How We Optimised Wine Central’s Paid Media Strategy And Improved Their ROAS

Wine Central’s eCommerce Background

Wine Central is an eCommerce retailer and distributor of wine, beer and spirits, delivered straight to your door. With a range of well-known spirits through to aged wines and craft beers, Wine Central was in the best position to reach more customers than ever before as the Covid-19 lockdown approached.

We began our paid social and media marketing work with Wine Central in March 2020. Initially, we consulted them on their paid media spend, including paid social media marketing like Facebook Pay Per Click (PPC) and paid search advertising like Google Ads campaigns. Overall, their channels were under optimised. They needed a partner to identify the low hanging opportunities to help pivot into a successful paid media strategy and return a high ROAS.

While other advertisers pumped the brakes on their paid media strategy, we formulated a plan for how we were going to hit the gas.

What Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) means.

Before we get into the technicalities of how we optimised Wine Central’s Google Ad campaigns and paid social media strategy, understanding what ROAS means will make it that much easier to comprehend.

ROAS stands for Return On Ad Spend, which is essentially a marketing metric for measuring the revenue earned from each dollar spent on advertising. If you’re familiar with Return On Investment (ROI), it is the marketing term for the same purpose. But in this context, investment is replaced with ad spend.

The Need For A Paid Media Strategy

Pre-Covid, Wine Central had spent some money on paid SEO and Google Ads campaigns in-house, which were semi-successful. But they knew they weren’t achieving their potential with their paid Google Ads campaigns as they didn’t have the time or resources to do so.

The store had a solid base of regular customers, but their channels were under optimised. During Covid-19, it became apparent that digital was the primary way forward amid lockdowns.

While lockdown presented unique opportunities, turning them into success required a dedicated paid media strategy.

Increasing Wine Central’s ROAS.

When Covid-19 hit, the bulk of New Zealand was searching for where to buy alcohol online, as physical stores had been forced to close.

With roughly 100,000 searches a month for alcohol delivery, Wine Central needed to appear at the top of Google and follow that trend through social media, ensuring they reached as many people as possible.

Wine Central was in a unique position to divert the market share from some of the biggest players, where the paid SEO media strategy comes in.

1. Optimised channels.
2. Increased ROAS.
3. Reach a greater audience.

The Benefits Of A Paid Media Strategy

We were responsible for capturing 93% of the online alcohol retail search market through our paid media strategies. The strategy we formulated and implemented resulted in Wine Central’s paid channels generating a high ROAS of 1:24 overall and a 20x increase in revenue from Google Ads.

As they were one of the only few eCommerce stores that delivered alcohol to customers’ doors, it was crucial that we got the strategy up and running. As lockdown came into place, we had a paid social media strategy and Google Ads campaign ready to go.

From the end of March 2020 through to the first part of May 2020, we focused heavily on high ROAS campaigns. With Google display ads and  SEO, we got the campaign up and running straight away. We also utilised Facebook PPC and provided Facebook funnels for Wine Central to further develop their online exposure.

Implementing Facebook PPC and Google Ads Campaigns.

Through evaluating Wine Central’s needs and goals, it was time to put the plan into action. Using Google Ads to capture the market, we used the PPC strategy to drive revenue, resulting in 41x more revenue than the total revenue from their channels combined in 2019, with an average ROAS of 1:23.

We created multiple Facebook strategies that performed even better – with post engagements in the 1000’s and a ROAS of 1:256 some days. We implemented the Facebook strategy that drove 68x more daily revenue during Covid-19 than their entire eCommerce store in 2019, with an average ROAS of 1:50.

Initially, they were spending two figures a day, but they didn’t see the results they wanted. During the campaigns we implemented, they spent four figures a day, resulting in a ROAS across all paid media channels of 1:24.

1. Google Ads strategy resulted in 41x more revenue - 1:23 ROAS.
2. Facebook PPC strategy resulted in 68x more revenue - 1:50 ROAS.
3. Facebook post engagements in the 1000’s.

How Facebook PPC And Google Ads Returned A High ROAS

Through the paid media strategies, we helped Wine Central increase their revenue and ROAS. And even past the lockdown period, they are still harvesting the fruits of the strategy. As we prioritised their paid media strategy in 2020, Wine Central saw an overall increase of 1:24 ROAS.

We helped Wine Central triple their customer base. With 14,000 new customers in April 2020, they dropped the budget down simply because they’re now swamped with business – meaning the paid strategy achieved its purpose.

What the paid media strategy produced.

By extending their paid media budget, and in return, achieving beyond their ROAS goals, Wine Central can now take a step back and focus on other areas of their business.

While we continue to work alongside Wine Central, it’s clear that the paid media strategy worked, and they’ve now got an extensive amount of customers to serve. Taking their foot off the gas to focus on those customers is important – all while the strategy is still producing results, more customers and a high ROAS in the background.

1. 1:24 ROAS overall.
2. 41x more revenue with Google Ads - 1:23 ROAS.
3. 68x more revenue with Facebook PPC - 1:50 ROAS.
4. 14,000 new customers - tripling their customer base.
5. Framework to continue developing their online exposure.

Paid Media Marketing And Beyond

Moving forward, we are continuing to work with Wine Central on other aspects of their digital presence. With a new website platform in progress, we’re working with their development team and liaising with them to ensure certain wireframes and designs are implemented correctly – ensuring their website is optimised for SEO.

With the framework to further develop their online exposure, Wine Central continue to reach new customers while nurturing the current customer relationships they gained throughout lockdown with the paid social media strategy.