Joules see a rise in sales supported by strong digital growth

Joules, the premium lifestyle brand with an authentic British heritage, have again reported strong sales growth in their pre-close update. Their most recent figures report a 17.2% rise to £218m for the 2018-19 financial year with strong growth both in the UK and international territories[1].

At a time where the retail landscape is scattered with negative stories of store closures and reduced customer uncertainty ahead of Brexit, it’s certainly refreshing and positive to hear of retailers who are continuing to increase their sales.

Now that around one in every five pounds spent with retailers is online[2], as well as an obviously more turbulent high street, it’s no surprise that part of Joules’ growth is accredited to online, with ecommerce sales accounting for half of all their retail revenues last year.

How have Summit supported in this online growth?

Joules have credited some of its success last year to a ‘total retail’ model which is adaptable to changing consumer habits. This ability to adapt and put the changing customer at the heart of their overall strategy has been a key focus across all digital channels; including those that Summit own and support.

An audience first approach proved to be successful

An audience first approach continued to drive Summit’s strategy throughout the year. As part of our paid media activity, we implemented new tactics in our ‘always-on’ and ‘tactical/promotional support’ campaigns, driving strong engagement and ROI in more segmented audience-first display campaigns. 

Total revenue driven through audiences increased significantly, at much greater efficiency vs non-audience campaigns, by further utilising Google products such as:

• In-Market
• Similar Audiences from our RLSAs (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) lists
• Increased segmentation in Customer Match during Joules’ key promotional events

The strategy outlined above contributed to Joules’ omnichannel, customer-first approach and supported a more efficient digital strategy.

Summit’s Promotion Scheduler improved efficiency whilst use of Summit’s CSS platform reduced PLA cost

Introducing new technology to our activity further enabled Summit as a partner to focus on strategically supporting Joules’ growth. This ultimately helped us to reduce time spent on account hygiene.

Summit’s Promotion Scheduler technology reduced promotional set up time by 2 hours per promotion. Greater efficiencies were also made with the introduction of CSS, which saw a reduction in cost in serving PLA (Product Listing Ads) ads, enabling us to invest more into our granular audience campaigns.

We are proud to continue to partner with Joules and look forward to another year of successful growth as Joules moves in to celebrating its 30^th birthday during 2019.

 

[1] Retail Week (2019)

[2] Telegraph (2018)