Guitar Center Full Funnel Revamp

Guitar Center’s Ask:

Guitar Center approached Mediasmith with a need to increase overall website traffic, revenue and ROAS, and grow audiences – all while implementing structured testing. At the time, the retailer was lacking in share of voice across social platforms was behind in driving users across each level of the marketing funnel. After a social media audit, Mediasmith identified three key obstacles that were holding Guitar Center back from achieving their goals: 1. platform limitation 2. lack of KPI focus, and 3. the absence of audience and creative variations.

Mediasmith’s Approach:

After identifying the three key areas of improvement, Mediasmith recommended a full-funnel approach. Over the next 24 months, we increased the client’s social media presence from one platform to four and from one objective to three – allowing them find new audiences at each level of the buying phase. Once the baseline campaign was implemented, Mediasmith began the testing phase, including launching new objectives on new platforms, running brand lift studies, and adding new customer lists and dynamic retargeting.  We also implemented pixel code and offline conversions testing, and creative testing, including augmented reality ads. The combination of best practice campaign set up and consistent testing and optimizations drove exponential success for Guitar Center in each area of original concern.

Learnings and Results:

Key Overall Learnings:

• Snapchat Brand Lift Study received a +11 action intent among the 25-34 demo. To capitalize on this learning, Mediasmith shifted from an upper and mid-funnel focus on Snapchat to the low funnel to amplify purchases.
• Offline conversions drove almost 15% of total purchases, decreasing overall CPA by nearly 10% and increasing the ROAS over 4%.

Key Targeting Learnings:

• Testing the addition of several new CRM lists confirmed our hypothesis that high value purchasers would show the highest intent. To maximize this high-intent audience, a “look alike” segment was created to find similar users with the same intention to purchase.
• Dynamic retargeting achieved the highest and most consistent ROAS which carried through the saturated holiday month of December. This dynamic retargeting strategy was then incorporated for promotional catalog sales campaigns moving forward.

Creative Learnings:

• Video vs Static image test: Videos within awareness and consideration objectives drove the most efficient results while static images saw the most positive results in the sales objectives
• Catalog sales lead card vs no lead card: rather than adding a creative card to entice audiences with deals or promotions, Guitar Center’s audience were more inclined to purchase by getting right into the products being sold.
• Snapchat Lenses drove high engagement and click throughs (at a very low CPC) while driving significant traffic to the website.

Over the course of two years the Mediasmith recommendation to 1. move to a full-funnel approach, 2. add a diverse set of platforms, and 3. test at each level of the campaigns, resulted in a 41% decrease in CPC, and a 38% increase in ROAS. We also maintained profitability through each test, and increased website traffic.