Microsoft Ads success story · Footwear brand

How Clarks lifted return on ad spend 25% by merging its Microsoft Performance Max campaigns into one.

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Clarks was paying more for every visit while competition on Google got tougher. On Microsoft Advertising it stopped splitting a small budget across several campaigns, gave one campaign its whole product catalog and better audience signals, and grew orders while spending less.

Business: Clarks
Market: Not stated by Microsoft
Goal: Lower traffic costs and more revenue on a limited budget

Rows of leather dress shoes, loafers and heels on wooden shelves behind a shop window

The results.

Microsoft presents the figures as the change after the segmented Performance Max campaigns were merged into one. It does not state the comparison period or the exact baseline.

25%lift in return on ad spend
22%more orders
13%lower cost per site visit

Microsoft does not describe the measurement method or give dates for the results. Other reported changes: spend down 6%, cost per click down 15%, conversion rate up 10% and impressions up 248%.

The challenge.

Clarks has been making shoes for more than 200 years. Like most retailers, it buys a lot of its online traffic through search ads, and that traffic was getting more expensive. Competition on Google kept rising, so each visit to the site cost more than it used to.

The brand wanted Microsoft Advertising to bring in new revenue without giving up traffic or sales, and it had a limited budget to do it with. The first goal was to bring down the cost per session, which is what it pays for each visit to the site. After that it wanted more orders, a better conversion rate and a higher return on ad spend.

Microsoft Advertising example of a featured shopping ad shown on desktop and mobile search results

What they did.

Performance Max campaigns · Shopping ads from the product feed · Prospecting and retargeting audiences

Found the real problem: Clarks was running two to three separate Performance Max campaigns. Split that way, none of them got enough sales to finish learning, so each one kept guessing instead of improving.
One main campaign: The separate campaigns were merged into a single main Performance Max campaign. All the sales data now fed one campaign, so it learned faster and spent the budget where it worked best.
The whole catalog in play: The brand added its product feed, the data file that lists every product with its price and photo, so the campaign could show shopping ads across the full range instead of a handful of styles.
Clear audience signals: Two kinds of audiences were added: prospecting audiences to find new shoppers, and retargeting audiences to win back people who had already visited or bought.
Start small, then scale: Budgets started lower and grew only as cost per session, conversion rate and return on ad spend improved, so new money followed proven results.

Why it worked.

Our read on the decisions behind the numbers, and what any business can take from them.

Automation needs data: Automated campaigns learn from sales. Spread a small budget across several campaigns and none of them gets enough to learn from. Pool it in one and the system gets smarter much faster.
More products, more chances: A full feed lets the campaign match the exact shoe a person searched for. That is how impressions grew 248% while spend went down.
Signals point the way: Telling the system who already buys, and who looks like a buyer, gave it a head start. It spent less time on people who were never going to order.
Money follows proof: Raising the budget only after the numbers improved kept risk low. Orders rose 22% even though total spend fell 6%.

How we would run this play for your business.

You do not need a national budget to use the same ideas. This is how Overtop Media Digital Marketing puts them to work in our microsoft ads management.

Fewer, stronger campaigns: We look for budgets split so thin that no campaign can learn, then rebuild them so every dollar teaches the system something. Our Microsoft Ads management starts with that audit.
A feed that sells: We clean up your product feed with clear titles, correct prices and good photos, so your full catalog shows up when people search for what you sell.
Your customers as a guide: We turn your buyer lists and site visitors into audience signals, so the campaign finds new shoppers who look like your best customers and wins back the ones who left.
Two search engines, one plan: When Google gets expensive, Microsoft often brings in buyers at a lower cost. We run both side by side with our Google Ads management and move budget to whichever is earning more.