Christopher Jowsey, Lenovo Australia

SuperNova Award Category

Digital Marketing Transformation

The Company 

Lenovo, the world’s largest PC vendor, is a $US34 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile Internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services.

The Problem

The problem - Lenovo Australia was using a global agency for its search engine marketing (SEM) that was not helping the company improve its return on investments in SEM.  Lenovo Australia’s marketing team needed to come up with ways to acquire new customers, build the brand, and ultimately generate sales.

To achieve that, the team made it a priority to scale up digital marketing activity and enhance campaign efficiency, and started looking for an agency to help achieve the new goals.

The Solution

To improve its search engine marketing, Lenovo Australia needed to find a solution that could offer an integrated ad management system that enabled insight, control, and automation for cross-channel campaign management. The company decided to partner with Adobe Digital in Sydney (formerly known as Downstream Marketing) to resolve the problem. Not only did the team have impressive expertise, but it also made extensive use of Adobe Media Optimizer for Search, Display, and Social.

The Results 

As a result of using Adobe Media Optimizer for Search, Display, and Social, Adobe Digital, the team could capture data instantly, analyze ad performance, and have the system automatically modify strategies based on those yielding the highest returns. Within the first 60 days of the engagement, Adobe Digital helped Lenovo Australia increase its SEM revenue 175 percent, with conversions up 53 percent and a cost per click (CPC) down 36 percent year over year.

One of the first projects that Adobe Digital and Lenovo Australia collaborated on was expanding the company’s keyword range up to 50,000 keywords. The team then used automated bidding technology in Adobe Media Optimizer for Search to optimize investment across those keywords. Within six weeks, the team saw an ROI of 20:1 due to the intelligence in the Adobe Media Optimizer for Search bidding algorithm.

Once the enhanced keyword campaign was underway, the team began testing ad copy and landing pages to identify which messaging delivered the best click-through rates and conversions. In addition,

Lenovo Australia is taking its targeting a step further by setting up SEM campaigns to test for differences in mobile and desktop audiences, with a view to enhancing its website to support multiple devices.

While the web commerce team was transforming its strategies, Lenovo Australia overall was growing quickly. Still, the revenue success of the web team’s new SEM program even outperformed the growth of other areas of the business by as much as 300 percent.

Lenovo Australia had a goal of increasing the use of social marketing to build its brand, especially among active social users. After establishing a strong SEM foundation with Adobe Media Optimizer for Search, Lenovo Australia started to invest further up the funnel, with display retargeting, direct display, and social advertising. But because social channels such as Facebook are more likely to drive consideration and engagement rather than direct sales, it can be hard to assess their impact—and prioritize investment in them.  Adobe Media Optimizer for Social enabled the team to present management with quantifiable insights and data that showed Facebook was helping deliver deals further along the customer journey.

In one measure of success, Lenovo Australia’s social campaigns increased Facebook likes from 8,000 to 20,000 in only three months, and drove more traffic to the Lenovo site. For example, one recent

Facebook campaign targeted students graduating from high school. With Adobe Media Optimizer for Social, the team was able to reduce the cost per fan by 66%, and increased engagement with the Facebook community of students and their parents.

To compare the performance of social campaigns to traditional display ad campaigns, Lenovo

Australia worked with Adobe Digital to set up both traditional and Facebook campaigns aimed at driving students to Lenovo.com.au through ads for its just-launched Ultrabook laptops. Within a few weeks, the social campaign was generating double the ROAS of the traditional display campaign.

The Technology

Adobe Media Optimizer solution in Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Metrics

•Increased SEM revenue by 175 percent, and total conversions by 53 percent
•Reduced CPC by 36 percent year over year
•Achieved an ROI of 20:1 on SEM bidding
•Increased social channel ROI by 30 percent and reduced costs by 40 percent
•Improved targeting, increasing ROAS by 500 percent and even more than 1,000 percent on some campaigns
•Cut cost per Facebook fan by 66 percent
•Increased Facebook likes from 8,000 to 20,000 in three months

Disruptive Factor

Lenovo leverages technology to differentiate its customer experience and also ensure that it is effectively engaging with its customers to connect them with products that meet their needs and fulfill their wants.  Adobe Media Optimizer enables Lenovo to target messages and offers to customers to connect them with the Lenovo products that are the most relevant for them, and at the best price.

Shining Moment

The shining moment came when the team observed the speed in which they were able to leverage Adlens and Adobe digital to significantly grow the search business (175%+ revenue growth in 60 days). Then with continued optimization, the team was able to extend it across other channels (along with refinement of our audience segmentation) delivering positive ROI across display & social programs.