencer
Industry
Retail
Solutions

Media Services
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Increase in Profit ROAS

Reduction in CPCs

The implementation of value-based bidding using profit data yielded substantial efficiency gains in terms of profit metrics. The Profit-arm of the test demonstrated the ability to generate an equitable portion of profit compared to the Revenue-arm. Moreover, it achieved this at a reduced cost and lower CPCs, resulting in an elevated return on advertising spend (ROAS).

This outcome is a significant milestone in M&S’s digital marketing journey, as they successfully harnessed the power of profit-based bidding to unlock superior performance metrics.

“Exploring innovative bidding strategies presents a golden opportunity for Paid Search to contribute significantly to M&S's overarching growth transformation strategy. Incubeta has been an invaluable partner, providing expert guidance and helping us achieve our desired results.”

Karen Luff

M&S Paid Media Manager

Insights

M&S is a leading British retailer bringing quality, great value food, clothing and homeware to millions of customers around the world.

In an increasingly competitive environment, M&S set their sights on gaining a distinct competitive advantage by transforming their bidding approach from traditional online revenue strategies to a profit-based model.

Their objective was to leverage their own first-party profit data and evolve their bidding practices accordingly.

We joined forces on a mission to making it all happen!

Strategy

Through extensive consultation with the client, we embarked on the meticulous curation of a customised automated solution, harnessing the power of Incubeta’s proprietary data-pipeline. This solution offered the following capabilities:

Seamless export of raw GMP transaction data into BigQuery,
Integration of M&S’ first-party profit data with transaction-level details to calculate precise profit values.
Automated re-import of enriched data back into the GMP for enhanced bidding activations.

Once created, we then ran A/A & A/B split-tests across a number of business categories, pitting profit-based bidding directly against revenue-based bidding.

Building upon our robust partnership as a full-service agency and GMP Sales Partner, Incubeta had been diligently collaborating with Marks and Spencer since 2019.