If you’ve ever been to one of outdoor outfitter Cabela’s retail locations, you’d remember it. The company, which started out selling fishing lures by direct mail in 1961, now operates more than 25 stores that are Disneylands for outdoor-sports fans, with stuffed elk, archery ranges and indoor mountains and waterfalls. These superstores are the definition of “destination retail,” complete with parking for RVs and semi trucks.
But that kind of development requires a steady influx of retail traffic, and in that area, Cabela’s stores were being outstripped by its healthy catalog and online businesses. The chain wanted to draw shoppers with deals as well as amenities.
So it turned to search marketing firm Performics and the combined power of discounts and location-specific pay-per-click (PPC) ads centered on the chain’s 2008 annual Memorial Day sales event. The Performics team drew up keyword lists for the Cabela’s brand, the holiday sale and both together (“Cabela’s Holiday Event”). They then executed a geo-targeted PPC strategy that placed the ads whenever those keyword searches were performed within 200 miles of a Cabela’s location — the maximum likely driving distance for shoppers.
Why integrate coupons? It was a relatively easy way to measure in-store traffic without involving third-party tracking technology. While Cabela’s wasn’t culturally accustomed to offering discounts, the chain had worked with Performics before and was committed to integrating its online marketing with more traditional in-market media efforts around store promotions, such as local radio, print and direct marketing.
If coupons were part of that effort to bridge the online-offline chasm, Cabela’s was up for it.
And the results bore out that trust. Based on past search performance and other research, coupon retrieval goals for the PPC promotion were set at 3% and redemption rates were expected to run 15%. But as it turned out, retrieval rates hit 10%, and redemption rates nearly tripled expectations at 40%.
Results like that are beginning to win search marketing a full seat at the marketingtable, even with long-time catalogers and DMers of Cabela’s ilk.
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