Gtech digital marketing strategy - the rise of a great british brand

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Find out how ClickThrough delivered success for Gtech with a combined SEO and PPC strategy that led to astonishing revenue increases.

Paid and organic search strategy delivers success for gtech

If you hadn’t heard of Gtech 12 months ago, you almost certainly have now.

2014 was an incredible year for the British brand, which designs and manufactures cutting-edge vacuum cleaners, power tools and garden tools.

The strength of its innovative product line – and some shrewd marketing moves – saw the company become the fastest growing floor care brand in the UK in 2014, and the best overall cordless vacuum cleaner brand in a recent Which? consumer survey.

With its current multi-million pound TV advertising campaign, ‘Break Free’, also doing the rounds on social media, the buzz about this young British brand has never been greater. 

ClickThrough Marketing is proud to have played a part in Gtech’s success. We’ve worked with the brand since 2013, bolstering its offline marketing activities with a strong, multi-channel digital strategy.

"Digital marketing was crucial to the success of our direct to consumer sales in 2014 and to the rapid growth of the business overall."

David Butlin
Head of Direct Marketing, Gtech

Paid Search – Yearly Revenues Up 700%

As David Butlin said: “Growth in gross revenue from paid search was up an exceptional 700% year-on-year in 2014 and cost per acquisition was down by nearly 40% at the same time.”

ClickThrough’s PPC team achieved these results through diligent account optimisation, and by keeping a keen eye trained on potential new opportunities.

As well as expanding Gtech’s keyword list with new products and generics, the team introduced callout extensions into Gtech’s ad copy, and began using Bing Ads as a counterpart to the firm’s well-established AdWords campaigns.

What’s more, in June 2014 ClickThrough began using Criteo software to run remarketing campaigns for Gtech. Criteo has proven to be a valuable weapon in Gtech’s paid search arsenal, with directly attributable Criteo conversions accounting for nearly seven per cent of all paid search conversions from June to December.

“Criteo is doing very well indeed,” said David Butlin, “so full credit to ClickThrough for bringing that to our attention.”

Samantha Thomas, Gtech’s paid search manager at ClickThrough, congratulated Gtech on its success, adding:

"Gtech is a fantastic brand and is a pleasure to work with. We’ve worked hard to help grow the brand online, and have seen it go from strength to strength!

It’s been amazing to have played a part in the success of this exciting company."

SEO/Content – 6,204% Revenue Uplift From Blog Traffic

The main focus of SEO activity has been the creation of on-site content to improve user experience, raise awareness of Gtech’s products (especially in regard to garden tools), and bolster the brand’s organic search performance with new on-page keywords.

As a result of this, and Gtech’s own marketing activities, the brand has seen:

  • Organic landing page traffic increase 167% from 2013 to 2014
  • Landing page traffic for vacuum cleaner pages increase by more than 500%
  • Landing page traffic for the HT04 hedge trimmer increase 4,743%
  • Landing page traffic for the ST05 grass trimmer increase 10,537%

Of particular note are the regular blog updates ClickThrough has created for Gtech’s website. As we’ve shown before, once the blogs began to ‘bed in’ and appear in search engine results, the results were fantastic.

Comparing the first three months of blogging activity to the following three months, Gtech saw blog traffic increase by 671%, and a revenue uplift of 6,204% based on last click conversions directly attributable to blog visits.

An example of Gtech's blog.

David Butlin remarked: “As well as chipping in with sales, the really crucial job the blog has done for us is to diversify the content of the site and keep it ticking over.”

Web Development – 459% Increase in Total Transactions

ClickThrough’s web development department has worked closely with Gtech throughout 2014 and beyond. After designing (in collaboration with Gtech) and building a brand-new website for the brand in September 2013, the department has:

  • Built a dedicated landing page for Gtech’s ‘I Want to Break Free’ advertising campaign
  • Brought the design of its Gtech USA website in line with its UK site
  • Created a new product page for the AirRam K9 vacuum
  • Created a new product page for the Multi Car Kit
  • Improved systems administration through streamlining admin processes
  • Integrated the web site to a number of third party systems
  • Provided on-going technical support

Or, as director of web development Alan Rowe puts it: “We have acted as faithful servants to support a wider strategy with digital means.”

It would be unfair to take complete credit for Gtech’s digital success in recent months – especially with Gtech’s television advertising campaigns doing such a great job in building brand awareness. (On February 9, after the campaign went live, Gtech enjoyed its busiest day ever in terms of website traffic.)

There’s little doubt, however, that the brand’s new website, and the continuing efforts of our developers, have contributed to the company’s triumphs.

Gtech's responsive website displayed on several devices.

Let’s compare the period immediately after the website went live, to the previous period (September 2013 to March 2014 versus September 2014 to March 2015):

  • Overall website traffic has increased 197%
  • Conversion rate has increased 88%
  • Total transactions are up 459%
  • Revenue is up 743%

Even if we compare the first 12 months of Gtech’s website being live, to the previous 12 months (and thus remove the ‘I Want to Break Free’ campaign from the equation), we still see a 40% increase in conversion rates.

Alan Rowe couldn’t be happier:

"We can’t speak highly enough of Gtech. We absolutely love their products, we completely support their holistic, multi-channel, integrated marketing approach, and we are extremely proud to deliver the digital component of this."

David Butlin said: “ClickThrough continue to deliver excellent results for Gtech across the full digital spectrum.”