Black Friday’s mass adoption by consumers in France has seen many domestic retailers lose ground to international brands offering steep discounts to shoppers. In 2018, several major players in the country’s retail industry joined forces to create a new event - French Days - aimed at generating additional sales and capturing some of the limelight.

The twice-annual tradition is open to all retailers - offline and online - and in 2019, furniture giant Conforama used it as the foundation for a more unified approach to customer acquisition.

Uniting the marketing mix

Conforama is a big name in the European furniture sector, boasting over 200 stores across Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Italy, Croatia, and France, along with a growing online business.

Like many large brands, Conforama has historically faced the dilemma of using siloed marketing channels to achieve disparate aims. Raising brand awareness might be achieved through mass media partnerships, driving traffic might come through SEO, and converting sales might come from its affiliate partners.

In 2019, the brand decided to conduct an experiment during French Days - with the aim of combining goals and channels to generate results. Led by Awin, the idea was to create this new outlook while ensuring transparency and cost efficiency.

Plotting a new vision

The first edition of French Days 2019 ran from April 26  – May 6. In preparing for the event, Conforama presented Awin’s team with the following objectives:

1. Increase brand awareness by appearing in first position for ‘French Days’ on Google News
   With French Days naturally instigating a volume spike in Google traffic, Conforama wanted its brand to appear prominently in relevant searches. This would help the retailer increase awareness at a highly-valuable time.
2. Double the volume of inbound traffic vs previous year
   After some experimentation with French Days 2018, Conforama wanted to capitalize on what it saw as an increasingly popular event for local shoppers by doubling its target volume for inbound traffic.
3. Improve publisher revenue by 50% and sales by 10%
   Conforama’s final aim was to ensure any extra visitors were converting. It set ambitious targets for both revenue and sales, which required the prioritization of high-value purchases.

With these three objectives, Conforama sought to achieve results that would satisfy all three aspects of its business across PR, SEO and online sales.

Recruiting assistance

As is the convention for most brands, Conforama’s SEO and affiliate activity were attached to its acquisition department but very rarely combined. It needed the help of Awin and two additional partners to create a more holistic approach:

A/R Factory

An agency with a difference, A/R Factory’s reputation as ‘content-to-commerce’ specialist for some of France’s biggest media houses made it a perfect fit for the campaign.

Le Parisien

Being one of the top 100 sites in France with monthly traffic of over 50 million visits per month, daily newspaper Le Parisien looked to be an extremely valuable partner for driving brand awareness.

A dynamic strategy

Awin knew a top position on Google News would create the necessary uplift for Conforama’s goals around awareness, traffic and sales. It also recognized it would be targeting two main types of customer– those seeking a discount on a specific product, and those more open to offers or information that might influence their choice. The network team outlined a three-pronged strategy that would give each side a responsibility to own: 

Track

A/R Factory and Awin responded to popular trends and keywords by using tools like Google Trends, AdWords and Answer the Public to monitor the evolution of search volumes. They covered all bases by studying generic queries around French Days, categories and products within the Home and Kitchen vertical.

Check

A/R Factory relayed the insights to Conforama, which then cross-checked the items against its own inventory to secure more visibility during the French Days campaign.

Respond

Based on data from A/R Factory, Le Parisien created content on these topics in order to capitalize on the increased seasonal traffic and rank prominently on Google News.

Experimentation pays off

By the end of the campaign, the partnership between Conforama, A/R Factory and Le Parisien had achieved all three of its stated objectives by significant margins.

1. Increase brand awareness by appearing in first position for ‘French Days’ on Google News
   ‍Published on the first day of the campaign, the Le Parisien article titled “French Days Conforama: les bonnes affaires électroménager”(“French Days Conforama: Household Appliance Bargains”) appeared as the top result in Google News for the keyword ‘French Days.’
2. Double the volume of inbound traffic witnessed during French Days 2018
   ‍The partnership with Le Parisien was responsible for a 472% uplift in website traffic, far above 2018 volumes.
3. Improve publisher revenue by 50% and sales by 10%
   ‍French Days 2019 smashed all goals for bottom-line impact, driving a 228% increase in revenue and 100% increase in sales compared to the previous year’s event.

The campaign was so successful that it has been replicated during other sales events, giving Conforama massive brand awareness at a strong ROI, as well as a blueprint for how it can better align its activities.

Additional results

• +100% sales
• 27% improvement to cost of sale
• 60k visits to Conforama articles on Le Parisien
• 15k clicks to Conforama’s site